Hi there.
This is an early Anatoly Karpov game against John Moules.
This is in 1968, the sixth Nemea Final, a group round two.
So evil from Karpov.
John Moles plays E5.
We have 93.
96.
Bishop B five.
A six.
Bishop A four.
Knights have six.
Queen E2.
So this is a very interesting move.
We have Bishop e7c free, B five, Bishop B three, d6a4, Bishop B seven.
So here we have white castling, ignoring that B five pawn.
There's going to be a lot of counterplay if White took on B5.
Let's just carry the game.
On to a critical moment though.
White Castle's D Free H six Rookie one.
We have no H seven, so Black is trying to generate counterplay with the f pawn.
Push the pawn.
Of course needs to be unpin first we have D four and L knight g five.
So trying to take away the defender of a free bishop takes g5h.
Takes D five.
Closing the center 97 Rook d one.
So this gives e one to the knights if it's going to be chased.
And in fact, g four happens.
The knight goes to e one.
We have Bishop C eight and now eight times B five, nine times B five.
So black has the backward pawn, but with the center closed, it seems more likely for f five to happen.
We have Bishop C for Bishop D seven.
So one is for each thing.
Now Bishop takes B five because of rook times eight after so B five is guarded.
9c2 Quincy eight dd 2g6 might be four.
So it looks like logical targeting of a six.
We have Bishop G five, Rook five.
So building logically it looks like anyway on the A file Queen B seven might be free, so that safeguards
the rook a little bit.
More pieces are protected over there.
King G seven We have the rooks doubling and now five.
This is actually a mistake.
A bit too optimistic.
It seems as though Black could have played.
Knightly four This is a tactical move hitting the queen, trying to undermine the knight on B four.
If, for example, C takes the four, Queen takes B four, D takes.
So here Black actually does best not to take on E5 because of C five, but actually to keep some pressure
on the B file with the B eight.
So as an example, if E takes D six, C takes, whereas Black's compensation you might ask of the rook
takes a six.
So black has two free four against one, two, three, four, five, six.
So two pawns down.
But have a look at this possession for a moment.
Bishop f6 White's kind of pinned down and Black's going to put pressure on C four.
So this means that for example, a five there's going to be a concession and black's only one pawn down.
So yes, it does seem as though overall this is pretty dynamic, this whole situation.
But yes, very difficult to kind of for humans to play this kind of two pawns down temporarily.
But yeah, one point is coming back here.
Black's got all the pieces on full power.
If it takes 36.
If after Pardon me.
If after D takes E five, D takes E five white just gets a very strong position with 95 here.
So yes that's, that's no problem for white at all.
So anyway, let's get back to the game.
So why is f5a mistake?
Well, often it takes a six.
Black's idea is to do something with the F Queen B six offering a PC.
So very dynamic play from black.
So a temporary piece sack F takes E four.
And now.
Yeah, this is very interesting.
From the kind of control perspective and philosophy Y actually played C four, which accepts the idea
that Black will play Rook takes F two.
It looks like a really dangerous idea.
It turns out here there might be a much better way to handle this with AC five.
So interrupting the Queen from F two.
And this really does keep control of the position.
For example, here White's winning.
So what does Black do?
Rook takes aa5 is forced D takes Bishop C for white would have big control over the position here.
For example E free OC.
We can try and get some counterplay for black, but what ends up with a definite small edge the way
Karpov played it?
C four It does invite Rook takes F two and it's there is a bit of a backfire here, believe it or not.
So clearly if Queen takes F to bishop, free and white can resign here losing Queen, it's not enough
compensation, but complex idea does seem very clever.
C five however.
Let's see what happened, Rook.
Takes E two, C takes B six.
Bishop E free check King th one.
And now Bishop takes B five.
This position is rather dangerous for white.
For the record, Karpov's move is basically forced in the circumstance.
B seven If rook takes B five black and winning two different ways at least.
One is can you see at least one?
Yeah.
Rook takes a six, and there sure is counterplay.
White's back row is weak.
If we take the rookie, one is checkmate.
And the other way is even stronger.
It's slightly stronger.
G free.
So with the idea that if B seven rook h eight is just mating, H.M.S. rook takes h three check g takes
and rook h two.
So credit Karpov that actually B seven is the way to avoid total disasters.
So game on.
After B seven, we have B seven and eight.
So here black is actually if black gets one or two moves in, then G freeze dangerous.
