“What is now proved,

was once only imagined.”

W. Blake

Introduction

 Chess is a very complicated game. 

Any player whose aim is to become a strong player or whose goal is to devote himself to chess in a professional way or even any player who wanted to make his way in the field of postal chess is in fact entering the difficult realm of competitive sport.  It does not matter if you want to win tournaments or become a correspondence chess GM.  In both cases, the player needs a systematical training.  Training methods have been devised by professional trainers and any of us can find them in books, articles in chess magazines, etc.  And in my humble opinion the first requisite one needs is that of an open mind.  The player has to devote his time not only to memorise opening variations and the ideas expressed by the leading players of the moment.  You need independent thought and the strength and capacity of discerning the many prejudices this world is full of. 

One of the defects of many modern top players is that they have consciously forgotten the study of the classics.  “Nobody plays like that now.”  This is too frequently said and far worse, I add.  I have read interviews made by strong professional players who say they have never studied the games played by Fischer, Spassky, Botvinnik, let alone Capablanca or Alekhine.  And this explains why they will never become World Champions, or even Candidates.  Take Karpov or Spassky for instance.  Karpov became what he has been thanks to the study of Capablanca, while Spassky’s model was Alekhine.  So, if the study of players who preceded them thirty or forty years in time helped them to become World Champions, how can it be said that today it is not necessary to study Fischer, Spassky or Botvinnik at the same time that you study the contemporary GMs?  By accepting concepts like this, the player is simply hampering his own development.  An important part of the strength of a chessplayer is the knowledge of all those who have preceded him.  In the study of the classics you will find the development of the different strategic and tactical ideas which are a part of the player’s weaponry.  Ideas have changed, new methods have been discovered, new approaches are used, but to know the exceptions you must know the rules first.  It is very funny to see how many leading players say one thing but do a different one.  The games played by Steinitz, Alekhine, etc can be a source of inspiration to produce even opening surprises.  Perhaps some of their ideas have been forgotten, but many others can become deadly weapons if reassessed under the light of the new approaches in the field of chess strategy.  With the present state of chess, the use of computers, etc, we must accept - the earlier the better - that the more weapons we have, the more success we can achieve.  And ideas are not the patrimony of modernity.  Anything which is useful, is useful, and has to be quickly integrated into our own set of concepts.  It does not matter who produced it or when it was produced. 

On the other hand, why do chess players have to study the games played by leading Grand-masters or World Champions?  The answer is manifold.  Firstly, we study those games because there we can learn both strategy and tactics.  Secondly, because we can learn openings and endgame technique.  Thirdly, we study a certain chess player because we want to identify ourselves with that chess player and choose him as our model by some reason or another.  For us, he is our “master.”  It happens in all branches of art and there are many psychological reasons involved. 

Nevertheless, in my opinion, there is one more reason for the studious chess player: learning the METHOD.  Learning “how” and “why” our admired player produces ideas.  Of course, it implies the previous knowledge of strategy, tactics, some endgame technique, etc.  We want to learn his TECHNIQUE when playing chess: how he applies the laws or exceptions of strategy, how he attacks or defends, how he plays the transition between the opening and the middlegame, the middlegame and the endgame, the meaning of all his moves in the game, why he played this and not that.  In short, we want to clearly appreciate his PROCESS OF THINKING. 

To carry out all this we have to study the player’s chess approach, the sort of positions he likes, how he reaches them, how he tries to interfere with the opponent’s plans.  So every game has to be played several times trying to understand what is behind every move.  If the game is annotated, we can use the notes as a guide, although we will have to do a move-by-move job on the game.  In this consists the study of chess games: the attempt to apprehend the METHOD, by dissecting the games.  For chess is the vivid manifestation of THOUGHT. 

__________ 

(I would like this article or parts of it to be useful or at least act as a sort of eye-opener for the reader to pursue his/her own way.  Answers only appear after questions have been made, so making explicit what previously had been only implicit.) 

__________

Max Euwe:  “Fischer thinks in systems, not moves.  With him it is not good enough to say that a player has made a good move.  You must know the system he is playing and what fits into the system.” 

Fischer: “You have to force moves and take chances.” 

Fischer: “Ideas, I never memorise moves.” 

