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Jan-23-19
 | | HarryP: I've never cared much for Botvinnik, but I love this game. It's a great one, to be sure. |
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Apr-12-19
 | | Messiah: Caissa had a huge smile on her beautiful face during this game. It is mind wrecking, how Botvinnik played like this. Astonishing, terrifying, mesmerizing, absolutely out of the reach for my comprehension. How could Mikhail Moiseyevich, how could any human being play in this style? Truly amazing, I am not able to construct words for it. I think 16.Rae1 was a very deep move, it is one of my favourite non-sacrifices, ever. |
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Apr-12-19
 | | keypusher: I played it over again and I think I "got" it a little bit more. It's not the winning combination or or avoiding the perpetual that makes it great; it's the whole game, which unrolls with grand simplicity starting from here, after 14.Qd3:
click for larger viewBotvinnik invites Capablanca to win a tempo with ...c4, and Capa takes him up on it! And from that point until 20.e5, it's as if neither one of them is even looking at the other side of the board, as each carries out his own plan: Capa hunting the a-pawn, Botvinnik pushing forward in the center. 
click for larger viewSo who is right? Capa's defense with ...g6 and ...f5 offers White the choice of a blocked position or and open e-file with the consequent exchange of material. Botvinnik takes the second course and here 
click for larger view 24.f5! Rxe1 25.Rxe1 Re8 26.Re6! Rxe6 27.fxe6 Kg7 The rooks are gone, but (as in so many of his games) Botvinnik has a passed pawn in the center. Will it be enough? 28.Qf4 (threatening Qc7+) Qe8 (finally, the queen comes back!) 29.Qe5 Qe7 
click for larger viewAnd the seeming stasis is broken by Botvinnik's next move. After 30....Qxa3, the rest of the game is basically a single, magnificent forced line. If you consider 30.Ba3 both as the gateway to a 12-move combination <and> as the final answer to the question posed by Capablanca's maneuver begun on move 14, it becomes a lot more impressive. And as Sally points out, the occasion and the opponent also matter, as in Lasker-Capa at St. Petersburg, the first game of Tal-Botvinnik 1960, Kasparov beating Karpov in the octopus game, etc. |
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Apr-12-19
| | keypusher: Everything I’m saying has been said already, of course. It’s hard to say anything original about this game, even if you limit yourself to kibitzing on this web page. Here are a couple of old posts by <Rookfile>: <People get all hung up on whether Ba3
is the greatest move or not. Spielman used to say to Alekhine: "I can see your combinations, it's the moves leading up to them that I can't see."It's the same way with this game. You're white, and you're playing Jose Raoul Capablanca, former world champion. You decided to abandon the queenside and lose a pawn, just so you can play Re1, f3, and e4, and hope to get in e5. You'd better be right, otherwise Capablanca is going to queen a pawn on that whole side of the board you abandoned.> and
<People have a misconception about
this game. They get all excited about moves like Ba3 and Nh5.
No, what sets this game apart is Botvinnik's 16. Rae1!! This is the
best move of the game, by far the deepest move. He is deliberately sacrifing a pawn on the queenside, but has worked out a plan to force through
e4 and get a strong kingside attack going. > I think the best comment is from <aulero> back in 2004. At the end of a nuanced post, he writes, <But it remains one of my favourite games: it seems to me a Renaissance architecture where you cannot move a single stone.> |
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Apr-12-19
| | Messiah: Exactly. 16.Rae1 is a move by an inhuman genius. |
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Apr-12-19
 | | MissScarlett: The Renaissance was known for a lot of things - its architecture isn't one of them. I never heard anyone say of the Sistine Chapel, <Great ceiling, shame about the painting.> |
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| Apr-12-19 | | ughaibu: <I think the best comment is from <aulero> back in 2004. At the end of a nuanced post, he writes, <But it remains one of my favourite games: it seems to me a Renaissance architecture where you cannot move a single stone.>> Don't you think he should have mentioned that the metaphor was pinched from Reti, when talking about Rubinstein? |
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Apr-12-19
| | Messiah: Sorry for the numerous posts, but I am incapable to stop praising Botvinnik. In the last, say, 20 years I replayed this game a numerous times, and today it suddenly popped into my mind again. It is an unexplainable, incomprehensible, hopeless mystery for me, how a mortal human being can come up with an idea like 16.Rae1. This move, the whole idea is such an extremity, such a profound brilliancy, that it is a billion light years beyond anything I know about chess. And then, that Ba3 line... We saw much more shocking tactics, of course, however, it is still a fine closure of the game, and it is not that very easy to calculate it, this is out of question. |
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Apr-12-19
