Brown: Brown: In McDonald's recent book, "The Giants of Strategy," he describes Karpov's style as a base-line style, where he often maneuvers in his own half of the board, and often back to the first rank, to organize and influence the entire scene of battle.The more I review Bronstein's games, the greater sense I get of his patience, his willingness to return his pieces "home," and his overall flexibility at the board. There is also, in his best games, this "waiting" quality, of having set-ups that are sound, and dynamic, but often not outright aggressive.
So the similarity I see between Karpov and Bronstein is a knack for being very protective of their pieces, keeping them somewhat close to the chest, but very flexible. Karpov's use of the QID and Bronstein's KID are brothers in this sense, though each fits the users very different personalities.
On moves 17 and 32, Bronstein moves the same N back and forth, no attachment to tempi used. Black is up a pawn and has pieces swimming through white's Q-side. By the time the time control hits, White is down two pawns, but, remarkably has all his pieces on good squares, and one sees how poor black's B is sitting on d6.
The gem move of this game is 55.Qb1, which is a rare late-middlegame zugzwang. If the N moves white replies Rf8, if the R moves white replies Nf8, if the Q moves the R is lost or white replies Qb8.
Black has a choice, then, of 55..d5 or 55..Kg8. If 55..Kg8 56.Qb3 d5 <56..Qe8 57.Rf8+> 57.Qb6 with play similar to the game. The black K may prove even more vulnerable to back rank threats on g8.
59.Qa7 is pretty, but all the hard work was done by then.
Kibitzing