Fischer: “They commit mistakes.” 

_________

Fischer’s Chess Style Features 

à      Unrelenting maintenance of tension.

à      Active play in the opening, middlegame and endgame.

à      Concrete thinking: calculable positions.

à      Fluid piece play.

à      Tactical handling of the defence.

à      Concrete handling of the strategy.

à      Disciplined imagination.

à      Highly developed abilities for calculation of variations.

à      Alertness to combinational and positional intermingled features in every position.

à      Use of radical methods to reduce his opponent’s counterplay.

à      Straightforwardness.

à      Master in the art of switching advantages.

à      Master in the art of playing on empty squares always pursuing space to manoeuvre.

à      Disagreement with speculative chess.

à      Risk and danger are calculated to the utmost, never speculating.

à      Play “move-by-move” or “blow-by-blow”.

à      Technical perfection.

à      Influences: Morphy, Steinitz and Capablanca.

à      Mastering of the twofold process of calculating variations and the formation of abstract concepts

à      Incredible insight for finding intermediate moves in both the calculation of variations and in combinational melées. 

First Approach 

Fischer’s main weapon is that of his overwhelming ability to calculate variations, having a deep insight to find intermediate moves in the most complicated of positions.  The “clarity” of his play claimed by some critics and the Soviet players is only a delusion.  His play is far from clear.  The aspect of simplicity hides, in fact, very dangerous elements.  He is able to reduce a complicated strategy to a series of blows filled with tactical venom.  He often seems to be tottering on the abyss, but in fact he is seeing everything and his moves which are but the exponents of his strategical depth have only one aim:  the destruction of the opponent on the board.  Fischer subordinates everything to the system he is playing no matter how weird or odd the moves may seem.  He is always assessing concrete features, paying great attention to the tactical nature of moves. 

Fischer’s opponents are confronted by a player who is always ready to embrace danger, always using all resorts, fighting till the last chance, always turning the board into a mine field.  It is not enough to have a good plan.  It is necessary to find the best move time after time, being aware of all the possible variations and sub-variations, always calculating, always assessing the position from a concrete point of view.   In his game, there is no room for waiting moves, there is no way for seeing what the opponent’s plans are.  Fischer imposes his own tempo posing new threats with each move.  He has mastered the difficult art of enchaining attack after attack, being able to switch from one target to another by means of tactical and combinational threats.  The rival has either to accept it or fall into strategically lost positions, so allowing Fischer to impose his superiority this time by positional means.

 Fischer’s Opening Systems 

The openings a chess player uses are the first clue to understanding his approach to chess, since the opening and the variation or sub-variation he chooses lead to the sort of positions he likes best.  Of course, his rival will also try to impose his own mark on the game and so we have the subtle fight which characterises the struggle for the predominance in the opening. 

As Black, his preferences are clear: 

Against 1 e4, the Sicilian Najdorf (He has played the Alekhine 1 e4 nf6 in a few games and even 1 e4 e5, but only in three-four games throughout his chess career.)

Against 1 d4 / 1 c4 etc, he has played mainly the King’s Indian or other similar systems characterised by the King’s Bishop fianchetto.  In the early sixties, he played systems involving ... nf6 / ... e6 (Nimzo-Indian, Tarrasch, Ragozin) but this was a transition period.  Apart from the King’s Indian, the Grünfeld Defence was also one of his favourite openings and prior to the Rejkjavik match he had used it in very important encounters.

 Fischer’s aims as Black are clear: quick equalization, fluid piece play, counter-attack and the provocation of tactical clashes as soon as possible.

 Being primarily a positional player, Fischer was able to infuse tactical poison into well-known, time-honoured positional systems.  This versatility allowed him to be ready for long, protracted positional struggles or for quick tactical skirmishes, becoming a formidable opponent.

