Super Attacker vs Master Defender

This is another game that made a huge impression on me.






12. e5 is ultimately unsound, but considering all the chaos that followed it was the best move (for the spectators.)
Just about every move from 14 to 20 gets an ! from GM Seirawan in his wonderful book Winning Chess Brilliancies. 21. ... Nxc7 was better.
24. f6 !! (Seirawan). 30. ... g5 was the critical (and just about only) error. A beautiful game. You'd be surprised how many ! and !!'s fly in the annotations to this game. Ulf Anderssen truly is The Master Of Defense. Not to mention, the suberp attacking skills of Ljubojevic. 🙂

But, as usual, it's the Super Attacker who wins!

I would guess that 90% of published (in books, internet, shown in pubs, whatever) non-drawn games are won by the Aggressor. In real life the Defender wins games his fair share of games as well.

I have become a defensive player. I used to play wild, attacking games, mostly based on tricks thought up by far better players than me. A bit like Greenpawn34, though I had a better hat. However I found that I reached a plateau and couldn't beat, or even trouble, players beyond a certain level.

I had choose between giving up chess, carrying on playing the mad, sacrificial attacks which beat weak players and were repulsed by stronger ones, or to reinvent my chess and become a more complete player.

I chose what I believe was the most difficult option - to become a better, albeit not so crowd pleasing, player. It took a long time but it was worth it in the end.

Now I derive as much pleasure from beating back an unsound attack and winning the ending as I used to from sacrificing a piece or two to open up my opponent's king and winning because he played an unsound defensive move or two.

And the great payoff is that I can give the "real" chess players, those above 2300 say, a real game which I can be proud of and even occasionally steal a half point from them.

My favourite attacker vs defender game: Kasparov - Petrosian

Originally posted by schakuhr
My favourite attacker vs defender game: Kasparov - Petrosian

[pgn][Event "Tilburg (07)"]
[Site "Tilburg (07)"]
[Date "1981.??.??"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Garry Kasparov"]
[Black "Petrosian"]
[ECO "D25"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "83"]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 Bg4 5.Bxc4 e6 6.h3 Bh5 7.Nc3
a6 ...[text shortened]... xa6 38.Rxa6+ Bb6 39.Bc5 Qd8
40.Qa1 Nxc5 41.dxc5 Kxc5 42.Ra4 0-1
[/pgn]

Even though Petrosian was up in years, he had a 2.5 - 2.5 (even) score agaisnt Kasparov. 🙂 He took a little wind out of Fischer's sails early in the candidates match too. I read he was told to switch strategies during the match with Fischer, and it cost him. His wife even slapped his trainer. 🙂

Originally posted by paulbuchmanfromfics
Even though Petrosian was up in years, he had a 2.5 - 2.5 (even) score agaisnt Kasparov. 🙂 He took a little wind out of Fischer's sails early in the candidates match too. I read he was told to switch strategies during the match with Fischer, and it cost him. His wife even slapped his trainer. 🙂

Some pictures of Rona Petrosian here:
http://www.chessdryad.com/photos/shormancollection/s_10/s_10.htm

The word on the street is that Rona Yakovlevna Avinezar couldn't decide whether to marry Petrosian or Efim Geller, so when both players went to the Stockholm Interzonal in 1952 she said that she would marry whoever performed the best (umm, I mean whoever scored the most points). Petrosian scored 1/2 point more than Geller so she married him. I suppose she should have married the winner of that tournament, Alexander Kotov, but his strange eyebrows probably queered the pitch for him.

Originally posted by schakuhr
My favourite attacker vs defender game: Kasparov - Petrosian

[pgn][Event "Tilburg (07)"]
[Site "Tilburg (07)"]
[Date "1981.??.??"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Garry Kasparov"]
[Black "Petrosian"]
[ECO "D25"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "83"]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 Bg4 5.Bxc4 e6 6.h3 Bh5 7.Nc3
a6 ...[text shortened]... xa6 38.Rxa6+ Bb6 39.Bc5 Qd8
40.Qa1 Nxc5 41.dxc5 Kxc5 42.Ra4 0-1
[/pgn]

Okay; now can someone please explain to me who resigned and why?

