Thursday 22 July 2010

Chess with slogans

Next month Australia goes to the polls. This means for the next month we will be bombarded with election ads and election slogans. Already the Labor party is quick off the mark with the Tal-like 'Moving Forward" its mantra. While I haven't come across the Liberal party slogan yet, I'm sure it will be more representative of the Petrosian school of chess.
Of course we can sometimes reduce chess to a series of slogans. Of course we might refer to them by the more sophisticated name of 'aide-memoire' but they are essentially sayings designed to help us find out way through the difficulties at the board.
In the following game I had a number of slogans running through my head. There was "Restrain, Blockade, Destroy" from Nimzovich, once White had an isolated d pawn. Then there was Karpov's "Restrict the mobility of your opponents pieces", which I did by surrounding the rook on h4 with pawns. Finally it was "The advantage of the exchange is decisive" from Euwe. Each of slogans moved me through the game, with the destruction of the isolated d pawn the final act.

Yoon,Sunny - Press,Shaun [D48]
ANU Winter Swiss, 21.07.2010

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.e3 Nf6 5.Bd3 dxc4 6.Bxc4 b5 7.Bd3 a6 8.Nf3 Nbd7 9.0-0 c5 10.Re1 Bb7 11.a3 Bd6 12.h3 0-0 13.Nd2 cxd4 14.exd4 Qb6 15.Nde4 Bc7 16.Nxf6+ Nxf6 17.Ne4 Nxe4 18.Bxe4 Bxe4 19.Rxe4 Rfd8 20.Be3 Rd5 21.Rc1 Qb7 22.Rh4 Rc8 23.b4 Bb6 24.Rc2 g6 25.Qc1 Rxc2 26.Qxc2 Qc7 27.Qxc7 Bxc7 28.Kf1 Kg7 29.Ke2 h5 30.Kd3 f5 31.Kc3 Bd8 (D)
32.Rf4 g5 33.Rf3 g4 34.hxg4 hxg4 35.Rg3 Bh4 36.Bf4 Bxg3 37.Bxg3 Rd8 38.Be5+ Kf7 39.f3 gxf3 40.gxf3 Rc8+ 41.Kb3 Rc4 42.a4 Ke7 43.f4 Kd7 44.Bf6 Kc6 45.Be5 Kd5 46.axb5 axb5 47.Bg7 Rxd4 0-1

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