 In my opinion, the Russians totally failed to appreciate all this and laboured under the delusion of believing that Fischer’s style was “crystal clear”, “easy to predict,” “easy to meet” etc.  They believed that an individual fighting alone would not be able to oppose any resistance against the enormous Soviet chess machinery.  This delusive concept was helped by the fact that prior to 1972 some Russian players had posed many problems to Fischer (for instance Keres, Tal, Geller and the very Spassky himself).  Perhaps they forgot that a loner like Fischer, who had chess as his vital obsession and the only way to affirm himself before the world, had been learning from his defeats at Russian hands, and that his self-criticism, as well as his psychological insight concerning the Russian players - his main enemies - were giving him a clear picture of what loomed ahead, while the Russians were resting on their laurels, forgetting that past feats do not earn present points in chess matches, and that chess is a game in which two players have to meet, with their virtues, yes, but also being liable to show all their defects.  Spassky’s sin and the Russian’s sin concerning 1972 has two names: “over-confidence” and “under-estimation.”  Against a sniper like Fischer, all that proved fatal.

 As White:

Here the matter is even clearer: with the exception of his early beginnings, Fischer has only played 1 e4.  He simply spoke of this move as “best by test”, never engaging in other philosophical discussions.  In his early years he started playing the King’s Indian Attack and he also played 1 b3 in some off-hand games, even though one of these games was against Tukmakov in a decisive tournament.

 As he can be considered a classical chessplayer, it is normal that his main weapon is the Ruy Lopez.  From time to time, he has also used the King’s Gambit and the Italian Opening, choosing in these two cases variations not normally employed but that Fischer had studied in depth due to his love for players like Steinitz.

 One of the recurrent themes in Fischer’s games as White is that of the centre without pawns.  In many of his games, variations in which the central pawns are exchanged are common.  It is very instructive to study how Fischer plays these positions, in which the fight revolves around piece play only.

 Let’s take, for instance, the Breyer Variation in the Ruy Lopez.  Fischer consistently used the Simagin system, which implies the exchange of pawns in the centre, opening lines.  Later, Karpov patronised the variation with the move d5 closing the centre, giving predominance to flank manoeuvres which involve a lot of “fending” strategies.  Of course, Fischer knew all this too, but he simply preferred more direct methods where he could use his extreme ability to provoke fluid piece play so as to conjure threats apparently out of thin air, but in fact based upon well-established strategical basis.

 The opening is connected with the middlegame and all World Champions have managed to master the transition between one and another.  In this respect, Fischer likes producing muilti-potential positions where accurate calculation is required as the only way to understand and resolve the different positions.  Thus, the opponent is confronted with the problem of choosing among a wealth of possible variations, all leading to end positions difficult to evaluate, and the paths to those end positions are also full of intermediate moves.  His aura of invincibility was so overwhelming that an American GM declared that it does not matter which type of position you may have, because against Fischer you “know” you are going to lose . . .

 Fischer’s style shows a two-fold feature:  on the one hand a deep purity based upon the application of all the time-honoured chess principles, and on the other hand, the display of tactical blows in which every move both belongs to the system and also conforms the very system he is developing.  His primary approach to the positions is scientific:  he knows the openings and the sort of strategical plans involved.  Then he looks for the best of plans and the most destructive moves to carry it out, trying to prevent any tactical struggle.  When he has to resort to defence, his stubbornness is admirable:  he will use all sorts of tactical resources to complicate the game, to compel his rival to choose and take risks because here lies the possibility of committing mistakes or inaccuracies.  The games where Fischer had to show his defensive skills are worth a deep study.  Both in attack and defence, he is ready to embrace danger to the utmost if he sees that he can calculate the risk or if he feels that the position may become so wild that he will be able to impose his refined calculation technique, seeing farther than his rival or what is more important, perceiving all the nuances which compose a forest of intermediate moves.

 Due to Fischer’s approach to chess which clearly manifests itself in his opening repertoire, he tended to reach what Kotov has defined as “resolvable positions.”  Neverthe-less, I do not totally agree with Kotov’s classification of them, and so in my opinion resolvable positions are three-fold:

1.  Positions resolvable by logical plans and precedents.

2.  Positions resolvable by calculation.

3.  Positions resolvable by the method of playing move-by-move or blow-by-blow.

(It must be understood that it is the player himself who, knowing his style and approach, decides the sort of positions he wants to reach.  Then he will choose those openings which lead to the type of positions he prefers.  Of course, in the process there will be a fight between him and his opponent, who will also try to steer the game into the sort of path of his liking.)

