KID Stuff
Submitted by
on Fri, 08/07/2009 at 7:18pm.
When I wrote about the KID a couple of weeks ago jimthemagic posted the following quote from “The Main Line King's Indian” by John Nunn and Graham Burgess:
The King's Indian is one of the most popular and electrifying of chess openings. Players such as Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov have found its appeal irresistible. Many openings give Black winning chances, but the King's Indian promises Black opportunities to win games sensationally.”
That was the word I overlooked in my Scary Old Lady story: Sensationally! And, yes, the KID lends itself to the sensational, and can do so even for us ordinary chess players.
I selected the following games for two reasons: they're short (as are most of the games I post) and each has a sacrifice that, in my opinion, has a touch of magic about it. They're intended to highlight that comment of Jim's that "wins in this opening can be sensational".
Of course if all the teeth belonged to Black then nobody would ever play 1.d4 again, but the opening gives White just as many chances and we'll look at sacrifices from both sides.
While Fischer and Spassky were duking it out at Reykjavik all those years ago one of the Soviet grandmasters, reporting the match for Pravda, was telephoning the game score to GM Efim Geller who was taking it down for publication. At one point Geller said, “It would have been better to have played so-and-so.” (I forget the exact quote—it was a long time ago.) His correspondent in Iceland later recalled, “That was when I realised he was analysing the game as he was writing it down.”
It's not surprising that a man of such ability would manage to find a sacrifice or two in his games and here's one he played against Shapiro at Moscow in 1956. I don't see the point of Shapiro's 31.f4. Perhaps it was an attempt to create some lebensraum for his queen. After all, the bishop was attacked only once but was defended three times. How could there be a danger?
Here's a clever game from the US Championships, 1963, in which Bobby Fischer demolishes no less an adversary than Robert Byrne in just 21 moves. Fischer's 14...Nd3 is a move most players wouldn't consider. Doubly attacked by queen and rook, it was supported by only his light-square bishop which could be forced away in just two moves—but Fischer didn't intend to save that horse. It was headed straight for the glue factory. Predictably, and in just a few moves, it was Byrne's position that came unglued.
Here's a White victory from Hastings, 1968. Black was no patzer. Max Fuller was one of Australia's best players for many years and still manages a mean game of chess. He won an Australian Championship a few years later (sharing the title with Trevor Hay after multiple play-offs) but, against a player as creative as former World Champion Vassily Smyslov, he overlooked a very neat clearing sacrifice and an inconvenient pin. Black's knight is powerless to intervene for if 30...Ne6 the bishop will simply take it without minimising the mating threat, and if 30...Ne8 communication with the rook is broken and the queen mates on g8.
(I spoke to Max shortly after his shared Australian title and he said that before the final session of his last—adjourned—game he had stayed up long into the night analysing the position and managed to find a forced win in all continuations. He went to bed thinking, “Tomorrow I will be the Australian Champion.” Then, to his chagrin, when he awoke he couldn't remember a critical part of the analysis.)
To even the score at two wins each for Black and White, here's a quickie from the World Blitz Cup of 2007 in which Shakriyar Mamedyarov shows Boris Savchenko, a leading young Russian grandmaster, what can happen to a queen who goes walking on the wild side. It can be argued that Mamedyarov's 27.Ne4 is no sacrifice at all, because Black can ill-afford to accept it, but it's still an interesting game.