Black's rook cannot help it's pawns advance and also stop White's a-pawn (e.g. 48...e2 49.Re8 f3 50. a6 Rf1 51. a7 Ra1 52. Kxf3 and White draws.) Black needs to keep his rook there and use his King to stop the a-pawn. But the King to too far away for this. However there is a tempo gaining King route with 48...Ke7!!

By taking the e8 square away from White's rook, Black now threatens to win at once with 49...e2. To reestablish access to e8, White is forced to send Black's King exactly where it wants to go!

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Korchnoi points that out that 10 Qb3 allowed him to complete his development at Smyslov's expense. Smyslov said that 10 Qe2 was the correct move, followed by e4 and e5.

Vladimir Simagin played 10 Qe2 against Korchnoi in 1956 and won easily.

See:

Simagin vs Korchnoi, 1956

According to Korchnoi, this was the first game of the tournament (USSR Championship) and Smyslov says he was not playing at normal strength.

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Korchnoi initially feared 15 Qxe6 f7xe6 16 b4 trapping the Queen. But after 16... Nd5 17 bxa5 Nxc3 black has a decent game.

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At 16... Rac8 Korchnoi offered a draw to Smyslov and was declined. Korchnoi said this altered the dynamic of the game and that Smyslov felt psychologically compelled to play for a win at this point.

Korchnoi felt that 17 Bf3 Rc4 18 Bxf6 Bxf6 19 Nbd6 Nxd5 20 Nxd5 was drawing but Smyslov wanted more.

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Both players had time trouble, but Smyslov suffered the most and even went down a second pawn. Korchnoi never felt sure of the win due to Smyslov's excellent endgame reputation.

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Korchnoi said this game was played under classic time control (2.5 hours for 40 moves). The game was adjourned at move 40 and finished a few days later.

<Actually, Korchnoi won. Did you mean that Korchnoi was the one that won easily?>

Yeah, you are right about the result.

However, Korchnoi says about Qe2 and Simagin verbatim: "Simagin played Qe2 against me and got quickly an absolutely won game by playing e4 and e5 quickly."

This is the position after 14.Ne6!

click for larger view

Thanks, that makes sense!

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The other interesting thing Korchnoi says about this game is that he had prepared at home to play the Grunfeld Defense and had his mind set on it.

He considered Smyslov's first move 1 Nf3 a novelty and was literally dumbstruck about how to respond. He says he never thought you could open a chess game with 1 Nf3 !!! :) It was the first time he faced it.

Since Korchnoi prepared the Grunfeld he tried to steer the game back in that configuration after playing c5, etc.

Hmmm... really? OK, I can believe this was Korchnoi's first win over a GM because the GM title was first awarded to about 20 people in 1950 and Smyslov was one of them. But that he had never considered that a game could start with 1.Nf3? Korchnoi was already 21. It sounds like he is embellishing things here.

In fact, he is. I looked up Korchnoi's games with the Black pieces before 1952 and found the following examples of Korchnoi facing 1.Nf3 before the game with Smyslov:

Kan vs Korchnoi, 1951

Chistiakov vs Korchnoi, 1951

Aronson vs Korchnoi, 1947

Despite the result, it seems Korchnoi counts the game as a loss.>

Korchoi meant that Simagin got a winning advantage, which can be easily seen from the game.

However, Simagin later lost this advantage (perhaps in time-trouble), and Korchnoi "snatched victory from the jaws of defeat."

(About1.♘f3)