Prokofiev-Oistrakh (match game, Moscow, 1937)

FMDavidHLevin

Only Chess

17 Jun 22

FMDavidHLevin

Joined: 15 Dec 20
Moves: 53

17 Jun 22

A game from 1937 between musical luminaries Sergei Prokofiev and David Oistrakh reached the following position after 11. Be3-h6.

Black played 11...Rg8 and had difficulties but eventually drew. Several kibitzers at https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1266497 thought that 11...O-O was better. My gut reaction was that castling kingside would make the coming advance of White's h-pawn even more dangerous, and I doubted that Black could survive. But it turns out not to be so simple, and I spent untold hours on how to overcome Black's various defensive tries.

A likely continuation through White's 16th move is given in the following chess movie.

In the position reached at the end of the above chess movie,

Black's g-pawn is threatened, and 16...g4 would seem inadequate after 17. Nh4 (threatening to strand Black's g-pawn by playing 18. f5 or to saddle Black with a backward pawn on a half-open file by playing 18. fxe5). The critical lines seem to start with Black's capturing the f-pawn, and the next two chess movies examine 16...exf4 and 16...gxf4, in that order.

Conclusion

Had Black played 11...O-O, then 12. h4 would have given White a clear advantage. So, I'm not sure that 11...O-O would have improved over the game's 11...Rg8.

(A list of the threads I've initiated at this forum is available at http://www.davidlevinchess.com/chess/RHP_my_threads.htm .)