Art of Attack in Chess Read online

  First published in 2008 by Gloucester Publishers plc.

  Northburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street, London EC1V 0AT.

  Copyright © 2008 Vladimir Vuković

  The right of Vladimir Vuković to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher.

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978 1 85744 771 2

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  Everyman Chess Series

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  Commissioning editor: John Emms

  Assistant Editor: Richard Palliser

  Cover design by Horacio Monteverde

  Contents

  Preface by John Nunn

  Introduction

  1. The attack against the uncastled king

  2. The attack on the king that has lost the right to castle

  3. On castling and attacking the castled position in general

  4. Mating Patterns

  5. Focal-Points

  6. The classic bishop sacrifice

  7. Ranks, files and diagonals in the attack on the castled king

  8. Pieces and pawns in the attack on the castled king

  9. The attack on the fianchettoed and queenside castling positions

  10. Defending against the attack on the castled king

  11. The phases of the attack on the castled king

  12. The attack on the king as an integral part of the game

  Index

  Preface by John Nunn

  Attacking the enemy king is one of the most exciting parts of chess, but it is also one of the hardest to play accurately. Every chess player has had the experience of seeing a promising-looking attack crumble into dust, whereupon the enemy counter-attack sweeps aside everything in its path. Vuković’s excellent book The Art of Attack in Chess is a thought-provoking attempt to explain why some attacks succeed while other fail to reach their goal. The author himself points out that not everything in chess can be reduced to a set of rules, but the general principles he establishes in this book provide excellent guidance on when to launch an attack and how to ensure that it has the maximum chance of success.

  As usual with classic books I have edited. I will take a little time to explain exactly how I have prepared this new edition. First and foremost is the conversion to algebraic notation. In addition to this, I have added 128 extra diagrams and in some cases, where it seemed appropriate, I have added further moves from the quoted games (for example, by giving the actual finish instead of ‘and White won in another ten moves’). I have lightly edited the rather ponderous English of the original translation, and brought the method of displaying variations into line with current practice. The index of the original book included only complete games, but I have also indexed the game excerpts. In two of the complete games, Alekhine-Asztalos and Alekhine-Kmoch, I have brought the moves of the game into line with the move-order given in the original tournament books.

  There are also a fair number of analytical subnotes (denoted “JN” in the text). I hope readers will not form the opinion that Vuković’s analysis was especially unsound – this is certainly not the case. The fact is that most authors are prepared to quote the annotations of famous players uncritically, but Vuković brought his own talents to bear and subjected all the positions to careful analysis. Quite often the results were startling; in the well-known game Alekhine-Botvinnik, Nottingham 1936, he found a flaw which had eluded the many annotators who simply accepted the version of events Alekhine gave in the tournament book. Inevitably, the high percentage of original analysis implies a greater risk of the occasional slip, but personally I far prefer original comment to a bland recital of the ‘party line’. In any case, it is Vuković’s general principles which will prove of most value to the practical player, and here there can be no argument about the enduring quality of his work.

  Introduction

  Action is the essential basis on which the game of chess is founded and any action which contains a threat – i.e. attack in its widest sense – stands out as a prominent feature of the game. To the outside observer, a chess game is dominated by the conflict between the two players. The ultimate aim of each player is, as a rule, the mating of the opponent’s king, and an action with this aim, whether it is direct or indirect, is called an attack (in a narrower sense of the word) or a mating attack; that is the subject of this book.

  Being the most important action in chess and the central element of the game in ancient times, attack appears at all stages of the game’s development and in various forms of perfection. Moreover, it can be said that the reforms which have been made in the rules of chess have always been in the direction of increasing and stimulating the opportunities for attack.

  The great reform of c.1485, which created modern European chess, was particularly responsible for opening up new opportunities for attack and ushered in a period of rich development in chess technique. For three centuries of chess history, attack predominated over defence in the practice of the great players, and mastery at that time meant skill in conducting an attack. Only with Philidor did the first positional ideas appear, and with them more mature defensive strategies; these were to find in Steinitz a century later a legislator of genius.

