At the recently concluded Tashir International tournament that was held in the memory of Tigran Petrosian, there occurred a beautiful game in the last round. It was the game between two of the best players in the world.
Boris Gelfand had the white pieces against Peter Leko
The game was a positional masterpiece by Boris. To outclass a player of Leko’s caliber from such an equal endgame is not an easy task. Gelfand not only managed to do it but did so in smooth fashion. Let’s have a look at this brilliant game.
White is surely a tad better but how should he continue is the question.
Have a small think and then see how the Israeli player weaves his magic.
The above analysis might seem long and tedious but going over it carefully will surely improve your endgame understanding
Delightful endgame play by Boris Gelfand
From the above analysis two positions stood out for me:
The five White pawns gobbling up all the space on the kingside
This circular formation which can lead to very tricky pawn breakthroughs for White
Boris made excellent use of his pawns in the endgame. Starting from the move 18.g4, he was able to control almost the entire kingside using his pawns. Pawn play is a very important factor if you want to become a good endgame player and a good chess player in general. It is more subtle than learning tactics and computers (engines) are sometimes clueless regarding it. So how do we go about improving our understanding of pawns?
There are a lot of books out there, the most popular one being “Pawn Power in Chess” by Hans Kmoch. However, there is one DVD which I would whole heartedly recommend to each and every player below the Elo of 2200. It is “Power Play 5” by GM Daniel King.
The “Power Play 5 – Pawns” is an old DVD that was released in 2007 but it is one of those timeless classics. The DVD starts off with the following test position:
The above position was reached after 22 moves in the game between Ulf Andersson (an endgame
virtuoso) and Robert Huebner. The question asked by Daniel King: What should White play?
I was watching this DVD towards the end of 2007 when I was rated around 2200 and to tell you the truth I stared at this position for nearly an hour unable to understand what exactly White should be doing. The answer was a complete revelation and taught me the art of using my pawns which was unknown to me at that point.
Another very important topic which Danny covers in this DVD is the pawn structure of 3-3 versus 4-2.
The 3-3 versus 4-2 structure arises from various openings and hence,
knowledge of how to play them from either side can be very useful.
I really benefited from this section of the DVD, and whenever such a pawn structure has arisen I have more often than not known what is to be done. My handling of such structures improved and, it goes without saying, so have my results.
By giving you examples from games of great players like Capablanca, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Petrosian, Gligoric, Andersson, Kramnik, Dvoretsky and many more top players, Daniel King covers variety of topics like weak pawns, minority attack, crippling pawns, cramping pawns and much more.
Games of top class players + explanations by Daniel King is a sure-shot way to improvement
It is a DVD that prepares you for the different pawn structures that will keep on arising in your chess games. I have seen many ChessBase DVDs in my life but “Power Play 5-Pawns” remains closest to my heart and one from which I have learnt the most.
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Daniel King: Power Play 5 - Pawns
Price: €29.99 This DVD can be purchased as a hard copy or it can be downloaded directly from the Internet, that way sparing you the few days needed for it to arrive by post. Order this Fritztrainer in the ChessBase Shop |
