The following article was prepared for volume IV of the American Chess Journal by H3 publications. Unfortunately the Journal was discontinued, but perhaps this article will still be of interest to readers so I reproduce it here. I hope to put up the diagrams and game fragments shortly.

Karpov's Cosmic Connection
Matthew Bengtson
Anatoly Karpov's Best Games
Anatoly Karpov
Henry Holt, New York, 1996 (Batsford, London, 1996)
FAN, 175 pp., paperback, $25.00

The book Anatoly Karpov's Best Games is a natural reflection of its author. This is one book that can be judged by its cover: an exquisite close-up of the enigmatic FIDE champion, Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov, whose pose, lik the Mona Lisa, somehow eludes eye contact with the viewer. The straightforward title suggests that this is a serious book devoted solely to chess moves and ideas. Since both Karpov and his nemesis Kasparov have had Chess Life columns, the contrast between their approaches is well-known to American chess fans. In his column "Grandmaster Musings," Karpov prefers to discuss moves and games rather than the circumstances and politics surrounding them, and he does not reveal many details about the life of a world-class grandmaster. The present book is a similar example of his close-to-the-vest writing style.

Unlike his early book, the classic My Best Games (covering the period 1969-77), this volume uses the third person in the title. The change reflects the newer work's greater detachment, narrower focus on chess analysis, and unfortunately less vivacious presentation. The earlier book contained an interesting 17-page commentary on Karpov's life in chess, a table of his competitive results, a foreword, preface, photos (including family photos provided by Karpov himself), and indices of games by opponent and opening. The games themselves were also presented in an unusual order.

Anatoly Karpov's Best Games contains a scant two-and-a-half-page text introduction followed by 43 games won and annotated by Karpov, arranged in strict chronological order. One will search in vain for long asides and philosophical ruminations in the style of Kasparov. Nor will one find here the boyish charm and irreverent style of the young Bobby Fischer, illustrated in My 60 Memorable Games (Simon and Schuster, 1969) by such comments as "Petrosian keeps building without getting sidetracked - even by good moves" (p. 26). One will not find any photographs as in Karpov's earlier books (including Chess is My Life) or Kasparov's The Test of Time, or interviews with the press as in The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal. Nor will one find any losses or draws by the author, as one finds in the other books referenced here.

The Grand Tour

Such bells and whistles contribute to the color and charm of classic game collections. This book, however, is not meant to charm or to amuse, but to celebrate 25 years of successful tournament competition from 1969 to 1994, topped off by a phenomenal and historic performance at Linares 1994. It is also meant as an artistic collection of beautiful games - a museum tour as it were of Karpov's finest works of chess art - with the artist himself as the proud guide. But at times it seems that his desire to highlight his greatest sporting successes gets the better of his aesthetic taste.

Although he writes convincingly and dispassionately, one always needs to read Karpov's Soviet-style prose - even what little of it there is here - with a grain of salt. He writes, "It stands to reason that this book includes all my most interesting victories from matches for the chess crown, from Candidates battles of various years, and from prominent international tournaments" (p. 6). But it is hard not to notice that he has included a disproportionately large number of last-round games from important events - including game 32 in the Baguio City 1978 title match again Korchnoi that broke the 5-5 tie, the final game of the Merano "massacre" of Korchnoi in 1981, and the last-round game against Belyavsky from his Linares triumph. I suspect that Karpov is particularly fond of these wins because of their significance to his career, but from a purely chess viewpoint, I believe that only the second of these is worthy to be included in a collection of his best efforts. Korchnoi played very poorly in the last game of the 1978 match. In it, he selected an opening (the Classical Pirc with 6...c5) that led to a kind of Benoni structure, a setup that does not agree with his style, and is very much up Karpov's alley. He put little pressure on Karpov, and was crushed in a routine game that required rather little originality or imagination from its winner.

