Trust no-one! (Part 1)
In many interviews with grandmasters you hear the maestro say something like “In chess in general and specifically in the openings you must check everything for yourself.” But how can one do that? If grandmasters trust only their selves how come they spend so much time on their databases, informants and so on?
Well, let me give you an example from my own experience on the limits of disbelief. A few years ago my chess teacher B.B. (ELO 2300+) thought it would be good for me to take the Sicilian Dragon. B.B., a 1…e5 player himself, was not that updated on the latest developments in the Dragon.
As the only example in the 6.Be2 and 8.Nb3 line he gave me the following game from Nottingham 1936(!) between Alekhine and Botvinnik: 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 g6 6 Be2 Bg7 7 Be3 Nc6 8 Nb3
Be6
9 f4 0-0 10 g4
This seems very intimidating” said B.B. “but here Botvinnik found a way to equalize by playing 10…d5! At first, it looks like white is winning after 11. f5 Bc8 12. e:d5 Nb4 13. d6
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but here Botvinnik found a combinative way to force a perpetual: 13…Qxd6 14 Bc5 Qf4! 15 Rf1 Qxh2 16 Bxb4 Nxg4 17 Bxg4 Qg3+ and the game was drawn by repetition.”
When I looked through my humble chess library, trying to find games played in the Sicilian dragon I found that 1936 was too old even for such a remote sideline. In Fischer’s book “My 60 Memorable games” I found Fischer-Rashevsky 1961. The 1961 encounter arrived to the same position as Alekhine - Botvinnik (though through a different move order) after black 12th move.
Here, instead of Alekhine’s 13 d6, Fischer played 13 Bf3 (I do not give Fischer an exclamation mark because, as he admits in his book, this move had been played prior to his game with Rashevsky). I will not go into the details of the position but the point is that black is in a very difficult position, which Rashevsky finally lost. What is important for my story was that I was in a problem – if Alekhine-Botvinnik is unreliable then this position is unplayable for black. What now, Should I leave the Dragon?
Not so soon. Fischer claims that after white’s 9th move (see diagram)
black should avoid 9…Be6 (which transposes to the Alekhine-Botvinnik position). Instead, Fischer gives 9…a5 10 a4 Be6 and here Fischer says “the best white has is 11.0-0 Rc8 with an equal position”. So Black is OK. But don’t you smell something fishy in Fischer’s remark?
For Part 2 click here