| | keypusher: <MissScarlett: The Renaissance was known for a lot of things - its architecture isn't one of them. I never heard anyone say of the Sistine Chapel, <Great ceiling, shame about the painting.>> Really? The Duomo in Florence? St. Peter's? This trifle from the Loire? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3... Palladio? Anyway, it appears that your quarrel is not with me, but with Richard Reti. < ughaibu: <I think the best comment is from <aulero> back in 2004. At the end of a nuanced post, he writes, <But it remains one of my favourite games: it seems to me a Renaissance architecture where you cannot move a single stone.>>
Don't you think he should have mentioned that the metaphor was pinched from Reti, when talking about Rubinstein?> Well, I would look a little less silly if he had. |
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Apr-12-19
 | | Diademas: Wikipedia has a long article dedicated to Renaissance architecture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renai... And before anyone goes *pfh Wikipedia*. So has Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/Rena... |
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| Apr-12-19 | | ughaibu: Keypusher: You don't recall Reti saying of Rubinstein's games that there're like constructions from which not a single stone dare be shifted? |
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Apr-12-19
 | | beatgiant: <ughaibu>
I recall the following: Rubinstein vs Nimzowitsch, 1907
"This well-knit position with its extraordinary economy and ideally posted forces is akin to a Greek work of art. Nothing should have been changed in this position seeped in perfection." |
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| Apr-12-19 | | JimNorCal: Regardless of the proper metaphor, it's a joy to read fellow chess lovers express their appreciation for this masterpiece. |
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Apr-12-19
| | keypusher: <ughaibu: Keypusher: You don't recall Reti saying of Rubinstein's games that there're like constructions from which not a single stone dare be shifted?> I don't. I liked Reti's problems, his potboilers not so much. |
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| Apr-13-19 | | ughaibu: Beatgiant: Reti, Nimzowitsch, I guess it's the same under some interpretations of hypermodernism. Keypusher: Fair enough. |
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Apr-25-19
| | beatgiant: <ughaibu>
You were right about Reti. "His [Rubinstein's] games create the impression of a great structure from which no stone dare be lifted." (from _Modern Ideas in Chess_) |
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| Apr-26-19 | | ughaibu: Beatgiant: Thanks, nice to know that my memory is reliable, at least on some occasions. |
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| Apr-28-19 | | N.O.F. NAJDORF: I remember when, in ITV's Duels of the Mind, the late Donald Woods asked whether black could have declined the bishop sacrifice. Raymond Keene dismissed the idea on the ground that 'the pawn comes to e7 and queens.' He got it wrong.
It is the white BISHOP that comes to e7 with decisive effect, the Nimzo-Indian's drawback being the weaknesses on Black's dark squares. |
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Apr-29-19
| | NM JRousselle: I hate to pile on, but I also think this game is somewhat overrated. Botvinnik's win against Alekhine in the R&Kt vs R&Kt ending in this same tournament is a much more impressive game. Yet, somehow, it gets overlooked. |
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Apr-29-19
 | | perfidious: While I have no dog in this particular fight, I agree with <Mr Rousselle> that Botvinnik's win from Alekhine was outstanding and believe the reason was that it was of a rather different character than this game: no pyrotechnics, but a boa constrictor display which would have done the likes of Capablanca, Fischer or Karpov proud. |
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May-02-19
| | keypusher: <perfidious> <jmrouselle> And my own favorite game of Botvinnik from this tournament, if not this one, is Botvinnik vs Reshevsky, 1938 |
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Jan-18-20
| | Messiah: <MariusDaniel: Absolutely Fantastic chess game,one of the best ever,for sure!> I completely agree. This is still my #1 favourite game in the entire chess history. |
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Apr-02-20
| | HarryP: 16.Rae1 thrills my mind; 30.Ba3 thrills my soul. |
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| Apr-29-20 | | damafe: I don´t understand why Leela Chess Zero can´t find Ba3, but Stockfish does. |
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Apr-29-20
| | MissScarlett: Caruana in one of his commentary stints on Chess24 said that Leela was strange in that could it miss a mate in 3, but also find ideas that Stockfish couldn't. I suspect many of the top players don't understand nor care to understand the mysteries of chess programming: (....)
<In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a device, system or object which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs (or transfer characteristics), without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). Almost anything might be referred to as a black box: a transistor, an engine, an algorithm, the human brain, an institution or government.> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black... |
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Kibitzing
sac: 30.Ba3
