Since my return from vacation I have returned to Yusupov and here is a position from a 1978 game of the authors which I found intrinsically interesting.
Here is the position with Black to move:
The correct move here is 21…d5, and the reason is that it prevents castling. After all 22.0-0 Qc5+ is brutal.
So by playing …d5 Black accomplishes a couple of things, but chief among them is the prevention of White from castling.
Here is the entire game:
One reason that I find this position to be so interesting is that it pays tribute to a saying of Shirov in one of his recent DVD’s, which is that tactics “exist within the variations” of high level games. Meaning that while the combinations themselves rarely appear over the board, the threat of them still controls the play as it does here.
So in the initial position above the important thing to remember is John Nunn’s maxim LPDO (loose pieces drop off) which in this case means that Black is able to take advantage of White’s loose bishop by preventing castling.
It’s all about the approach.
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott