The more I study his games, the more I wish I could play like him. He's incredible. Anyway, I was going over this game today and it really struck a chord with me. The game is Alekhine-Selesniev 1922. The reason I like it so much is this is pretty much exactly what I'm trying to change up in my game. Here's what I mean.

The following diagram occurs after 20...g6.



This is the type of position I'd look at and prefer black without thinking for more than two seconds. Black has the two bishops, a fairly safe looking kingside, and of course the far superior pawn structure. White, on the other hand, has a weak looking d-pawn and it's tough for me to find the compensation. I'd much rather have black. Well, Alekhine goes on to force resignation by move 33, just 13 moves from now. The way he plays so dynamically and mixes in tactics to achieve his goals is just fantastic.

Here's the full game and raw PGN.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=75170

Cool game with a nice exploitation of the a2-g8 diagonal.

That d-pawn does not look weak to me, though: hard to blockade and hard to attack. (I know you're exaggerating a bit for effect, but still.)

Indeed, the d-pawn is harder to attack than it first looked to me. My natural instinct in the position is to prefer black, with some combo of Bb7, Bf6->g7, the typical plans playing against the IQP.

I've got a general question about the game, if someone wouldn't mind helping me out. After 17.Bc2, Alekhine says the following, "An important move with the double thread 18.Qd3 followed by Qxb5; and 18.Be4, followed by Nc6, and on this account preventing black from completing his development by 17...Bb7".

I can't figure out black's problems that Alekhine mentions, I'm having trouble understanding this. Say black responds with something other than 17...Ba6, like 17...a6 and then 18.Be4 as Alekhine mentions. Is 18....Ra7 really that bad for black? I don't see what white's follow up would be, but Alekhine's annotations make it sound like that choice would be clearly worse. He doesn't mention 17...a6 or any alternative reply for black on this move to shed some light on what he means. I looked at it myself for a while, couldn't figure anything else out, then turned on Houdini. The engine seems to agree, as it evaluates several replies as roughly equal.

Any thoughts from the masses?

Yeah, I know, I'm just busting your chops because of the BBV thread. I'm also very sensitive to weakness on that diagonal/e6 sacrifice ideas recently.

There wasnt anything for white in the diagram position. After 21. Bb3 the obvious move is of course 21-Bb7 instead of the poor 21-Bc8. After that inaccuracy black made another bad one with 22-a6 (Black would still had been fine with 22-Qb6.), allowing the crushing 23.d5

You're severely underestimating white's resources - in particular e6 is very weak. After 21. .. Bb7 black has to worry about both 22. f5, 22. Nxf7, or even slower Qd3->h3 type ideas. All leading to very dangerous initiatives for white who also happens to be one of the strongest attacking players in the history of the game. Black probably felt he had a relatively safe position and was trying to lock down counterplay rather than jump head first into the storm and hope to come out on top. I think critiquing Bc8 is kind of annotation by result. If the game ended up being a model of a typical e6/f7 sac than a model of a typical d5 break then somebody might very well be critiquing the 'poor' Bb7 leaving e6 under protected.

Interesting replies. DiR is actually correct that e6 is weak in this particular position. The reason black didn't play 21...Bb7 is because of 22.Qd3. Alekhine actually addresses this variation in his game notes. After 21...B7 22.Qd3 a6, white has the very nice 23.Nxg6! hxg6 (fxg6 gets the same reply) 24.Rxe6!!, and if pawn takes, then Qxg6+ is coming. If black declines to take the rook, then 25.Rxg6+ comes next. 21...Bc8 was virtually forced by black.

I think 22...Qb6 instead of 22...a6 would have been much better. White is still pressing after 23.d5, but black really needed to get the queen off the d-file.

The move I really don't understand for black is 17...Ba6. Why turn the bishop into a tall pawn instead of play 17...a6 there? Was black really relying on a potential 18...b4 discovery on the f1 rook? If so, that's terrible. Alekhine isn't going to miss that and Re1 is a move white wants to play anyway. I thought about this 17...Ba6 move and can't figure it out. 17...a6 looks so natural that black had to have a good reason for playing Ba6 instead, I just can't figure it out.

Objectively speaking there is still nothing for white after 21-Bb7 in any of these lines:

1, 22.Nxf7 Rxf7 23.Rxe6 Qd7 24.Qe2 Kg7
2, 22.f5 exf5 23.Qe2 a6 24.Nxf7 Rxf7 25.Qxe7 Qxe7 26.Rxe7 Bd5=
3, 22.Qd3 can be met by Qb4 or sacing a pawn with 22-Kg7 23.Qxb5 Qb4 24.Qxb4 Bxb4 with compensation.

Agreed. Bishop does nothing on a6 (other than getting out of the way of the a8 rook).

Dumping houdini's top lines doesn't really mean much. It's pretty much a given that if Bb7 doesn't immediately drop material by force then a computer would strongly prefer it over Bc8 since the difference in mobility is drastic. That really doesn't mean much though. What matters is how the moves play over the board. This is also the sort of position where a short term houdini evaluation doesn't really mean much. I'm not stating I think Bc8 is clearly better than Bb7, but I'm curious if houdini would still want to play it after 24 hours of processing. It is an incredibly dangerous move and black's certainly 'asking for it' when he plays it.

Agreed, especially with the last line.

Not too many people willing to sac a pawn against one of the 2-3 greatest attacking players though.

It really is a shame you could never have a tourney with Alekhine, Bronstein, Fischer, Kasparov, Tal, maybe Stein all in their primes.
Even if you threw in a Tolush, Shirov, Morozevich, Velimirovic in a 2bl RR I bet they'd produce at least one sparkling gem and/or 15-round slugfest vs a World Champion I'd wager.

h4! announces the zugzwang, a classic signature that reappears here: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012683.

Alekhine was maybe unique among the top players of history. Some were clear and brilliant: Capa, Fischer. Some were offbeat and aggressive: Tal, Larsen. Some were infinitely patient: Botvinnik, Petrosian.

But Alekhine was just weird as hell, and no one understood what he did. His defence (1. e4 Nf6) captures that spirit.

Nice first post sir!

Welcome to the forums

Thought you were going to come in here to causally remark upon e6 sacrifice ideas (nice game and congrats).