Sunday, January 6, 2008

Hanging Pawns (1) - Position

I am currently going through the excellent book "Hanging Pawns" by GM Mikhalchishin. Not sure why this book didn't get the deserving the publicity for the concepts. It contains rich varieties of hanging pawn positions from real games. The only downside is that not all variations are covered in the book and not a lot of subjective/verbal explanation of key concepts there. But that's what we can complete with self study. I am analyzing one position a day and will share my analysis with the group. Day one I'll publish the position and next day I'll share the analysis. here goes the first one


(HP 1) Timman - Ljubojevic

Belgrade, 1987



- All major and minor pieces on the board. So attacking opportunities are there for black who holds hanging pawns.
- White will try to exchange a few pieces to neutralize this and taking it to ending where he may have advantage
- Black is threatening d4 attacking the knight on c3 and when it moves he can play Qa2 liquidating to equal position
- Alternatively threat is Qb4 attacking Bh4 and then c4 when b2 falls
- Black's d-pawn is little loose (consider white queen is x-raying this and Bh4 is x-raying unprotected Be7. Similar is c-pawn with x-ray attack by Rc1

- White has to act now.


Please suggest white's next move and lets do a trees analysis for the variations. I expect it would take 20-30 mins.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have no time to analyze now, but possibly Qa4 would be a good move for white.

January 7, 2008 at 6:54 AM
Souvik Roychoudhury said...

Robin,

Qa4 is a good candidate move but black will exchange queens and play d4. He would stay atleast equal.

There is a better idea. I know you can find it. Try when you have time.

Souvik

January 8, 2008 at 6:09 AM
Anonymous said...

Perhaps the tactic of Bxf6, followed by Nxd5 or Bxd5, etc., works because of a later Rxc5 forking the queen and piece. So it seems Bxf6 is worth looking at, however, I do not know right now if it works. It looks like some great tactics. I will have time this weekend and will look more closely at it.

January 8, 2008 at 12:39 PM

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