| Jan-08-04 | | Rejlii: Duplicate of Reshevsky vs Botvinnik, 1948 |
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Jan-09-04
 | | chessgames.com: But which one is the right score? |
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Jan-09-04
 | | Benzol: This is the correct game score. |
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| Sep-18-05 | | rjsolcruz: was this game part of the first round robin tournament for the world title vacated by alekhine? |
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| Sep-18-05 | | aw1988: Right, this was the world (match) chess championship of 1948, won by Botvinnik. |
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| Aug-12-07 | | sanyas: 29.Bf6+ was a big mistake. |
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| Jan-11-08 | | xombie: This game is remarkably similar to Petrosian vs Hort (also in collection)
Hort vs Petrosian, 1970
though I think Petrosian's game is more elegant with the knight concerto. |
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| Nov-28-09 | | Lt.Surena: 13.Ne2 I'd prefer Nf3 to put more resources in protecting the d4 and freeing up the queen. Later on Ng5 could pressure the e6. *This is what the French game boils down to for white. By the 20th move, white clearly has an advantage.
21.Rc1 doesn't make sense. Sammy wouldn't wanna open up the queen-side with the c4. Sammy's game loses steam by the 24th move and hands over the momentum to black. |
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| Nov-29-10 | | MTuraga: Did Petrosian use this game as a model for his games in this variation? |
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| Apr-19-12 | | LoveThatJoker: According to Stockfish, if 42. Qb5, Black would have also continued with 42...g3! with - once again - the threat of 43...gxf2. <MTuraga> I'm sure he had this game memorized. LTJ
PS. Here is a game that the authors of "Petrosian vs The Elite" (Ray Keene and Julian Simpole) give as a companion to this one as an example of how not to deviate from this one, Kasparov vs Short, 1997. |
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| Apr-19-12 | | King Death: There's no good move for White but 42.Qb5 is the only one that would've given Botvinnik a chance to make a mistake if they were playing after the first time control without adjourning. |
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| Jul-25-13 | | zydeco: <Lt Surena> Agreed. 21.Nh3 looks good. |
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| Mar-21-17 | | Zephyr10: Benzol: This is the correct game score.
I'd like to think so, as 10. Bd2 just looks better than 10. Kd2, but ...
1) as Surena pointed out, 21. Rc1 doesn't make sense, ... the alternate score's move (the only other different move from this score) is 21. Ke1, which makes more sense.
2) Why wouldn't white just castle at some point if he could, instead of carrying out an underfunded attack with Rh1-h3-g3?
3) Karpov/Matsukevich give 10. Kd2. |
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Mar-26-17
 | | keypusher: <Zephyr10: Benzol: This is the correct game score. I'd like to think so, as 10. Bd2 just looks better than 10. Kd2, but ... 1) as Surena pointed out, 21. Rc1 doesn't make sense, ... the alternate score's move (the only other different move from this score) is 21. Ke1, which makes more sense. 2) Why wouldn't white just castle at some point if he could, instead of carrying out an underfunded attack with Rh1-h3-g3? 3) Karpov/Matsukevich give 10. Kd2.> Keres' tournament book has 10.Bc1-d2 and 21.Ra1-c1, although he agrees that the latter move doesn't make a lot of sense: <It is difficult to grasp the point of this move. Because if it was a preparatory step to play the c2-c4 thrust, it must have been totally clear to him that Black is able to simply thwart this in several ways. Moreover, even if this advance was executed, it is not very dangerous for Black at all. Hence the immediate 21.Ne2 was better, clearing the route to g5 for the bishop.