Fischer has nearly always avoided speculative positions because the thing he has most feared is that of taking risks which cannot be TOTALLY controlled by him through straightforward calculation.  And this is another key point to understand his style.  Strategically speaking, he is a classical player, influenced by strategists like Steinitz, Tarrasch, Capablanca.  Tactically speaking, he possesses the directness of Morphy but with the killer instinct developed to the utmost.

Analysing Fischer’s games and his combinations, one can see how every move has an aim.  And this does not mean that his style is “clear” and “easy to predict” as his Russian counterparts believed, so being caught on the hop one after another (Taimanov, Petrossian and Spassky).  Fischer’s style, like the image on a mirror, is absolutely delusive, and its clarity is only apparent once you have seen the moves.  And if you do not believe it, take one of his games, cover his moves and try to guess them one by one.

In Fischer, there is no room for double-edge, wild positions where everything depends upon luck or speculation.  Fischer does not play against an opponent as Lasker, Tal, etc.  He plays against perfection and this makes him totally averse to speculation.  He wants to play a perfect game of chess, against perfect replies from his opponent.  Perhaps, like Alekhine, he also suffered a lot because “it takes two to play a perfect game of chess and produce a masterpiece.”  It is not enough to win the game.  It is necessary to produce a complete flawless game.  Fischer mastered both the rules and the exceptions, extracting some of his ideas from the weird games by Steinitz.  Sometimes he showed that some exceptions were, in fact, better than the accepted rules.  He accepted that causes produce effects, but that - and here lies the paradox - some effects also produce causes.

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 Important Explanation

 In the game(s) which follow it will be normal to find the concept of “advantage.”  To understand a game of chess it is very important to realise how top players are able to obtain (an) advantage.  In some cases it will mean, simply, to have the initiative, that is, to be the first in creating threats so making the opponent think only about defensive moves or plans.

 “Advantage” can be obtained through different means, for instance:-

•  Mistakes committed by the opponent which allow one to obtain a strategically pre-dominant position or tactical threats.

à     Initiative: when the opponent commits a mistake, accepts a defensive or passive role, fails to create counterplay etc., and allows us to carry out our plans without any possibility to react with counter-threats.

à     Positional pressure: formation of deep strategical threats which the opponent does not appreciate, fails to assess properly or is not able to stop due to having structural weaknesses.

à     In the tug-of-war of a game of chess, one of the players may accept certain weaknesses in exchange for what he assesses as “compensation.”  Never-theless, the opponent may manage to keep the game under control avoiding creating himself weaknesses in his own position, and after a liquidation of pieces he succeeds in cashing in on the rival’s weak spots (one of Fischer’s main weapon and one very often neglected when annotating his games, which are more than dazzling tactical fireworks).

Advantages are switched during the development of the game (positional transformations, initiative etc) and this implies a high degree of technique and a high degree of talent and imagination. 

In the following pages (and in future serialisations) games are analysed.  But chess is inexhaustible and the reader may find many other details through the application of his/her own knowledge and experience.  This is what all this is about.  There are no absolute truths here, only hints.  Instead of “teaching”, it is better to show how to learn and investigate by oneself.

 Western Open Championship 1963

Hans Berliner - Bobby Fischer

 This game was regarded by Fischer as one of the games which most accurately showed his chess style (unable as he was to clearly define it).  The main features of the game are:-

 à     Active play to reach a multi-potential position.

à     Avoidance of tactically unclear melées

à     Timely counter-attack transform-ing a static initiative (superior piece placement) into an advantage.

à     Creation of continual threats.

à     Liquidation into a superior endgame: creation of threats to majority in the Queenside (another example of the switching of advantages).  In this respect, Botvinnik was a real master too in the art of smoothly liquidating middlegame positions into superior endgames, perhaps due to the influence of Capablanca’s games.

 1 d4 nf6 2 c4 e6 3 nc3 d5 4 cxd5 nxd5 5 e4 nxc3 6 bxc3 c5

 Immediately after White has created a strong pawn centre Black proceeds to attack it.  The ensuing position is one with a mobile pawn structuring.

7 nf3 cxd4 8 cxd4 bb4+ 9 bd2 bxd2+ 10 dxd2 0-0 11 bd3 b6 12 0-0 bb7 (exerting pressure on the centre) 13 rfd1 nc6 14 db2

Another plan would be 14 d5 exd5 15 exd5 since 15 ... dxd5?? would lose to 16 bxh7.  Berliner prefers to maintain the tension.

14 ... df6

Never allowing his pieces to interfere with each other.  The text attacks the pawns, pins the d-pawn, makes room for the rooks, covers the king-side and places the Queen pointing at White’s King.

15 rac1 rfd8 16 bb5 rac8 17 ne5?!

It would have been better to maintain the tension.  White wants to fix the central position in search of active play and entry points for his heavy pieces.  Fischer has seen farther.

17 ..... nxe5 18 dxe5 df4

Positional theme: the Queen in an advanced position.

19 rxc8 rxc8 20 dd4 g5!!

Typical of Fischer.  Apart from the fact that 20 ... dxe4 is losing due to back-rank mate, the concept is very deep indeed, starting a sort of pre-emptive attack.

21 f3 (21 dd7 rf2) 21 ... g4!!

White’s plan started with nd5 has failed.  Fischer manages to create counter-threats with a minimum of forces.  21 ... re5 gives nothing in view of variations like 22 be8 rc1 23 bf7 kf7 24 dd7.

22 be2 (22 dd7 gxf ! 20 db7 rc2!  22 dd7 gxf3 23 db7 de3 24 kh1 fxg2 25 kg2 rc2 -+) 22 ... gxf3

Is this move good or bad?  There is no agreement.  Analysts like Smyslov, Tukmakov, Yudasin and Tal say nothing about it.  But others say this is “?” and give 22 ... rc2 20 g3 dh6 24 dd3 rxa2 25 fxg4 kg7 26 df3 dg6 27 bd3 ra4 when black pieces display enormous activity.

23 gxf3

Another move without agreement.  While 23 bf3!? was suggested, others believe that 23 bxf3? kg7 24 dd7 de3 25 kh1 rc1 is good for Black.

23 ... kh8

23 ... rc2 is bad: 24 kh1 rxe2 25 rg1.

24 kh1 ba6!

White’s bishop defends his pawns.  Without it the structural weaknesses are emphasised.  If 25 bxa6?? dxf3 wins.  Fischer manages, through the tactical creation of threats which must be clearly anticipated and worked out by his opponents, to obtain a superior endgame.  It is this process of shifting from position to position using tactical means (creation of threats), which is the key point to understand Fischer’s chess style.

Here, once his rival committed himself to a certain plan (17 ne5), Fischer started to create threats in an apparently fixed (static) position (with ... g5-g4).  This is dynamic strategy at its best.  The rest is to eliminate the defensive pieces so as to impose his superiority, a device much to Capablanca’s liking.

25 df2 bxe2 26 dxe2 dxe5 -+ 27 rg1 f5 28 dd3 (28 dg2 fxe4 29 fxe4 b5 28 re1 f4 29 rg1 rg8 30 rg8 kg8) 28 ... fxe4 29 fxe4 (the threat is always rc2) 29 ... rf8

Fischer is trying to down his rival with piece play.  But in cases like this, it is necessary for the opening of a second front.  Here this second source of threats is the queen-side majority.

30 dc2 df6 31 rg2 dd4 (31 ... b5) 32 h3 da1+ 33 rg1 de5 34 dg2 b5! (the second front) 35 dc2 b4 36 dg2 a5 37 dc2 df6 (the plan now will be to force the change of Queens to impose his pawns) 38 dc4 (38 dg2 a4) 38 ... df3+ 39 kh2 rd8 40 dc2 dc3 41 dxc3+ (41 rg2 dc2 42 rc2 a4) 41 ... bxc3 42 rc1 rd3! 43 rb1 kg7! 44 rb5 (44 rb7 kf6 45 rh7 ke5 -+) 44 ... a4 45 rc5 a3 46 kg2 re3! 47 rc4 kf6 48 h4 ke5 49 kf2 rh3 (threatening 50 ... c2 due to the threat rh2 if 51 rxc2) 50 kg2 rd3 51 h5 kf4 52 h6 ke3 53 rc7 kd2, 54 rxh7 c2 55 rc7 c1=d, White resigns.

An impressive game.