🙂

Originally posted by sh76
Okay; now can someone please explain to me who resigned and why?

🙂

white resigned - I think the game was adjourned after the last move and Kasparov thought it was hopeless so he resigned before the session was continued.

Originally posted by Fat Lady
I had choose between giving up chess, carrying on playing the mad, sacrificial attacks which beat weak players and were repulsed by stronger ones, or to reinvent my chess and become a more complete player.

I chose what I believe was the most difficult option - to become a better, albeit not so crowd pleasing, player. It took a long time but it was worth it in the end.

thanks for sharing that experience. I think that is exactly where and why Josh Waitzkin quit chess.

He blames Dvoretsky for trying to encourage him to learn Karpovian-defensive chess, which he says, was against his nature and caused him to lose his love, ambition or whatever for the game.

I like his teaching style a lot, and kind of like his personalit too, but I tend to believe he just didn't like the fact that his aggressive style didn't work too well against solid grandmasters.

Originally posted by diskamyl
thanks for sharing that experience. I think that is exactly where and why Josh Waitzkin quit chess.

He blames Dvoretsky for trying to encourage him to learn Karpovian-defensive chess, which he says, was against his nature and caused him to lose his love, ambition or whatever for the game.

I like his teaching style a lot, and kind of like his persona ...[text shortened]... idn't like the fact that his aggressive style didn't work too well against solid grandmasters.

Oh; was "Dvoretsky" the name of the jerk who ruined chess for Waitzkin? He always refers to "a teacher" who ruined the game for him.

I'm just kidding about the "jerk" part of course, But still, Waitzkin was just a teen when he was working with that fellow? Was it really necessary to change his style just because he couldn't beat GMs consistently when he was 16? Mikhail Tal became an all time great by being somewhat reckless. Imagine if some coach had tried to turn him into Karpov when he was 17.

About Waitzkin in general, it was his chess lessons on the CM series that got me "into" chess. Without him, there's no way I'd be on RHP today.

Originally posted by Fat Lady
But, as usual, it's the Super Attacker who wins!

I would guess that 90% of published (in books, internet, shown in pubs, whatever) non-drawn games are won by the Aggressor. In real life the Defender wins games his fair share of games as well.

I have become a defensive player. I used to play wild, attacking games, mostly based on tricks thought up by ...[text shortened]... ay, a real game which I can be proud of and even occasionally steal a half point from them.

While I agree that we should try to progress, just because you reach a plateu is no reason to give up the game. We we will all reach a plateu eventually - even GMs but there is more to the game than rating points. Otherwise, you're not really playing for the right reasons.

Originally posted by sh76
Oh; was "Dvoretsky" the name of the jerk who ruined chess for Waitzkin? He always refers to "a teacher" who ruined the game for him.

I'm just kidding about the "jerk" part of course, But still, Waitzkin was just a teen when he was working with that fellow? Was it really necessary to change his style just because he couldn't beat GMs consistently when he was ...[text shortened]... CM series that got me "into" chess. Without him, there's no way I'd be on RHP today.

yes, he never mentions the name in CM tutorials (which is kind of nice of him), but he does so in his book The Art of Learning, and he almost blatantly accuses the guy.

I agree that Dvoretsky may have been a bad choice for him, but he is probably the best chess teacher that any young man could find, almost all his books are classics, and if you really think about it, no one was forcing him to anything, you know. He could simply fire the guy and go on with another coach. I don't think it's ethical to blame someone like Dvoretsky, who obviously has no interest other than "chesswise" for quitting chess.

by the way, there's no way I'd be on RHP today without Waitzkin's CM tutorials either.

same Josh Waitzkin's tutorials on Chessmaster got me to keep playing chess. Otherwise it would have been yet another quick 2month obsession in my life until I'd pick it up again 2yrs later for another 2 months. (rinse, repeat)