Robert Ris’ Fast and Furious: Painful losses for Kasparov in the Najdorf

by Robert Ris
7/15/2021 – This week, well-known Dutch trainer Robert Ris takes a look at the problems Garry Kasparov faced in the Najdorf, when he tried it in his blitz games of the Croatia Grand Chess Tour. | "Fast and Furious" is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
Pattern recognition is an important tool in modern chess, as it helps you to understand better the characteristics of a position. Particularly when you have been confronted with a surprise opening system played by your opponent, it helps when you can just

Whenever Garry Kasparov returns to the board the crowd gets excited, especially when he employs again his favorite Sicilian Najdorf with the Black pieces. On the first day of the Blitz section of the Grand Chess Tour he got to face the variation 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 none less than three times, but the choice of 7...Qc7 didn't work out well for him.

In all his three games with Van Foreest, Duda and Anand he got with problems out of the opening. For me a good reason to further investigate this particular variation and explain the key ideas for White how to fight for an advantage, combining both positional concepts as well as tactical motifs to build up quickly a massive attack against the black king. 

Exercise: With some precise moves Jorden van Foreest managed to win in just a few moves. Do you see White's winning idea?

 
J. Van Foreest - G. Kasparov, Croatio Grand Chess Tour 2021

You can move the pieces on the live diagram!

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Robert is an International Master who mostly spends his time training and coaching talented youngsters. On the PlayChess server The Fast and the Furious is a popular show where he explains sharp opening lines for a wider audience. He is also a well-known ChessBase author who produced numerous DVDs and regularly contributes to ChessBase Magazine as well. Since 2015 he is the organizer of the Dutch Rapid Championships in his home town Amstelveen. He has started a YouTube channel with chess analysis as well.

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