  During the classic era of chess from Morphy to Steinitz and on to Lasker the value placed on attack gradually decreased, for with greater positional understanding the foundations were also provided for the perfection of defensive technique. This, however, was followed by a new period in which Capablanca, and particularly Alekhine, perfected the technique of attack, above all that of the attack on the castled position, founded on exact positional play. With Alekhine the aggressive and dynamic style of play reached a zenith; in the period which followed the tide again turned away gradually from the risks of the direct attack in search of new paths. The main reason for this is not to be found in any weakness inherent in the attacking style, but in the simple fact that, given the conditions of present-day tournaments, it is more profitable and advantageous to make a study of openings. Now, it must be understood that the present theory of openings represents a detailed development of Nimzowitsch’s ideas concerning the central squares. There are still many gaps to be filled and there is a wealth of opportunity for innovation; as a result, great masters are inclined to concern themselves intensively with openings and to opt for a ‘safety-first’ style. When this source of opening innovations begins to dry up, the problem of attack will present itself once more. The time may even come when the principles on which Alekhine built up his attacks will be completely understood, and those ideas which in the case of Alekhine had the appearance of a spark of genius will take on the more approachable aspect of attacking technique. It will be more convenient to discuss these questions at the end of the book. At this point it should be enough to point out that there exists an extremely large group of chess players, who are no longer beginners nor, on the other hand, masters or point-hunters, but players who aim primarily at deriving an aesthetic satisfaction from the game. For such players an attacking game is more attractive than positional technique and
they will continue to attack regardless of risk, for their stormy contests are not going to be noted down in theoretical textbooks. So why should such players not become acquainted with the general principles of attack and why should they not perfect themselves in that style of chess with which they are most at home?

  Various kinds of attack

  We have said that we shall deal with attack in its narrower, or proper, sense, where it involves a direct or indirect threat to the opponent’s king. Attacks of this kind can be distinguished according to the following categories.

  1) The main action is not in fact an attack on the king, but there is the possibility of such an attack latent in the position; some threat or other is being nurtured, or else the attack is concealed in at least one variation.

  Let us take the following position as an example:

  Here White makes the normal positional move 1 d4, which obviously does not represent an attack against the black king; but in one variation it contains the elements of mate. That is, if Black is careless, and plays for example 1 ... Bb7?, there then follows 2 dxc5, and Black has lost a pawn, since 2 ... Nxc5? is answered by 3 Qd4, attacking the knight and also threatening mate on g7.

  2) A player’s action really does contain a direct threat to his opponent’s king, but his opponent can stave off this threat at a certain price, e.g. by giving up material or spoiling his position.

  The vast majority of attacks in fact fall into this very wide category. A simple example is given by this position:

  White plays 1 Ng5, carrying out an attack on h7. Black has three practical alternatives 1 ... g6, 1 ... Nf6, and 1 ... Nf8. If 1 ... g6, then 2 Ne4 with the threat of Nd6, which gains a tempo; however, White’s main plan will be a further attack based on the weaknesses on the dark squares in the region of the king arising from the move ... g6.

  If 1 ... Nf6 White will no doubt again continue his attacking play, e.g. with 2 Bf4, preparing for Be5.

  However, on 1 ... Nf8, attacking play does not promise success, and White will be content with a positional alternative, playing 2 Ne4. Then Black cannot really prevent 3 Nc5, after which the knight will have a strong position on c5 and the black bishop will be poorly placed on b7.

  3) The attacker carries out an uncompromising mating attack, in which he can invest even a considerable amount of material, as long as he is certain of mating in the end.

  This is the third and highest degree of attack.

  We can categorize attack in another way if we take castling into account. Thus we have:

  1) Attack before castling, i.e. against a king which has not yet castled, and

  2) Attack against the castled king.

  Attack can also be divided on the basis of so-called mating patterns; of focal-points; of basic formations of pieces, files, ranks, and diagonals; of basic sacrifices; as well as by the stage which the attack has reached. These divisions according to the spatial, material, and temporal aspects of an attack will help us arrange the material so as to reveal the part played by each factor.

  The basic pattern of mate

  For mate to be obtained. the king must be deprived of nine squares if it is in the middle of the board, six squares if it is on the edge, or four if it is in the corner. Some of these squares may be blocked by the king’s own supporting pieces, but the rest must be taken by the attacker through the agency of his own pieces or pawns. If all the squares surrounding the king are taken from it – some through being blocked, others by being ‘in check’ – and if the square on which the king stands is also in check and without means of defence, then the king is checkmated. This is well known, and it seems rather banal to start out from this basic pattern or anatomy of mate; but in fact certain elementary rules can be formulated only on this basis.

  In the next position Black, to move, is unable to avoid mate in 4 different variations.

  He is threatened by 2 Bg7# (first mating pattern); If he plays 1 ... Kf6, there follows 2 Bg7# (second mating pattern); moving the knight leads to 2 Qe6# (third mating pattern); while if 1 ... gxf5, we get 2 Bg7+ Ke4 3 Qxd4# (fourth mating pattern).

  The final or mating position is called the mating pattern, and this term is especially useful when such a pattern is worth remembering. A mating pattern can be typical (i.e. one which frequently occurs) or atypical. We call a mate (or mating pattern) pure if none of the squares concerned is covered by two or more attacking units. Thus 1 ... Ne2 2 Qe6 is a pure mate, whereas 1 ... Kf6 2 Bg7 is not, though it would be if we were to remove the bishop on f5. Pure mates are valued in chess problems, but in practical play they are unimportant.

