Today, I read my friend FM Alper Efe Ataman’s Facebook post on The Life and Games of Vasily Smyslov, Vol. 1 by Andrey Terekhov. The author provided an explanation in his book as to why Smyslov is overshadowed by other world champions, even though he played the candidates’ match final at the age of 63!
Essentially, Alper claimed that Smyslov’s style did not fit the popular taste of chess enthusiasts. In my opinion, most people love the style of world champions Alekhine, Tal, and Kasparov because these players typically target the enemy king immediately from the beginning of the game and thus create a dynamic game that can be understood easily. Chess professionals also have admiration for the styles of Capablanca, Smyslov, and Karpov because they know that imitating those styles is way harder!
Nowadays, almost all chess players know how to create mate attacks on the enemy king by solving a lot of puzzles. However, the route to building positional mastery is still not fully explored by many. The only recommendation could be to analyze the games of the positional masters from the past.
Game of the Week is: Pashikian, Arman vs. Ter-Sahakyan, Samvel
Pashikian has not been playing frequently, but it did not stop him from creating a positional masterpiece!
Critical Position (Black to Move):
Analysis:
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Edited by Della Almind
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