[chessmind] Dennis Monokroussos: Tal-Djurasevic: Rewriting history?

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Posted by Dennis Monokroussos:
Tal-Djurasevic: Rewriting history?
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1186811124.shtml


   Here's a position from the early praxis of my favorite player, Mikhail
   Tal:
   [tal_djurasevic_1958_1.jpg]
   It's White to move here, and every commentator I've read has claimed
   that White is winning here. (It's a big group that includes Tal, P.H.
   Clarke, Mednis & Crouch, Miles and Khalifman.) When I saw this ending
   as a kid, though, I was absolutely taken aback. Can the queenside
   majority really be that valuable? I didn't believe it, but that's part
   of the learning process: sometimes one learns best by seeing that the
   apparently obvious is not only unobvious but even false.
   Years - many years - have gone by, and I recently used this ending
   with a student. In most of the lines, Tal et al's judgment was
   vindicated, but I found a line where I think they - and the computer
   too, initially! - are wrong. So it might just be that the young
   Monokroussos was right, but you're invited to break your noggin
   against this ending before I present my findings. Meanwhile, here's
   how the game concluded:
   31.Kd2 Kd7 32.Kd3 Kd6 33.c4 bxc4+ 34.Kxc4 e5 35.fxe5+ Kxe5 36.b4 f5
   37.b5 axb5+ 38.Kxb5 f4 39.a4 g5 40.a5 g4 41.Kc4 1-0.