  In the mating patterns which we have seen, some of the black king’s flight squares have been blocked by its own pieces, while the rest have been covered by the opponent’s forces. The sum of these combined factors is known as a mating net.

  Mating square and focal-point

  The mating square is that on which the king stands when it is mated, and the mating focal-point is that from which an opponent’s piece (other than a king, knight or pawn) mates the king at close quarters. Thus in the above diagram, after 1 ... Ne2 the focal-point is e6, since it is from there that the queen mates at close quarters. Similarly, after 1 ... gxf5 2 Bg7+ Ke4 the queen mates at close quarters from d4, and that square is then the focal-point. However, if Black plays, for instance, 1 ... Bc3 and is answered by 2 Bg7#, then we are dealing with a bishop attacking from a distance, and here the term ‘focal-point’ is not used.

  To carry out a mating attack successfully it is always useful to survey the possible mating patterns, to prepare a mating net accordingly, and to concentrate on the focal-point. In this connection it is in many cases important to clear the focal-point, that is to deprive any opposing pieces of their control over a square which would be convenient as a focal-point.

  The following diagram shows us an example of this:

  White, to move, observes correctly that the square d4 is a potential focal-point and that his queen could mate from there, if it were not for its being controlled by Black’s knight and bishop. So he clears the focal-point d4 as follows:

  1 Rxe2 (eliminating the knight) 1 ... dxe2 (if 1 ... Kd5, then 2 f4#; if 1 ... Qc1 then 2 Qd4#; or if 1 ... f4, then 2 Qd4+ Kf5 3 Qf6#) 2 f4+ (forcing the bishop away from d4) 2 ... Bxf4 3 Qd4#

  Many readers will object that the patterns of mating attack shown here are so obvious, indeed banal, that they need not even have been mentioned. However, I think it is useful to strengthen just this simple kind of knowledge, since in fact there are many mistakes made precisely in this field. Here are a few instances of mistakes concerning mating patterns.

  * The attacker fails to perceive that he can neither stop his opponent from moving his king nor drive him into a mating net, but still plays for mate. Such a course of action is naturally futile, and though it may possibly produce perpetual check, it cannot produce mate.

  * The attacker plays on the basis of typical mating patterns, overlooking the possibility of an ‘atypical’ one in a particular continuation.

  * The player sees all the possible mating patterns based on one focal-point, but fails to realize that all this is cancelled out when the king moves, and that what matters then are new mating patterns, for which he has not made preparations.

  * The player decides on a course of action based on a certain focal-point, without realizing that he cannot provide cover for it or even clear it of the influence of his opponent’s pieces. Mistakes made in the selection of a focal-point will be found even in the games of the masters.

  So it is useful to get to know the general pattern and structure of mating; less experienced players are especially recommended to study games to see whether a player has made a mistake with regard to the pattern and, if so, where he has made it.

  The art of the mating attack

  We must now make some finer distinctions, and put a series of questions which arise out of the basic conceptions of a mating attack, and which at the same time also touch on the most difficult depar
tments of the art of chess today.

  How does a mating attack relate to the other operations which take place in a game of chess?

  How much is a mating attack conditioned by the actual position on the chessboard, and how much by the skill of the attacker?

  Where does the risk attached to a mating attack lie?

  About which points are the minds of players today still unclear with respect to carrying out a mating attack?

  The relationship between these questions can be easily perceived, although they are posed separately. A separate reply, however, cannot be given to each, and an attempt must be made to answer them collectively.

  Mate is the final aim and crowning achievement of the contest and the mating attack is the ultimate operation in relation to all the rest, which are only contributory. Consequently, the mating attack demands more preconditions than other operations. There exist a number of definite preconditions for a mating attack, and these combine to require a considerable degree of superiority on the part of the attacker. In the case where he has abundant superiority, great knowledge and ability on the part of the attacker are not necessary, but if his superiority just borders on what would justify a correct attack, then the maximum skill is also required in carrying out the attack. The Romantics knew little, but they had great confidence in themselves; the first small increase in knowledge diverted their style from its course. The new formula, still accepted today, is: carry out a series of preliminary operations, which require only a smaller degree of advantage, and then you will attain the abundant superiority which facilitates a mating attack. However the consequence of this is that there has been a failure to exploit the art of attack to the full and masters have been over-inclined to see a risk in an attack. It is still not clear what the minimum preconditions are, or what kind of advantage is necessary, for a mating attack. It may be a question, for example, of a single moment in a game which never returns. Another still unresolved question is that of a player’s skill in weighing up the obligations which he has undertaken when preparing for an attack. The order of his preparatory moves is extraordinarily important. The only really simple thing is the principle itself – that moves entailing fewer obligations should be carried out before those which are more strongly binding. Putting this principle into practice, however, demands great skill of a kind which is very rare – it was fully possessed by Capablanca and Alekhine, but by few others.