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Tigran Petrosian vs Axel Nielsen
Nimzowitsch Memorial, Copenhagen (1960), Copenhagen DEN, rd 9, Aug-17
Dutch Defense: Hopton Attack (A80)  ·  1-0

ANALYSIS [x]

FEN COPIED

Annotations by Raymond Keene.      [405 more games annotated by Keene]

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Kibitzer's Corner
Aug-26-04  Republic of Texas: This game is from the Nimzovitch Memorial Tournament which Petrosian won [+10 =3 -0] ahead of 2] Geller, 3] Stahlberg, and 11 others.
May-02-05  fgh: Great stuff.
May-11-05  dippel: Here you can see a picture from the game - Axel Nielsen vs Petrosian - exactly at move 6. Ngf3 in Copenhagen 1960: http://www.kemikeren.dk/Petrosian.jpg
May-11-05  ranchogrande: and if we look closer at the picture<dippel> ,we can see that Petrosian already on move 6 is trying to take his lesser experienced opponent into likely new teritory!(new for Nielsen).
Mar-09-10  YoungEd: Perhaps Black should have castled on move 6. White's ♕ on b3 is very strong. If I were Black, I might have tried 7. ...e6 and 8. ...d5, setting up a Stonewall. That might have afforded better defensive opportunities desite the loss of a tempo or two.
Aug-19-12  backrank: Like in the better known game Petrosian vs S Schweber, 1962, but even more drastically, Petrosian shows here the superiority of the knight pair over the bishop pair. After move 12, Tarrasch would probably have said that in his bishop pair, Black has sufficient compensation for his disrupted pawn structure:


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Maybe Black has believed this; but Petrosian shows very clearly that it is not the case. With seemingly effortless elegance, only 5 moves later he has achieved a position where Black's pieces lack any chance of activity, now and in the future:


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After move 22 and a pawn sac by White the position looks like this:


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Quite a long time ago, Lasker has taught us that the two knights are strongest when standing side by side, and weakest when protecting each other (as they do in the above position), but again Petrosian falsifies that rule. He wins by an elegant manoever which is on each move based on a potential knight fork on e6 which Black has to avoid until he can't escape:

23 Rxf8! Kxf8 (Qxf8 24 Ne6+) 24 Nxg5 hxg5 (Qxg5 25 Ne6+) 25 Qb7!


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And now 25 ... Rd8 fails to 26 Rxd8 Qxd8 (?) 27 Ne6+. Very pretty!

Feb-27-18
Premium Chessgames Member
  Black Vampire: It´s curious that in a game from the Nimzovich Memorial Tournament Petrosian doesn´t employ Nimzovich´s Triangle, but the Saragossian one!!
Oct-07-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  kingscrusher: Nimzovich would be proud. Nimzovich's favourite blockade is a Knight in front of doubled pawns. Petrosian engineers that scenario well in this game. It echoes a little bit of playing a nimzo-indian in reverse with the Bb5xc6 moves.
May-20-23
Premium Chessgames Member
  plang: Very original, creative effort; 25 Qb7 was cute.

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