Positional Analysis II - A Knight's Tale

I recently blogged about a methodical way to analyse positions and formulate plans:

http://revtiberius.blogspot.ca/2013/03/episode-vi-how-to-analyze-position-and.html

Breaking down a position into these 7 criteria and analyzing them in turn is a very useful technique to evaluate a position and formulate plans:

1. Material Balance

2. Immediate Threats

3. King Safety

4. Open Files

5. Pawn Structure, Strong and Weak Squares

6. Center and Space

7. Development and Coordination among minor and major pieces

Using this approach, we recently looked at another game. The following position is from the 13th game of the 1978 World Championship match between Victor Korchnoi and Anatoly Karpov.

Korchnoi - Karpov, Game 13, World Championship 1978, Baguio

1. Material Balance: The material balance is even. White has a light-squared bishop, Black a dark-squared one.

2. Immediate Threats: Immediate tactical threats do not exist.

3. King Safety: The position of both kings has been compromised to some extend. Both Black and White have advanced their kingside pawns a little bit, resulting in weaknesses for both players. However, as both players castled kingside, neither player can be too reckless about attacking the opponent without exposing their own king, too. Considering the situation on the queenside, king safety is probably not a key factor in this position.

4. Open Files: There are currently no open files. Black can take control of the semi-open e-file. White's pawn on e3, however, is well protected and due to the support from the pawn on f2 not a good target for Black. White on the other hand controls the semi-open c-file and can easily put a lot of pressure on Black's c6-pawn. 

5. Pawn Structure, Strong and Weak Squares: White has weak squares on a4, c4, h4, and to some extend e4 (because playing f2-f3 makes the e3-pawn a much easier target), Black has weak squares on a6, e5 and f6. 

6. Center and Space: It's a half-open center. Both sides have a lever to potentially open it at some point. White could play e3-e4 to attack Black's pawn formation in the center. However, for the time being this is not recommended because after Black takes on e4, his battery on the d-file would immediately exert tremendous pressure on White's d4-pawn. Black on the other hand could conceivably play c6-c5 sooner or later but only White gives up control over the c5 square.

7. Development and Coordination among minor and major pieces: Both sides are fully developed. White has a considerable space advantage, especially on the queen side and is much better able to regroup his pieces. Black's major pieces seem oddly misplaced on the d-file, which won't open any time soon. Both players also need to find better squares for their Knights.

Conclusion: White has the much easier game. He has more space, and a simple and straightforward plan: put pressure on Black's weak c6-pawn. It seems that Black can't do much other than defend the weakness on c6. 

Standard chess strategy describes several ways how Black can defend a weakness like the pawn on c6:

A) Black can try to defend the pawn and protect it with as many pieces as possible. This is typically the worst and most passive option and only recommended in situations when options B) and C) are unavailable.
B) Black can try to get rid of the weakness by playing c6-c5 to exchange the pawn. That of course is usually a very effective way of dealing with weaknesses. However, this approach won't work here because White controls the c5-square and won't allow Black the freeing maneuver c6-c5.
C) Black can try to generate counter play elsewhere on the board to distract White from attacking the c6-pawn. This does not work here either because Black can not open the center, and does not have a way to create promising counter play on the kingside.

However, Karpov found an astonishing move. He played Pawn b6-b5!

Pawn b6-b5 is the beginning of a remarkable repositioning of the Knight on c7

Pawn b6-b5 is a truly remarkable solution to Black's problems. The move is highly anti-positional and would under normal circumstances be just terrible because it only aggravates Black's problems on the queenside:
1. After b6-b5, Black no longer has the potential lever c6-c5. The move takes away most of Black's queenside pawn mobility
2. The move also surrenders the critical c5-square to White, and gives up control over a5

Of course, Karpov was aware of all this. He played Pawn b6-b5 anyway because he realized that this move also creates a formidable outpost for his Knight on c4. On c4 the Knight blocks the c-file and completely paralyzes White's queenside play. The weak pawn on c6 no longer needs to be defended, and Black can put his pieces to more active use.

