[chessmind] Dennis Monokroussos: Two Bundesliga Games

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Posted by Dennis Monokroussos:
Two Bundesliga Games
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1170839340.shtml


   As noted sometime last year on this blog, Bundesliga games are often
   overlooked by most chess fans, and that's a pity. Many of the world's
   very best players are part of this yearly league competition in
   Germany, including Kramnik (most years), Anand, Shirov, Aronian and so
   on.
   Rather than any sort of full report on the most recent Bundesliga
   weekend, however, I'll just offer up a couple of games that caught my
   eye: Fedorchuk-Tregubov and Luther-Ftacnik. The games feature very
   different openings, but there is a commonality: both losses remind us
   that grandmasters are made of the same stuff we are, and suffer all
   the same shortcomings.
   In the first game, Fedorchuk introduced an interesting gambit, which
   Tregubov bravely accepted. A few moves later, however, it was clear
   that White had more than enough compensation, and Tregubov tried to
   bail out by returning the material. That's a good general strategy
   (indeed, it's that basic policy that put widespread gambit play out of
   business by the early 1900s), but Black missed a nifty tactic an
   average club player might have found. That sort of thing happens to
   all of us, but it's still surprising when it happens to a strong
   grandmaster, especially in a slow game and not in time trouble.
   Even more interesting is the same game. Ftacnik, a strong GM long
   known as an outstanding theoretician, produced a novelty on move 21 of
   a Poisoned Pawn Najdorf, attempting to improve on the very recent game
   Anand-van Wely, from last month's tournament in Wijk aan Zee. White's
   22nd move was fairly obvious, and then Ftacnik immediately blundered!
   It would be a little surprising if Ftacnik had missed this in the
   pre-computer era, but to miss it nowadays is remarkable (and not in a
   good way). Maybe he didn't set his computer to analyze that position,
   or perhaps he misremembered something. Whatever the case, he again
   looked all too human.
   So keep this in mind when you play stronger opponents, even if they
   are GMs. If you spring a novelty on them, they might go astray if it's
   a tactical position, especially if you have the initiative. (Most
   players are much better as attackers than defenders.) And even if they
   spring the novelty on you, their analysis might not be as clever as
   they thought.
   There is one more thing to keep in mind though: you're human,
   too...but let's focus on the optimistic angle for now, and have a look
   at the games, [1]here.

References

   1. http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/files/bundesliga_2_2007.htm