[Note that Jon Speelman also looks at the content of the article in video format, here embedded at the end of the article.]
When I checked just now, I was unsurprised to confirm that Australia is the continent with the greatest variety of venomous animals.
Many of these are creepy-crawlies, and it was in connection with creepy-crawliness that I was looking, since today we examine the most toxic of concepts: the creepy-crawly (or as people actually say) creeping move.
This is typically a tiny move with the queen shifting just one square to change the tactics; hard to find, they often have a huge effect, far beyond their visual impression. I’ve also included a second type of move which I personally sometimes miss: collinear moves, in which typically a rook goes some way along a rank or file but not where you are expecting. And a third, in connection with one of my games with Garry Kasparov — I don’t quite know what to call it, in which a piece lands on a hook which was unexpected, at least by me.
I have a feeling that there’s a game by Smyslov (at least I think it was Smyslov) in which, as White, he played something like Qd5-c5 — certainly a one-square queen move round about that part of the board — and it proved decisive. Irritatingly, I can’t find it, and if readers would like to help me out in the comments it would be much appreciated.
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When I searched for creeping moves, I instead found a nice win by Boris Spassky [pictured] against Viktor Korchnoi in their Candidates final match in Kiev 1968. (Incidentally, Spassky won this one 6½-3½; I confused it for a moment with the CT final in Belgrade 1977, the humdinger both on and off the board which Korchnoi won 10½-7½, but not before losing four games in a row at one stage).
Next I’ve got a famous Karpov v Spassky game with a glorious retreat. Apart from this, it has several small but deadly moves, most notably Karpov’s 27th.
Then there are a couple of games with collinear rook moves: not so difficult to see in theory, but both of which I was at least a little surprised by when I first saw them.
And finally one of the games I drew with Garry (I had a pretty large minus score but nothing like as bad as against Ivanchuk) in which both 27.Rd4 and — despite being forewarned — 37.Rf4! surprised me at the time.
Creepy-crawlies are fun — at least if they are half a world away. They can be difficult to find during a game, but may have a huge effect. I’d be delighted to receive more examples of these from readers to use in future columns.
Garry Kasparov | Photo: Dutch National Archive
