Classic Combinations II
More of the most famous attacking games, from Botvinnik to Kasparov, taken apart move by move: the king walk, the deep sacrifice and the attack that comes from nowhere, with honest notes where the engine disagrees.
The first Classic Combinations course took the great sacrifices of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This one moves on to modern masters, whose combinations are often deeper: quiet moves in the middle of an attack, a king that walks up the board, a sacrifice whose point only appears ten moves later.
Each lesson takes one famous game. A checklist shows the key moments, each with the move that was played and a natural alternative that does less; then the combination move by move, the full game, and positions to solve. Where Stockfish disagrees with the legend, the lesson says so.
Lessons
- 1The King WalkThe king is usually kept safe until the endgame. But when the opponent's pieces are tied up and cannot give check, the king can walk up the board and join the attack itself. Short–Timman, 1991, is the most famous example.
- 2Deflecting the BlockaderA passed pawn is only held back by the piece in front of it. In Botvinnik–Capablanca, 1938, White offers a bishop to pull Black's queen off the blockade, then a knight to clear the way, and the pawn decides.
- 3The Queen Sacrifice That Hunts the KingRashid Nezhmetdinov gave up his queen for a rook check, and with a rook, two bishops and two knights chased White's king from e3 to a5. Polugaevsky–Nezhmetdinov, 1958, is one of the great attacking games.
- 4Kasparov's ImmortalA rook sacrifice on d4, a king chased from a7 to d1, and two quiet moves that decide the game. Kasparov–Topalov, 1999, is often called the greatest game ever played, and the engine shows both its brilliance and its flaws.
- 5The Pawn That Walks ThroughSpassky leaves a knight to be taken, gives up a rook, and lets a single pawn walk from h7 to f1. Larsen–Spassky, 1970, is one of the shortest and sharpest games ever played between two top grandmasters.
- 6The Attack the Experts MissedFischer sacrificed a knight on f2, another on g2, and opened the long diagonal to White's king. In the commentary room, grandmasters still thought White was winning when Byrne resigned.
How these lessons were checked
Every position comes from a real game, so every board is legal and every move can be replayed. Every recommended move is within 0.3 pawns of Stockfish's first choice at depth 22, or a mate. A move shown as working wins, or keeps the position; a move shown as failing is at least one and a half pawns worse. Every exercise has a single solution, at least one and a half pawns better than any other move, or the only mate. Every number in the text comes from the engine.