30 Apr 13
1 edit
A lot of discussion has been had about who is the best player of all time, etc... But i thought it would be interesting to discuss who the most instructional player is?
I am going to go out on a limb here, but recently i have been going through the games of Boris Gelfand and i have come to the conclusion that his style is very suitable for study for someone at my level. Here is a great example..
Gelfand v Timofeev
So what do i like about this game? If you play though this game carefully, it becomes pretty apparent that Gelfand anticipates every move Timofeev makes and lays a refutation into the position in good time. I particularly like Qf2, blacks reply ..b6 looks at first that it is designed to prevent Bxa7 but that's only skin deep, black is threatening Nxb2 but preventing Qxb2 ..Qxc3 Qxb7 where white regains the pawn and possibly wins a second. Gelfand is a master at tempting his opponents into over stretching, while also keeping a solid position. This game is a great example of positional control.
After playing through this i was amazed that, suddenly, here is a current Grandmaster that i can study and actually understand! Which leads me to wonder, who do you like to study out the current active players of today? 🙂
30 Apr 13
4 edits
Here is another brilliant game from yesterday against Ding Laren. White tempts black with appealing moves, but his play is just resplendent with little traps..
The moves that impress me most here by white are 13.a3 and 14.Qc1. Not only is white keeping controls of d4 by allowing the Rook to come to d1, he is also setting a trap. When black manouveres his Knight Nf6-d7-e5, white wins a massive tempo from the Queen on b3. So much time is spent drooling over stunning tactics, but this idea just blows me away. White gets such a massive initiative from this one tempo. There is so much to be learned from this player!
