A few years ago I lost a game on the White side of the Slav because my opponent won my c pawn and I went full blown panic thinking I had to win it back immediately rather than let him hold on to the pawn while I built up my position.
Since then I have learned the importance of other elements such as time and space rather than being so materially minded, which is why I can appreciate this game between Sasha Grishchuk and Lev Aronian from Bilbao 2009.
Granted, this game is in a line of the Semi-Slav, but same idea. In this position Black has temporarily won White’s c pawn.
White builds up some nice advantages, and then Black sacs an exchange – I presume since the dark squares around his king look a bit tender.
After some mutual positional pawn sacs being down the exchange proves to be a bit too much for Black and White converts a nice opportunity.
Here is the game, with annotations by the well-known attacker, Polish GM Michal Krasenkow. This comes from Chessbase Magazine issue 132.
If you’re not familiar with Krasenkow you should listen to Ben Johnson’s Perpetual Chess Podcast interview with him here. You can (and SHOULD) order Krasenkow’s recent book on his best games here.
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott
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