W
hen the most recent Chess Informant arrives in the mail, I really get excited ! Now I can look at some of my favourite openi n g variations and see what novelties the world came up with , in the last few months. Now I'll be both armed with new excitin g ideas and forewarned against unpleasan t surprises in my next tournament.
I can look in the Queen's Gambit Accepted section and see that the line I started playing with Black in 1 985 is all the rage now, but that I am still safe there. Skipping back to the Richter-Rauzer Sicilian B66 variation I 've been playing since 1 983, I find that Serper's novelty in the previous Informant has been virtually refuted by Ralf Lau's excellent 1 4 Wb1 ! . Good thing I did some work o n that line before and that's not going to be a problem either. If I only knew how to handle that GrOnfeld Defence!
Novelty, innovation, new idea , improvement - what are we talking about here? How is a novelty born?
This is a story about the evolution of one seemingly unimportant improvement in a
.. . tt:'ld7 variation of the Caro-Kann. It's only been played once on a GM level, but it was enough to put White's set-up out of commis
sion .
The story starts with a game I played in the 1 985 New York Open against loran Gajic, a player I felt I had to beat to have a shot at the top prizes in that first class Swiss.
Gajic - Dlugy New York Open 1 985
Caro-Kann Defence
1 e4 c6
2 d4 d5
3 ltJd2 dxe4
4 ltJxe4 ltJd7
5 ltJf3 ltJgf6
6 ltJxf6+ ltJxf6
7 ..ie2 g6
8 0-0 ..ig7
9 c3
9 c4 is the topical line assessed as ';!;' in EGO. But more on that later.
9 . . . 0-0
1 0 ltJe5
A well known and popular set-up back in 1 985. After the usual 1 O . .. ..ie6 11 l:te1 White maintains the centre and although Black doesn't have particular difficulties, it's
ex-tremely hard to complicate the game. After some thought I came upon an interesting, if somewhat artificial knight manoeuvre in the attempt to mix it up.
10 . . . 1 1 ..tf4 1 2 .l:.e1 1 3 ttJg4?!
ttJe81 ttJd6 ..te6
My opponent is already confused by the new set-up and he begins an artificial knight manoeuvre of his own in the hope of attacking my king.
13 . . . 'ilfb6
1 4 b4 a5
1 5 tLlh6+ 'iti>h8
1 6 a3 'ili'd8
1 7 ..td3 tLlb5
18 'ii'd2 axb4
1 9 axb4 .l:ixa1
20 .l:.xa1 'it'd5
21 I:.e1 tLld6
22 h3 l:ta8
23 ttJg4 l:!.a2
24 'ii'c1 1t'b3
25 ..tg5 tLlf5
26 ..txf5 gxf5
27 tLlh6
The knight comes back for more but this time he doesn't come home.
27 . . . f6
28 i..h4?
After 28 ..tf4! ..tf8 29 'i!fe3 ..td7 30 'i!i'g3!
White could have put Black's 'win at all costs' strategy to the test.
28 . . . ..tf8
29 'ili'e3 'iti>g7!
The start of an unlikely king manoeuvre which is especially hard to stop in view of White's mounting time pressure.
30 'ii'f4? 'iti>g6!
32 'i!i'e3+ 'iti>h51
33 ..tg3 ..td7
34 ..tc7 'iti>g6
35 ..td8 l:.a8
36 'ii'g3+ 'iti>f7
And Black, armed with an extra piece, won easily.
So the risky play paid off (I even managed to tie for first in the tournament), and I remembered the . . . ttJe8-d6 manoeuvre as a distinct possibility in this variation .
Along comes the following:
Gertler - Dlugy Long Island Open 1 985
Caro-Kann Defence
1 e4 c6
2 d4 d5
3 tLld2 dxe4
4 ttJxe4 ttJd7
5 tLlf3 ttJgf6
6 ttJxf6+ ttJxf6
7 ttJe5 ..te6
8 ..te2 9 0-0 1 0 c4 1 1 ..te3
g6 ..tg7 0-0
31 'ii'g3+ 'iti>xh6 This, of course, is the main line favoured by
A Novelty is born
ltJ
59 ECO. I stopped to think. Once again I need tocomplicate the game and make an effort to solve my opening problems at the same time. EGO gives 1 1 .. . lt:'ld7, 1 1 .. .'ii'c7 and 11 . .. 'i'c8 as the possible moves, evaluating the position as somewhat better for White in all lines. Remembering my experiment from earlier in the year I started contemplating 11 ... ttJe8. And the more I looked - the more I liked it! The knight on d6 will be threatening the c4-pawn , the d4-pawn and e3-bishop via f5, while the opening of the long diagonal will make the break . . . c6-c5 all the more Black is already equal and eventually he won a messy and somewhat lucky game.
In October of the same year I played in a GM tournament and once again encountered the same variation, this time against a tougher opponent.
Gruenfeld - Dlugy
Manhattan Chess Club l nternational 1 985 Caro-Kann Defence
(from previous diagram) 11 . . . lt:JeB!
1 2 �f4
White prepares to strike in the centre, but the attem pt backfires as Black is extremely solid.
1 2 . . . li::ld6 seriously compromising his pawn structure.
1 6 'ii' d4 'ii'b6!
23 .. . lt:lh4 with an advantage was stronger.
24 .i.f3 b6
Is this story over? Is the novelty born? In the same tournament Yehuda Gruenfeld put my novelty to a real test with an innovation of his own .
1 2 . . . ltJd6 1 3 .l:!.ad1 !
White successfully defends his centre and keeps a comfortable edge. pawn into a full point.
Immediately after this game I started looking for improvements for Black after 1 2 'ii'b3, but the longer I looked the more convinced 1
became that White had the upper hand . The tournament was over and I was off to Montpellier to watch the Candidates Tourna
ment, to play in an Open there and to take lessons from Mark Dvoretsky.
Mark's approach to teaching chess is differ
ent from all other trainers; he teaches methods of thinking over anything else. We concentrated on prophylactics - or the prevention of your opponent's ideas, and when I came back to New York, I found the answer I was looking for. Instead of reacting to 12 'ii'b3, Black has to prevent it! So I need d6-square with his knight.
The novelty is born ! Candidates Match 1 987
Caro-Kann Defence
You hardly see this once fashionable set-up for Wh ite against the . . . ltJd7 Caro-Kan n . It's been replaced by 5 ltJg5 and 5 .ic4 . Yet when the new revised edition of EGO comes out I am sure the assessment of the line will revert from ';!;' to '='. It takes quite a bit to erase a little plus sig n , doesn't it?
P. S . Grandmaster Yuri Razuvaev reports having played 1 1 .. . ltJe4! in numerous blitz games over 20 years ago against Karpov. He was surprised to see Karpov remember this move for his match against Sokolov. It seems there is nothing new under the sun, or is there?
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Mark Dvoretsky