Pawn breaks and piece domination with Karpov

August 16, 2020 NHaselton Hanging Pawns

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Anatoly Karpov at the age of 10, playing a tournament in Zlatoust, his home town.

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Anatoly Karpov – Ziuliarkin, Zlatoust 1961, Closed Sicilian

Karpov played a very non-theoretical opening system in this game. Unlike his style later on, he was obviously prepared to “just play chess” when he was very young.

In this game he played the Closed Sicilian in a KIA/Grand Prix hybrid. The game was very interesting positionally and strategically, and both sides had chances, but a dreadful blunder led to Karpov simply winning a piece and the game.

The prelude to that was very instructive though; pawn breaks, liberating sacrifices and dominant pieces.

#chess

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