visayanbraindoctor: <ewan14: Great game
Karpov keeping it all under control>
I agree karpov keeps everything under control. It's more than that though. Karpov shows just how good his intuition was in piece placement.
17. Qd3 Nce7
How does White develop his King Rook? Karpov shows us how to.
18. Rg1 Rc4 19. g4 Nh4 20. Rg3
He develops it into the third rank!
Now in the above position Black's strongest piece is his well placed Rook at c4. this suggests that White can grab the definitive advantage if he can get rid of the Rook without compromising his position. Karpov apparently decided to challenge this Rook with his own Rook at g3. How does he do this? Note that Karpov's Rook is on the right side of his Queen, in this case the wrong side.
20. Rg3 Qc8 21. Rb2 Nhg6 22. Rf3 Nc6 23. Rf2 Rh8 24. h3 Qd8 25. Qg3 Qe7 26. Rf3
Karpov changes the placement of his Queen and Rook in the third rank, so that the Rook is now on the left side of his Queen, and ready to challenge Black's strong Rook on c4!
In the nexy few moves, Karpov now challenges and gets rid of the strong Black Rook.
26. Rf3 Qc5 27. Kd1 Ra4 28. Rc3 Qe7 29. Nc1 d4 30. Rcb3 Na5 31. Rb4 Nb7 32. Ra4
Bye bye Strong Black Rook! Even optically, White already has grabbed a definitive advantage at this point.
The genius of Karpov at work.