Starting out with the Grunfeld

Submitted by RC_Woods on Fri, 10/23/2009 at 6:53am.

Starting out: the grünfeld

Recently I have been reading about the grünfeld defense against 1. d4, which is supposed to give black a dynamic game with lots of attacking chances. I consider myself to be a fan of tactical play (which is why I usually open 1.e4) and this might therefore be a good opening for me.

In this blog I'd like to show the game where Ernst Grünfeld introduced the line against no lesser opponent than Alexander Alekhine. He won (apparantly Alekhine wasn't too happy about that) and many players (including Alekhine) adopted the line afterwards.

I have used the comments from Jacob Aagaard as given in the nice book "Starting out: the Grünfeld" (Published by EVERYMAN CHESS). Most of the annotations are mine however, and I was assisted by Deep Fritz 11. The rating of Alekhine and Grünfeld is based on the historical ratings calculated by the excellent chessmetrics' website.

Enjoy the game!

 

» posted in RC_Woods's Blog
 

Comments:

by Skwerly - 24 days ago
Yucaipa, CA United States
Member Since: Jun 2009
Member Points: 481

It's true, Alekhine hated hated hated to lose!  He would play arduously on, waiting for the slightest inaccuracy so he could pounce. I admire his fighting spirit.  Poor sport though, lol!

Thanks for this game, it's a beaut! I've been considering getting into the Gruenfeld, but I don't know the lines as well as some other openings, nor their proper continuations.  Can't argue with the solidness, though. 

Cool

by philidor_position - 28 days ago
United States
Member Since: May 2009
Member Points: 219

Wow, I would've resigned around move 45, and it probably gets on the rude side of the "trying to hang on & being rude" equation around move 50. Alhekine has been just a sore loser, as his resignation "style" (throwing the king across the room) shows.

by strani - 28 days ago
St. Louis United States
Member Since: Aug 2008
Member Points: 333

Great game! thanks for posting this. 

 

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