And let me just put the basic idea on the board.
If he Jeffrey and let's say eight queening black would have a tactic when you see for five points.
Yeah black would have rook takes h free check and this is mate Rook H two So up off.
Does the right thing to get rid of the attacking piece.
And it looks as though why it's in total control.
So Bishop C4 Rook five to a free.
But actually it turns out here, this is the tail end of the combination and looks as though, well,
once just a rook up and past the annotate is just for black.
Didn't really get counterplay and white had control all the way through.
It turns out here, this is not entirely the case.
With modern engines.
We can actually assess this position more objectively.
Black Rook takes B2.
This is a big mistake.
More objectively on Bishop takes D5.
Look how many pawns Black has in the center.
So black is a rook down, but the knights stumbling around and.
For example, Knights A-6 Rook takes Be2.
What happens here?
Black's going to have to give a piece back.
It's starting to look very, very dangerous here.
And if this is one of the better moves, because if Knight see one bishop be six, what is happening
to these knights?
And meanwhile, black's got e free e two ideas.
So say rook g free rook have to this position.
Rook f one check.
Black's can end up potentially winning material.
Bishop D four check and taking on a one.
It's a very dangerous position.
If White's best is to give back material, the assessment really changes here.
Black's got a lot of pawns and in fact, black is actually clearly better.
So this is the funny thing about human positional chess.
From the perspective of control, it's slightly illusionary that White has complete control in this
particular position.
Why has extra material for sure.
But that's not a guarantee of positional control and authority.
But past Annotators just thought it was a completely controlled game.
Not quite.
So Rook takes beta is actually a mistake.
Like a five and black actually compounds things with Rook takes bait here and this makes things super
easy for Karpov.
Now, if Black had played Bishop free, this is technically equal.
So for example, like AC six, Bishop DD 297 Roxie two There's big problems that White faces it after
E three for example this possession as example.
If White's giving back material, Black's still got that e pawn black would have an advantage.
So with best play, this looks to be an even position.
But yeah, it's a messy, materially imbalanced balanced scenario.
But in the game.
Yeah, things were made easy after rook takes eight white just mopped up Knight take C four and why
is a rook up and black really hasn't got poor mobility or dangerous threats.
The counterplay has been taken out of the black position and yeah, Black's really got nothing to do
now.
King G two Rook B five Rook C one.
And this is the end of the game.
Here it is.
A rook up for white.
But yeah, say Bishop C five Rooks Free White can continue with an exchange sack and really get rid
of Black's pieces and totally zero the counterplay.
But yeah, it's a fascinating game from the perspective of past Annotators pre engineer actually believing
that Karpov had the counterplay completely under control.
Now we aspire to be positional and to crush the opponent's counterplay.
And sometimes, yes, there's this kind of thing where we're allowing attacks, but as long as we have
control, then it should be okay.
But sometimes, as we see in this game, it actually requires high precision moves.
So in this case, C4 is actually technically mistake, but to see all of that, to see even a rook up
that black's actually got a lot of compensation.
Yeah, it shows that we're really tourists.
Humans are really tourists in the game of chess, but at least we can have the ambition of positional
controls.
Control the position.
We can have the ambition, sure.
But sometimes the implementation isn't as brilliant as we thought.
So C4 is actually at the tail end of this.
Black has very good counterplay prospects, but black just ruins the continuations after.
So yes, it seems as though the way to really destroy the counterplay after taking that pawn, taking
the material on the queen side is this interruption move.
So this interference move, this would really shut down all the counterplay and yeah, the better move
would be for black to take on a five this position.
So it's funny.
Yeah.
This looks like it's visually safe not to invite all of that stuff.
Well, it has the pawn chain intact here.
Black's pawns are weak.
White should have a small edge.
Non controversially, but yes.
Och, but the thing is this is only Karpov 1968.
He's definitely got ambitions to shut down the opponent's counterplay and play without risk.
So his style is kind of a bit like Petrosian where Petrosian really didn't like losing and didn't like
taking risks.
So the positional player, ideally they really don't take any risk and they ideally aim for control
of position.
But in reality, yeah, chess is a very complex game to assess counterplay is a very difficult task,
but I thought I should show you this early game.
It does show that trademark of Karpov trying to destroy counterplay and even seemingly welcoming some
dangerous tactics here, but they are actually dangerous in effect, if we check with modern technology.
Okay, Thanks very much.