Understanding before Moving 55: Pawn vs knight (2)

by ChessBase
11/28/2021 – Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books about chess training and chess strategy. In the 55th instalment of his ChessBase show "Understanding before Moving", Herman continues to talk about pawns which terrorize knights. | Photo: Tommy Grooten
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In the previous episode we talked about the fact that a knight which is two squares away from an enemy pawn might run into problems. Especially if the knight is wedged against the edge of the board – then the pawn can reduce the activity of the knight quite a bit.

That the great masters knew how to deal with such a theme can be easily verified by studying their games. In the video below I present two games, one by Garry Kasparov and one by Anatoly Karpov, in which they both show how a pawn turns a knight into a spectator.

Kasparov's game is particularly impressive because he managed to carry out his strategic by tactical threats which kept his opponent continuously busy.

Do you have an idea what Kasparov played in the diagram position? And can you explain why this was a good idea?

 

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