Enough is enough – let's look at Karpov

Dennis Monokroussos writes:

After three weeks of insanity, we'll calm down a bit and take a look at a masterpiece by one of the three greatest players of all time (at least through, say, the mid-90s). Karpov's style was, and continues to be, one of "active prophylaxis": like Petrosian, he is a genius at sniffing out and snuffing out his opponent's active ideas well in advance, but unlike Petrosian, he will generate active play on his own. This dual ability made him dominant over the rest of the world (except for Kasparov, of course) for an extremely impressive 20 year period.

For this week's show, then, we'll take a look at a beautiful illustration of his style in action, from his game with then up-and-coming GM Artur Jussupow (English readers of his books might be more familiar with him as “Yusupov”). Jussupow played the very active Open Ruy with Black, and was always a move or so away from proving full equality in the middlegame. Karpov had some slight pressure along the b- and c-files, but if Jussupow could just plug up the queenside gaps with ...Na5-c4, then all would be well.

Karpov, needless to say, did not let this happen! To see how he prevented it, and to fully understand how he did so, is to obtain a small glimpse into his art, and to deepen our own feeling for the game. What's also very interesting about Karpov's creative achievement in foiling Black's plan is its psychological effect. After 10 moves of preventing his ideas, Jussupow grew so flustered that although his position was only a bit worse by this point, he became overanxious to get some play, somewhere, and blundered a pawn. Having burned his bridges, Yusupov then launched a desperate attack on the White king. It failed, but Karpov had to play bravely and accurately to prove it – and Karpov's brave king walk adds to the luster of the game as well.

The game is a minor classic, and well worth examining for the opening, too – the Open Ruy is an important and very lively variation, one which I think many amateurs would do well to take up. See you there!

Dennis Monokroussos is 38, lives in South Bend, IN (the site of the University of Notre Dame), and is writing a Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy (in the philosophy of mind) while adjuncting at the University.

He is fairly inactive as a player right now, spending most of his non-philosophy time being a husband and teaching chess. At one time he was one of the strongest juniors in the U.S., but quit for about eight years starting in his early 20s. His highest rating was 2434 USCF, but he has now fallen to the low-mid 2300s – "too much blitz, too little tournament chess", he says.

Dennis has been working as a chess teacher for seven years now, giving lessons to adults and kids both in person and on the internet, worked for a number of years for New York’s Chess In The Schools program, where he was one of the coaches of the 1997-8 US K-8 championship team from the Bronx, and was very active in working with many of CITS’s most talented juniors.

When Dennis Monokroussos presents a game, there are usually two main areas of focus: the opening-to-middlegame transition and the key moments of the middlegame (or endgame, when applicable). With respect to the latter, he attempts to present some serious analysis culled from his best sources (both text and database), which he has checked with his own efforts and then double-checked with his chess software.

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