Raymond Keene

Role model

World champion Magnus Carlsen is not competing in the Batumi Olympiad (of which more next week). Doubtless he is conserving his strength for his title struggle against Fabiano Caruana in London in November.
 
This lull gives me the opportunity to mention a new book about the great Emanuel Lasker, champion from 1894–1921, a role model of Carlsen’s. Lasker’s forte was to keep the ball in play through thick and thin in order to avoid draws. The same trait is evident in many of Carlsen’s victories, often achieved from risky situations. Notes to the following game are based on those by Zenón Franco in the forthcoming book Lasker: Move by Move (Everyman Chess)
 
Tarrasch-Lasker: World Championship, Germany (Game 2) 1908; Ruy Lopez
 
1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Nf6 4 0-0 d6 5 d4 Bd7 6 Nc3 Be7 7 Re1 exd4 8 Nxd4 0-0 9 Nxc6 Bxc6 10 Bxc6 bxc6 11 Ne2 Qd7 Not 11 … Nxe4 12 Nd4 winning. However, the text move is also poor, mainly because it takes away the d7-square from the black knight. 12 Ng3 Rfe8 13 b3 Rad8 14 Bb2 Tarrasch has exploited Lasker’s faulty plan. The white knight will soon jump to f5, which combined with Qf3 looks very threatening. Lasker finds an ingenious response to keep the game complicated. 14 … Ng4 15 Bxg7 Nxf2 In his classic book, Masters of the Chessboard, Reti now advocated 16 Qd4. 16 Kxf2 Kxg7 17 Nf5+ Kh8 18 Qd4+ f6
19 Qxa7 (see diagram 1) White has won a pawn and has a big advantage, but the greatest threat to the black king, namely White’s dark-squared bishop, has disappeared. 19 … Bf8 Black’s king is now out of danger, at the cost of a pawn, and he has a clear plan, which is to apply pressure to the isolated pawn on e4 by doubling rooks on the e-file, with the idea of an eventual … d5.






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