Chess Evolution: QGD Exchange (part three)

BLACK'S continued long-term suffering after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 led to renewed efforts to find kingside counterplay.

Mark Taimanov - Rashid Nezhmetdinov

Soviet Union Championship (Kiev) 1954

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6

There are many ways to reach standard positions in the Exchange Variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined. This game takes one of the more unusual byways.

3.Nf3 e6 3.cxd5 exd5

The less-popular 3...cxd5 would make the opening an Exchange Variation of the Slav.
4.Nc3 Nf6 5.Bg5 Be7 6.Qc2 Nbd7 7.e3 Nbd7

One problem with this move-order from White's viewpoint is that Black can play 7...g6!? 8.e3 Bf5. Getting the black light-square bishop to f5 without concessions by Black is considered a good way to equalise, although naturally there is lots of play left in the position.

8.e3 0-0 9.Bd3 Re8 10.0-0 Nf8 11.Rab1 a5

This (and ...a6, usually after White has committed with b4) is the standard way to ensure White's Minority Attack does not leave Black with an isolated a pawn as well as other possible weaknesses.

12.a3 Ne4
This is the first game in ChessBase's 2020 Mega database to feature this move in this exact position. The main idea, usually, is to initiate simplifying exchanges. But here it is quite possible Nezhmetdinov had prepared his blockbuster 18th move.

13.Bxe7

In many positions White plays Bf4 to avoid an exchange of bishops as the white dark-square one is more active than its black counterpart. However, here 13.Bf4!? can be met by 13...Nxc3 14.Qxc3 (forced) a4!, when White's queenside play is seriously inconvenienced.

13...Qxe7 14.b4 axb4 15.axb4 Ng6 16.b5

White's Minority Attack is proceeding in typical fashion but Black, rather than passively defending on the queenside, creates a preponderance of black pieces on the kingside.

16...Bg4?!
This works out well but objectively better is 16...Nxc3 17.Qxc3 Bg4, as given by the analysis engines Stockfish12 and Komodo11.01.

17.Nd2?

With hindsight this natural move has to be marked as a mistake. If Taimanov had seen what was coming, he would surely have played 17.Bxe4 dxe4 18.Nd2, as had occurred three years earlier in James Cross - Norman Whitaker, US Open (Fort Worth), when White stands very well.

17...Nxd2 18.Qxd2

Black to play and win!

*****

*****

*****

*****

*****

18...Nh4!

This bolt from the blue must have stunned Taimanov. Black gets a winning advantage by force.

19.f3!?

White has many other tries, but none saves the position.

A) 19.e4 Bh3! 20.Qf4 Bxg2 21.Rfe1 Ra3 Hu Mangier (171) - Spanton (147), Hastings Main A 1990-91 (0-1, 35 moves) and Jana Bellin (2210) - Ludo Tolhuizen (2255), Isle of Man 1995 (0-1, 61 moves).

B) 19.Ne2 Bh3! 20.Nf4 Bxg2 M Likeman (157) - Spanton (147), Hastings 3rd Week A 1991-92 (0-1, 25 moves) and Lars Jellinghaus (2186) - Milenko Skara  (1814), Bochum (Germany) 2004 (0-1, 21 moves).

C) 19.Be2 Bh3! 20.bxc6 bxc6 21.e4 Bxg2 PD Catt (128) - Spanton (147), Upminster Major 1991 (0-1, 48 moves).

D) 19.bxc6 bxc6 20.Be2 Bh3! (a direct transposition to line C) K Ellis (173) - Spanton (156), London U181 1992 (0-1, 35 moves).

19...Qxe3+ 20.Qxe3 Rxe3 21.fxg4 Rxd3 22.bxc6 bxc6 23.Ne2 Rd2 24.Rf2 h6

Black has a big advantage and should have gone on to win, but Nezhmetdinov eventually messed up a rook-and-pawn ending and allowed Taimanov to escape with a 65-move draw.

How The Openings Got Their Names - Mar Del Plata

FELLOW Battersea Chess Club member Joe Skielnik returned earlier this month from a tournament in Spain where a mutual friend "had a couple of games on the white side of the King's Indian, Mar del Plata Variation."
Joe asks: "It appears it was first played in Najdorf v Gligoric, 1953, in Mar del Plata. However, I thought it might have had something to do with the carnage arising from the Battle of the River Plate in 1939, which sometimes appears similar to what happens on the chessboard in this line.
"Unfortunately I can find no connection, so only a mysterious coincidence?"
The Mar del Plata Variation is an important line of the King's Indian that arises after the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8. d5 Ne7.

Starting tabiya of the Mar del Plata

There are more than 3,000 games with this position in ChessBase's 2019 Mega database, and the Mar del Plata is important enough to get its own chapter - the first - in Robert Bellin & Pietro Ponzetto's classic Mastering The King's Indian With The Read And Play Method (Batsford, 1990).
The variation is named after a tournament held in 1953 in the Argentine coastal resort of  Mar del Plata, where Gligoric used the black side of the variation to beat Najdorf and Eliskases, and Najdorf was later held to a draw in the same variation by Trifunovic.
But the moves had been known since the 1920s at least, becoming suddenly fashionable in 1952 when it was played at the olympiad in Helsinki and in the Soviet and Hungarian championships.
At first the variation did not do well for Black - Taimanov with the white pieces beat both Aronin and Bronstein in the 1952 Soviet championship.
It was Black's success with the variation in Argentina that gained it the name Mar del Plata (the name of the city literally translates from Spanish as Sea of Silver, but in this case Plata refers to the country's Plata region rather than directly to silver or the River Plate - Rio de la Plata in Spanish).
Here is one of the variation's less-successful outings.
Ivan Nemet (GM2412) - Spanton (2250*)
Simul, Villars-sur-Ollon, 2001
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Ne1
This was White's response from the earliest days of the variation, although its popularity has been challenged by 9.b4. The idea of both moves is to press on with c5 (after Nd3 or Be3 in the case of 9.Ne1) and to attack on the queenside before Black can organise a mating attack on the kingside.
9...Nd7 10.Be3
This has become more popular than the immediate Nd3.
10...f5 11.f3 f4 12.Bf2 g5 13.Rc1 h5 14.c5 Nf6?
Correct was 14...Nxc5, and if 15.b4, the move I was worried about, then 15...Na6. Black need not fear 16.Bxa6?! bxa6 as Black's kingside attack is enhanced by the absence of White's light-square bishop.
15.cxd6 cxd6 16.Nb5 Ne8 17.Nxa7 Kh8
17...Bd7 was played in Stefan Docx (2384) - Slavisa Brenjo (2495), European Championship 2009, but 18.Qb3 Ng6 19.Qxb7 Rb8 20.Nc6 stopped Black getting a strong-enough attack to compensate for his disappeared queenside (1-0, 37 moves).
18.Nxc8 Rxc8 19.Rxc8 Qxc8 20.Nd3 Rg8 21.Kh1 Bf8 22.Qc1 Qd7 23.Qc3 g4??
A blunder, but Black's kingside attack is getting nowhere anyway.
The remaining moves were:
24.Nxf4 Nf6 25.Ne6 gxf3? 26.Qxf3 Ng4? 27.Nxf8 1-0
*My Swiss rating at the time.