After a few more moves, the players reached the following position:

In just a few moves Black has completely swung momentum in his favor

Through one brilliant maneuver Black managed to swing momentum almost completely in his favor. Black still needs to do something about his misplaced Rook on d6, but the weakness on c6 is securely defended thanks to the Knight on c4, and suddenly it looks like White's b4-pawn might be in a bit of trouble. It's probably premature to say that Black has an advantage in this position, but he has definitely fully equalized. 

Black eventually won the game.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068079

Why I chose this example:
1. I still remember how eye-opening I found this position when we analyzed it at my chess club many years ago. I realized that I would have never found a maneuver like Kc7-a8-b6-c5 on my own. In fact, in my games at the time I wasn't even looking for such maneuvers. Thanks to this game and a few similar examples the coach showed us at the time I was able to expand my arsenal of strategic ideas. Today, I wouldn't miss an idea like this in a serious game.
2. I like this position because it is a little more difficult to analyze than the previous example from the Gelfand-Ivanchuk game from the 2013 London Candidates Tournament (link at the beginning of this article). In that game, White's very bad bishop makes it pretty easy for Black to formulate a plan. In this example, all Black really has is a weakness on c6. Coming up with the right idea is much harder. 

Episode VI - How to Analyze a Position and Formulate a Plan

A critical skill for any chess player to have is the ability to accurately and systematically analyze positions. During a chess game it is very tempting to just look at "interesting" moves or randomly start calculating variations. This approach however, will almost always neglect the deeper positional characteristics of a position. And unless you're playing blitz, this will also make it hard to make good use of the time allotted to you.

Therefore, now that we have covered some of the basic tactical elements in chess, in our last lesson I taught Pyre a more systematic way to analyze a position, and form a plan based on the results of the analysis.

There are many good books about this topic. I think eventually I'll post a list of useful resources for beginners and novices. The approach I was taught many years ago by my first chess coach is based on Karpov and Mazukevich's recommendations in their book "Find the Right Plan". By the way I think this is a book that does not get the attention it deserves.

The basic idea is that in order to choose the right course of action, a chess player must first have a good understanding of the current position. This will not only make it easier to select a good plan, it will also help identifying candidate moves.

According to Karpov and Mazukevich, to get a good understanding of any given position, a player must look at each of the following 7 evaluation criteria:

1. Material Balance
2. Immediate Threats
3. King Safety
4. Open Files
5. Pawn Structure, Strong and Weak Squares
6. Center and Space
7. Development and Coordination among minor and major pieces

This analysis does not need to be performed after every move, but it has to be done regularly. For example, a player could form the habit of doing this after move 10, 20, 30, 40 etc. This analysis should also be done whenever the position on the board changes dramatically, for example after a player sacrifices material.

After discussing these principles in general terms, Pyre and I looked at an example to practice this approach. We analyzed the game between Boris Gelfand and Vassily Ivanchuk from the 2013 Canadidates Tournament in London, which had been played earlier the same day. The players reached the following position after Gelfand's 17th move Ng5:

Gelfand-Ivanchuk at the 2013 FIDE Candidates Tournament in London 2013; position after 17. Ng5

We tried to to come up with a good plan for Black. As the first step, we analyzed the position through the lens of the 7 evaluation criteria:

