Working on Boris Gelfand’s book Positional Decision Making in Chess, I came across a rather fascinating combination in one of the notes to his beautiful win against Grischuk in Beijing last year. The game deals a lot with changes in pawn structure, but at this point, White has won the strategic battle, fixing the f5-pawn as a weakness. But Black has tried to mess things up with 33…Nb5!?.
This one will take a while to solve, even for a GM!
34.Nxf5!! Rxf5
34…Bxf5 35.Bxf5 Rxf5 36.Qxe4 Nd4 37.Bc3
And Black is pinned to death.
35.Qxe4 Nd4 36.Qd3!!
This quiet move decides everything. White is threatening Rxd4.
36…Qf6 37.Bxf5 Bxf5 38.Qf1 Qg6 39.Bc3 Bd3 40.Qf2 Nf5
41.Re6 Qg5
41…Qh7 42.Bxg7+ Qxg7 43.Rxf5 and White wins.
42.Qf3 Bb1
43.Bxg7+
And White wins on account of 43…Kxg7 44.Rg4.
The book is progressing fine, although a good deal slower than I had hoped. (It is simply a difficult book to put together well!) We are still hoping to have it out in February, but this might change if I run into further problems along the way. I don’t think so, but I like to hedge my bets.
I’m for sure going to buy the book.
Me too – brilliant combination by the way!
a must buy