Chess News
Master Class Vol.6: Anatoly Karpov
On this DVD a team of experts looks closely at the secrets of Karpov's games. In more than 7 hours of video, the authors examine four essential aspects of Karpov's superb play.
On Saturday, Anatoly Karpov was still a guest at the 13th Congress of the Russian Chess Federation. The next day, the 12th World Chess Champion was already in China, specifically in Harbin, located in the north of the country, in the Amur province, where he played a match with Hou Yifan.
After the Russian occupation of Manchuria in 1898, Harbin was one of the stations of the Trans-Siberian Railway: a number of Russian-style buildings still characterize the cityscape. After the Second World War, Harbin remained occupied for some time by Russian troops, before 1946, when Chinese Communists took over the city and used it as a base in the Chinese Civil War.
Karpov and Hou played six rapid games with 15 minutes plus 10 seconds per move for each player. Karpov took an early lead with a finely played positional game and then increased his victory in the second game. Hou won the third game. The fourth game ended in a draw. With a victory in the fifth game, Karpov decided the match with a game to spare. On the white side of a Benoni defense from Hou, Karpov proceeded with careful and prudent play, which eventually resulted in a strong counterattack.
The last game was perfunctory, and Karpov lost without much of a fight, resulting in a final match score of 3½ : 2½.
An ambitious setup against the Benoni
The topic of this 60 minute video clip is the major idea of the 8.h3 0-0 9.Bd3 line. It has not won much love among defenders of the Benoni - White players are coming dangerously close to realising the dream of squeezing the opponent.
