Nunn won the series 88-12, despite having a time handicap, but the interesting thing is his opponent's comment about halfway through: "I thought I would see lots of advanced strategic concepts in these games, but actually all I have learnt is LPDO."
Or, to put it another way, loose pieces drop off.
Nunn comments: "During the remaining games I saw what he meant. Most of the games were decided by relatively simple tactics involving undefended pieces, when the LP would duly DO."
I was reminded of the story during my round-two game at Mariánské Lázně, where I had black against Poland's Ewa Balcerczak (1537).
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| This position arose after White played 21.Nb1-c3 |
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A peculiarity of the position is that both white rooks are loose - neither is protected by a fellow piece or pawn.
The looseness of the king's rook might seem unimportant, but look what happens over the next few moves.
I began with 21...Qe7, taking advantage of the undefended queen's rook to reposition my queen with tempo.
EB had to do something about the rook, and chose to play 22.Qb3?! (Stockfish17.1 and Dragon1 prefer 22.Qc1 or 22.Ra1).
The problem with the game's choice is it allows 22...Nc5! (better than the tempting 22...Nxf2+ 23.Bxf2 Bxf2, when 24.Nd5 keeps White in the game).
EB counterattacked with 23.Nd5? (23.Qd1!? is better), but that allowed me to take advantage of White's other undefended rook by playing 23...Qe2!, when my opponent could have resigned on the spot, and did so anyway after a further three moves.
LESSON: loose pieces drop off.
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