> I assume Reshevsky was having a hard time deciding how to press home his attack on the king, and decided to make a waiting move. He was probably already getting into time trouble. I don't agree Reshevsky's attack was <underfunded>, although I do like the term! Keres' thought Botvinnik's knight maneuver beginning with 22....Nc6-b8 was too slow and gave White dangerous chances. Reshevsky's idea of Bf6+ followed by pressure on the e-file was good but he ruined it by playing it a move early. After 29.Bg5-f6+? Ng8xf6 30.e5xf6 Na5-c4! (preventing White from doubling rooks) Reshevsky just lost a pawn for nothing. Instead White could have kept up the pressure, Keres wrote, with 29.Rge3 Nc4 30.R3e2 Ne7 31.Bf6+ Kg8. In addition to 29.Rge3, Keres thought 29.Kh2 followed by Rh1, Kg1, and Bh4 or 29.Qd2 Nc4 30.Qc1 followed by Kh2, etc. were promising for White. Botvinnik could have safely grabbed a second pawn with 33....Qxh6, but given Reshevsky's time-trouble he preferred to play for a mating attack. Keres thought Botvinnik's 36....Qg6 was inaccurate, allowing White to partially close up the kingside. Of 39.Nd3-f4?, he wrote <For the second time in the game, Reshevsky makes a completely unintelligible mistake. Because the subsequent exchange sacrifice suggests itself, and leads to a speedy finish.> 41....Rf4-f5 was the sealed move. Must have been a very unpleasant adjournment analysis for Sammy. |
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| Mar-23-22 | | cehertan: This is the kind of plodding, strategic semi-closed game where Botvinnik outshone his peers (like Steinitz before him). Probably 21.Rc1 was around where Sammy starts to go astray; the engine markedly prefers white after the plan of Kf1 and Kg1 castling by hand, followed by a4-a5. White should leave the B on d2 and avoid the move c3 so that blacks knight lacks access to the very strong a5 square. Understandably Reshevsky tried to play on the kingside but the game shows blacks queenside play is more dangerous and white should aim to neutralize it instead. His space edge in the center and kingside are not going away. |
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| Mar-23-22 | | Olavi: <cehertan> Kasparov agreed: Kasparov vs Short, 1997 |
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| May-07-23 | | Sally Simpson: One of the games Tal points us to in his 1960 book (game one) on the W.C. where it appears he fancied White's chances. I dug out Golombek's book on the tournament who notes 21.Rc1 is a waste of time and he too at one time likes White. ( see final note.) Here
click for larger view
Instead of 29.Bf6+ he suggests 29.Rge3 Nc4 30.Re2 with the idea of playing a later Bf6+ Nxf6 exf6 and playing Rxe6. He points out a few wins. One looks a bit iffy having Botvinnik grabbing the a4 pawn to make it work but it gives a hint of the ideas floating about there.
(I spent a while working on some of my own garden path wins - good fun.) Botvinnik sealed move 41. Why not, it was in rules. He could now work out
the win at his leisure and side-step any tricks and traps Sammy might produce. Sealing is something people tend to forget about in this play to a finish era. Sometimes you see people guffawing when a modern masters fluffs an ending comparing it to a bygone game where the technique was flawlessly carried out totally forgetting that in the old days the players had a break and worked on the ending or late middle game often with a colleague before resumption. Because I have all my games collections all in the same book cabinet I had no trouble at all in finding Golombek's book. (and Application of Chess Theory by Geller for a game that Tal also mentions Geller vs Sokolsky, 1950.) But I had to search the house for a dictionary. Golombek calls 21.Rc1 'pusillanimous.' I have this pencil underlined and must have done that many years ago possibly with the intention of finding out exactly that it means. It appears back then I failed to so and had to dig it out (faint hearted.) |
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May-09-23
 | | perfidious: <Geoff....Sometimes you see people guffawing when a modern masters fluffs an ending comparing it to a bygone game where the technique was flawlessly carried out totally forgetting that in the old days the players had a break and worked on the ending or late middle game often with a colleague before resumption....> Seems to happen far more often than that; one need not look beyond the kibitzer who has made a cottage industry of posting strings of 'gotcha' analyses of endings in games involving strong masters: <White/Black missed easy win/draw...SF eval and string of analysis follow> I doubt, for example, that Botvinnik would have saved his celebrated ending at Varna vs Fischer without all the midnight oil burnt back in Moscow--and this is merely the example best known to us. |
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Kibitzing
sac: 39...Rxf4