[chessmind] Dennis Monokroussos: This Week's ChessBase Show: Fischer, the Najdorf, and the d5 square

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Posted by Dennis Monokroussos:
This Week's ChessBase Show: Fischer, the Najdorf, and the d5 square
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1187823620.shtml


   Many of us think of Bobby Fischer's chess as especially sharp, and
   that's not surprising given the dynamic opening lines he played -
   6.Bc4 vs. the Najdorf, the Poisoned Pawn Variation, the King's Indian
   Defense, and so on. Yet I would classify him as more of a "positional"
   player, closer to Capablanca, Smyslov or Karpov than Alekhine, Tal or
   Kasparov. Fischer won more than his fair share of tactical slugfests,
   but it was well known in his heyday that he preferred clean-cut,
   strategic solutions to the problems on the board.
   Accordingly - and to take a rest from the insane games we've seen the
   last few weeks - we'll examine a couple of his games focusing on the
   problem of the d5 square in the Najdorf Sicilian. In one of the games,
   his brilliancy prize win over Julio Bolbochan from the 1962 Stockholm
   Interzonal, he exploits the square brilliantly. With the White pieces,
   he manages to get a great knight on d5 against a lousy bishop on e7,
   and is able to combine pawn-winning threats on the queenside with a
   crushing attack on the kingside.
   In the other game, he has Black against Milan Matulovic, from the 1968
   tournament in Vinkovci. Once again d5 is beckoning, but Matulovic
   isn't as successful as Fischer was. Once again Fischer gets a good
   knight vs. bad bishop, and he's able to use this advantage to grind
   his opponent into the dust (though without the attacking fireworks of
   the previous game).
   Both are very well-played by Fischer, entertaining, instructive, and
   comprehensible, too. One of the great things about his chess is that
   you get the feeling you could have won that game, too. This might be a
   slight illusion, but I think there's a truth in it. Many of his best
   games have a very clear logic to them, and that's something we can
   learn from and adopt in our games as well.
   So I do hope you'll join me tonight (Thursday night in the Americas,
   Friday just about everywhere else) at 9 p.m. ET on ChessBase's
   playchess.com server; the show is free and watching is easy. If you're
   not sure how to tune in, you can find step-by-step directions right
   [1]here. See you then!

References

   1. http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1114234449.shtml