One of the things that we learn as we progress in chess is that having more space means having an advantage.
Here is an amazing example where that is not the case. In this game Lautier builds up a sizeable space advantage against the German GM Nispeanu, but at the cost of a lack of king safety.
Nipeanu coolly and calmly maneuvers his pieces into place and then smashes open the position and suddenly Lautier’s advantage becomes a wide open field for his opponents pieces to start charging through.
The annotations are from English GM Peter Wells. This game appears in Chessbase Magazine 130 from June 2009.
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott
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