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Mikhail Botvinnik vs Vasily Smyslov
Botvinnik - Smyslov World Championship Match (1957), Moscow URS, rd 5, Mar-16
English Opening: Anglo-Indian Defense. Queen's Knight Variation (A16)  ·  1-0

ANALYSIS [x]

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Given 20 times; par: 88 [what's this?]

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Kibitzer's Corner
Mar-09-06
Premium Chessgames Member
  Honza Cervenka: 23...a5 doesn't look like the best idea as the Pawn became a target of white's attack and was lost a few moves later. But it is difficult to say whether doing nothing on the Queenside would have been significantly better.
Aug-13-06  meloncio: According to Botvinnik, 54.♕e1 stops the last trick: 54... ♕xg3 55.fxg3 f2. Anyway it looks threatening.
Mar-20-08  Knight13: I thought Black's instant king side attack when White hasn't even castled it a bit immature. But then I realized White's got the queen side so if he doesn't attack he'd be out of play sitting there doing nothing.

16...Nc5 is too fast. 16...a5 first would've slowed White's queeen side storm. 16...c5 isn't that bad either.

May-05-08  Vollmer: Seems to me that Smyslov sets up a "Champaign bottle attack" with f4 as the cork but he needs the Queen on f8 at least , if not on f7 with the Q-Rook on f8 . The cork fizzed at f3 (no pop at g3) and Black gets mashed like a potato on the a and b files .
Sep-03-09
Premium Chessgames Member
  sackman: A powerful positional game from Botvinnik - I liked 13 h4! Black's 23 ..a5 and 24 ..c5 look wrong as they take away any opportunity for counterplay on the q side without locking it up, so that white can infiltrate there winning the a pawn.
Feb-15-11  Everett: Exchanging off black's LSB early in the KID structure is not to be recommended.
Apr-24-11  bronkenstein: <Exchanging off black's LSB early in the KID structure is not to be recommended.>

Indeed , but it takes deep strategy ( with few Smyslov`s inaccuracies on Qflank later on) to proove that .

Sep-15-13  zydeco: Lots of room for improvement in black's play! I like 13....Nf6 instead of overcommitting with .....f4; and 20.....Qf8 intending 21....Qh6+ (20....c6 makes sense only if black is really able to open a file on the queenside). 35....Ng4 plays out as the losing move; maybe black should reorganize to connect rooks on the eighth rank and attack the b6 pawn: ....Rff8 ....Qe7-d8 and ....Nf6-d7.
Jan-24-15  Conrad93: It looks more like a King's Indian by the middle game.

With Botvinnik's favorite move g3.

Nov-16-19  ewan14: Petrosian - esque ?!

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