Opening Tactics - Part 6: Strike When You Are Ready!

Opening Tactics - Part 6: Strike When You Are Ready!

Introduction

The beautiful snake in the cover illustration of this blog post is a white-lipped pit viper (Trimeresurus albolabris).

I quote from Wikipedia: "This snake doesn't strike and release its prey; like many arboreal snakes, it strikes and holds on to the prey item until the prey dies."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimeresurus_albolabris

That's exactly what you should do with your opponents in your chess games too!

Bring your pieces into position so they are coiled to strike. Strike swiftly when you are ready. Once you got him, don't let go till victory is yours!

This is what all the great attackers did. Paul Morphy, Edgar Colle, Mikhail Tal.

Let's now look at a small selection of six instructive example games. To keep things balanced, I have included three victories for White and Black each.

A Selection of Instructive Games

I would like to get right to the good stuff with a game of my all-time favorite player, Mikhail Tal from 1951 when he was 15 years old.

"Great Game. The prettiest and most mysterious thing about it is Tal's putting his pieces where they create latent threats that add up to an overwhelming attack that without Tal's tactical vision seems to come out of nowhere." -- Comment by sorokahdeen on Oct-03-2013 at chessgames.com: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139158

Couldn't have said it any better!

Mikhail Tal -vs- Visvaldis Veder, Riga 1951:

French Defense, Alekhine-Chatard Attack, Maroczy Variation

What really impressed me most about this game is not so much the tactical fireworks, but how efficiently Mikhal Tal managed to activate his pieces in preparation. Chess pieces are team players. They like to work together - together we stand, divided we fall, as that good old song goes.

This game is a prime example of harmonious piece placement and excellent timing.

Sometimes an attack needs to happen fast. At other times you need to prepare it patiently and wait till the right moment before you strike.

Attacking prematurely, before your army is ready is foolish and leads to a bad loss more often than not. Waiting too long may mean that a good opportunity slips away.

The next two games will feature fast attacks.

When attacking, it is always important to have more pieces in the attack than the opponent can mobilize for his defense. When your opponent is behind in development and his pieces are not coordinated very well, that may be a signal that it is time to sound the attack!

Edgar Colle may be best known today for the Colle System(s), the Colle Zukertort and the Colle Koltanowski that have (at least partly) been named after him. He was also a fierce attacker, as the following game will prove.

Edgar Colle -vs- Frantisek Schubert, Scarborough 1928:

Queen's Pawn Game, Traditional Colle System

Sidenote: While all analysis and annotations I used in this blog are my own work, this game is also featured in a chess.com article by GM Grigory Serper which you can find here: https://www.chess.com/article/view/openings-for-tactical-players-colle-system
His articles are always a treat and this one is no exception.

For our third example game we move back in time yet farther, to the year 1907. Our teacher is no other than the great Hungarian Geza Maroczy. Best known for lending his name to the Maroczy Bind formation which can occur in the Sicilian Defense, he had the reputation of playing mostly a defensive style of chess. The following game will showcase his attacking skills.

Geza Maroczy -vs- Adolf Georg Olland, Karlsbad 1907:

Queen's Pawn Game, London System (Steinitz Countergambit)

Halftime!
Take a bathroom break. Grab another beer. Once you're ready to continue I have some more great attacking games to show you.

So far White has scored three victories. Time to flip the board around and even the score!

I started the introduction with a venomous snake. Now we move on to another animal - the hedgehog. Though less frightening in appearance you would do well not to underestimate it's attacking capabilities, as demonstrated in the following masterpiece by Dimitri Gurevich.

David J. Strauss -vs- Dimitri Borisovich Gurevich, USA 1985:

Zukertort Opening, Sicilian Invitation (Hedgehog Formation)

Above we have just studied two examples of fast attacks. To restore the balance we will now take a closer look at a game where patience is the order of the day. At first the black position may appear cramped, passive even. But there is a lot of latent energy which Gurevich releases at just the right moment with his impeccably timed 19...d5.

It does not always have to look like a very aggressive setup. Often things may look deceptively calm and quiet on the surface, before - seemingly out of nowhere - all hell breaks lose.

A word of warning: Playing in this style requires by far more experience and greater positional understanding than the more direct attacks in the previous examples do.

The Hedgehog is a formation Black (sometimes also White) can adopt from a number of openings. Perhaps most often seen in the Sicilian Defense and sometimes also in the Nimzo-Indian Defense. It is beyond the scope of this blog and certainly far beyond my expertise to go deeper into this opening system. For those of you who wish to study it in greater depth, I can recommend a DVD by GM Daniel King in his PowerPlay series; PowerPlay 12, if I remember correctly.

The books by Mihai Suba (2000) and Sergey Shipov (2 Vols, 2009) have a good reputation, but I have not read them myself and therefore cannot tell you any more about them, other than that they exist.

Sidenote: For the German speaking there is also an excellent chess website: https://www.herderschach.de/Training/ where Thomas Binder does a great job in introducing the Hedgehog. Folge 48: Igel-Stellung. There you will also find the Strauss - Gurevich game with his annotations. Analysis and annotations in this blog are my own except where explicitly noted otherwise.

No article on active development of pieces, no collection of attacking games would be complete without Paul Morphy. He needs no further introduction.

Napoleon Marache -vs- Paul Morphy, New York 1857:

Italian Game, Evans Gambit, Pierce Defense

Paul Morphy games being the exciting crowd-pleasers that they are, let's look at another one.

John William Schulten -vs- Paul Morphy, New York 1857:

King's Gambit Declined, Falkbeer Countergambit, Charousek Gambit, Morphy Defense

The moral of the story: Develop all of your attacking pieces before you launch an attack, but once your army is ready - STRIKE!

With this I conclude today's blog. I hope you enjoyed it and if you did I would appreciate a like. Constructive feedback is always welcome too. Were the example games too well known already? Would you prefer games you are less likely to have seen before? Please also check out my other blog posts. Thank you!