1. Material Balance: the material balance is even. The only difference is that White has the bishop pair and a knight while Black has two knights an a bishop.
2. Immediate Threats: neither side has any immediate tactical or positional threats.
3. King Safety: Both kings are fairly safe. Black and White have castled queenside which means that neither side can easily launch a pawn storm on the opponent. Due to the missing c-pawn, White's king is a little bit more exposed, but this will probably not have a significant impact on the game.
4. Open Files: There are no open files in this position. White has the half-open c- and g-files available to him and could potentially double up rooks on either of them. Black currently controls the half-open d-file.
5. Pawn Structure, Strong and Weak Squares: Despite the double pawn on the f-file, White has the better pawn structure. He doesn't have any potentially weak pawns. At the same time his pawns control many important central squares.
White has strong squares on e5 and g5, and possibly c5 even though Black can control that square with a pawn if necessary. F3 is a weak square though it is currently not easy for Black to place a piece there. White's pawn structure also does not have any real weaknesses.
Black on the other hand has (somewhat) strong squares on e4 and d5, but also several weak squares: e5, g5 and g6 are permanently weak, and c5 can only be controlled if Black is willing to compromise his queenside pawn structure. The backward pawn on g7 is weak and in an endgame the pawns on e6 and h4 are potential weaknesses as well.
6. Center and Space: The center is closed. White has a slightly more solid pawn mass in the center while Black's minor pieces better control the central squares. Neither side has an obvious space advantage. Both Black and White have more mobility on the queen side than the king side.
7. Development and Coordination among minor and major pieces: Both sides have completed their development. The white knight on the strong square g5 looks impressive, but it is unclear what role it serves there. This in fact may be a good example that a "strong" square isn't necessarily also a "useful" square. White also has the bishop pair.  The bishop on c4 is very strong indeed, indirectly targeting the Black's weak pawn on e6. The bishop could also pin Black's knight on c6, which could be very unpleasant for Black indeed, especially if White doubles up in the half-open c-file. However, White's main problem and in fact the defining characteristic of this position is the bad bishop on h2. The bishop doesn't contribute anything to White's game, and activating or exchanging it will require a lot of time.

Formulating a Plan:
After this in-depth analysis of the position, we started formulating a plan for Black. In my opinion assessing the 7 evaluation criteria is the easier part. It is more difficult to come to the right conclusion what the analysis of these criteria means, and which of the criteria are more important than others in any given position. For example, is it more important that White has the better pawn structure in this position, or that Black has two knights, which in a closed position such as this one should be favorable? It takes a lot of skill and experience to draw the right conclusions from the analysis. However, for Pyre's purposes it isn't important to get it right 100% all the time. In fact, even grandmasters regularly get this kind of analysis wrong. The point is that if Pyre learns to do this analysis regularly and systematically, he'll be able to take his chess to the next level.
In this example the critical point is to realize that White's bad bishop on h2 is the single most important characteristic of the position.
Basic chess strategy recommends that when one of your opponent's pieces is - temporarily or permanently - locked out of the game, the right course of action is typically opening up the game on the other side of the board because that is where in essence your opponent will be a piece down.
In this position Black can achieve that by playing c7-c5, ideally after bringing the rooks over to the c-file. The thrust c7-c5 opens the position without exposing Black's king too much.

And this is pretty much what Ivanchuk did in the game. The entire game can be found here:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1713206

The game ended in a draw because as so often Ivanchuk ended up in time trouble and couldn't convert the very promising position he achieved after opening the game on the queenside.
However, for the purpose of this exercise it isn't necessary to analyze the remainder of the game. The important point was to do an in-depth analysis of a given position with Pyre, which is something we'll keep doing going forward.

Vassily Ivanchuk and MarineKingPrime

A Word about Vassily Ivanchuk:

To me, Vassily Ivanchuk is the MarineKingPrime of the chess world. "Chucky" as he's called is one of the most brilliant players on the chess circuit, and has been a dominant force at the top level for many years. However, his inability to keep his nerves under control has prevented him from ever being a serious contender for the world championship title, or win more top level tournaments. In the 2013 Candidates tournament alone he's already lost 3 games on time.

Despite his volatile performance, Ivanchuk is one of the very few players who, on a good day, can beat anybody, including Carlsen, Anand, and the rock-solid Kramnik.

All of this is very reminiscent of MarineKingPrime who clearly has the skills to win MLGs but rarely does so because - among other things - it seems he is a little too emotional and nervous.

The following clip is from a chess olympiad match between Ivanchuk and Kramnik:



I'd be nervous too if I was playing Vladimir Kramnik, though 2700 ELO Super GMs typically play their moves a little more confidently than Ivanchuk does here.

Nevertheless, Ivanchuk is a fan favorite, and I have great admiration and respect for his creative chess, too!