Alatortsev!

Dear chess lovers, just a moment to share something, in my free-association way!

GM David Bronstein wrote a wonderful book called "200 Open Games".

These are all games that start with 1.e4 e5.

The book is very well organized, and goes through Bronstein's games in this opening, all the way from King's Gambit to Giouco Piano and Ruy Lopez. Most of the games are wins; yet Bronstein publishes at least two losses, if my memory serves me right- one against Nezhmetdinov, and one against Alatortsev.

I have had this book for a few years now, and there are many jewels in it; I highly recommend it.

Fast forward to a year or so ago, when I bought Sergey Voronkov's 3-volume set titled "Masterpieces and Dramas of the Soviet Championships". These books are legendary! They contain many annotated games, but also stories and chronicles as to what was the human and chess players' dramas when these tournaments were being played. The amount of research that went into this books is mind-boggling. Mr. Voronkov could present these books as a doctoral thesis, in my opinion; that is how well -researched they are.

Now, leafing through Vol. III, I found a game where Alatortsev beats Keres from the Black side of a King's Gambit. Between the victory against Bronstein and the one against Keres, two great attacking players, I figured this Alatortsev guy is pretty good on defense and counterattack. He also had to be very sound positionally, because Keres and Bronstein were both great positional players as well!

Now, I am a big fan of Russian and Soviet chess.....the level of play that was achieved, all the way from Chigorin to Kasparov, is quite amazing! Talent was spotted at a young age, and in the Palace of Pioneers children often met great coaches who loved chess and had a great chess culture. Thus, Petrosian met Ebralidze, Tal met Koblencs, Bronstein met Konstantinopolsky, and the list goes on and on!

But back to Vladimir Alatortsev.....the game with Keres is annotated by Alatortsev. You can find it on page 256 of Vol. III of "Masterpieces and Dramas of the Soviet Championships".

Ok, now to the games!

The game Bronstein-Alatortsev was played in the 1944 USSR Championship.

1944 USSR Championship

Alatortsev did not do well, but his three victories were against Bronstein, Mikenas and Ravisnky.

Here is the game against Bronstein:

Bronstein writes:

"Playing against Alatortsev was very much like fighting a windmill. In themselves all White's moves were strong. Who could object to such solid maneouvres as Ng5, Qg4, h4, Rf1, Rae1 and f4?

On the surface everything was correct; the only thing was that each of these moves was made at the wrong time and was irrelevant.

So many choice moves. There was enthusiasm, but as yet no mastery.

Moreover, White began sounding the retreat too early. Since the knight had decided to go to g5, then it should stay there;....hxg5 would not have been that good for Black, even if his bishop could escape from f6 to d8. The h-file would become open and White, whose pieces were deployed close to Black's King, could in favorable circumstances have penetrated to h8.  I am saying all this to justify the manoeuvre 18- Nd2-f1-g3-h5! and in criticism of the timid retreat 18.Nh3?.

Most probably White would have lost even if he had adopted that plan, but at least there would have been something of a fight, instead of his waiting passively to capitulate.

As I look through this game more carefully now, I can see that White was wanting to avoid at all costs the systematic, strategical type of game in which my opponent is still today reputed to be a great authority."

The game against Keres was played in the 1950 USSR Championship.

1950 USSR Championship

In this tournament Alatortsev did better, with victories against Lyublinsky, Keres, Borisenko, Bondarevsky and Lipnitsky (who placed 2nd!).

Here is the game against Keres:

(From page 256 in Vol. III of Voronkov's "Masterpieces and Dramas of the Soviet Championships")

Gambit Passions

V. Vasiliev: "as we know, Keres is a King's Gambit expert. He regularly uses this opening in actual games and dedicated a lot of pages to it in his opening handbook. They say that Keres gave Alatortsev a signed copy of the book with a friendly inscription suggesting t try this promising opening. And while Alatortsev hasn't become a King's Gambit fighter yet, he did take advantage of the gift: his defensive system is indeed one of the strongest 'antidotes' to this opening......"

A nice story, but untrue: Alatortsev couldn't have possibly "taken advantage" of that gift, because the second volume of Theory of Chess Openings: Open Games with the chapter on the King's Gambit was only published in 1952! From where then did Vasiliev get the 'lot of pages' alleggedly dedicated to that gambit? He just made it up. Or more accurately, this was a conjecture: there was no volume number on what proved to be the first volume (1949), and he decided that the book encompased all open games.