Karpov's trouncing of Belyavsky in the last game of the book was so one-sided that this collection of chess art ends almost trivially, on a note of bathos. Poor Belyavsky was saddled with the black pieces against an energized Karpov, who was winning, as he rightly claims, "one of the most convincing victories in the entire history of chess" (p. 8). This was certainly an unenviable fate for the distinguished Belyavsky - the only player in the event older than Karpov himself - but to make matters still worse for him, in the position shown in Diagram 1, Karpov unleashed a fantastic novelty.
DIAGRAM ONE
GAME FRAGMENT
Karpov must have enjoyed a feeling of invincibility after this dominating game and tournament victory (see ACJ #3, p. 6 for visual evidence), but it's too bad he couldn't have rounded off this book with a more interesting game, like game 42 in the collection against Kramnik from the same tournament, or his game against Topalov - also from Linares 1994 - which Karpov himself (in an interview in New in Chess, 1994, #2) called his best game of the event.

In the preface he writes, "In an overwhelming number of games in this collection I am playing White. This is not surprising, as beautiful victories are most often gained with the white pieces" (p. 7). But the proportion - 35 of 43 games - is extreme, and I find this justification weak. Fischer and Kasparov have gained many interesting and sharp victories with the black pieces partly because their philosophy of chess is geared toward winning every game, even when they happen to begin with a slight theoretical disadvantage. Karpov's competitive goal in the opening is to equalize with the black pieces against strong opposition, not necessarily to fight energetically for the initiative. He states this openly in his engrossing memoir Karpov on Karpov (Atheneum, 1991); this characteristic of his play was also pointed out as early as 1974 by Edmar Mednis in How Karpov Wins. Karpov was taught this approach in his youth, and it corresponds with the creative bias of his early trainer Semyon Abramovich Furman. It is evident from Karpov's later games that his attitude hasn't changed much. Whatever the reasons for Karpov's approach, it has certainly served him well in both tournaments and matches. We can only admire his record. Why, then, should he feel compelled to use evasive language here about this basic fact of his competitive method?

In the introduction he also states, with his customary matter-of-fact pride, "Many of the victories I have chosen won prizes for their beauty, best game prizes, and most important game [theoretical novelty] prizes ..." Karpov fan though I am, I must confess that I am not too impressed by the last of these claims. It is commonly thought that Karpov's paid assistants have discovered many novelties for him. This is especially plausible since both Furman and Igor Zaitsev (Karpov's current trainer, after whom his favorite defense to the Ruy Lopez is named), are formidable opening theoreticians.

Facing Timman (Montreal 1979) in the position shown in DIAGRAM TWO, Karpov unleashed the remarkable move 11... dxc4!! after which, astonishingly enough, White has no good recapture. If he takes with the bishop, then control of the g4-square passes dangerously into Black's bloodthirsty hands. So Timman captured with the pawn, but his queen bishop was exposed and his queenside loose and unwieldy. Karpov developed his queen rook effectively with tempo, and in a tactical brawl, he pursued Timman's king and triumphed on move 31. Clearly a decisive role in this game was played by the opening novelty. So one naturally wonders: did Karpov discover this himself, while poring over books and contemplating Timman's broad repertoire?

In his previous anthology Chess at the Top 1979-1984 (Pergamon, 1984; a sort of sequel to My Best Games), Karpov revealed the truth: "This idea was suggested by Igor Zaitsev during preparations for the World Championship Match in Baguio" (p. 2). But in this new book, Karpov leaves us in the dark, calling it "a move which sharply changes the assessment of the position. This idea was also prepared for the Baguio match" (p. 53). Karpov as a youth did not enjoy poring over opening books, preferring to play blitz games through the night - much to the distress of Botvinnik at his chess school. It was Karpov's lack of theoretical knowledge that prompted the pompous Botvinnik to make his legendary pronouncement about the young Karpov: "The boy doesn't have a clue about chess, and there's no future at all for him in this profession" (see Karpov on Karpov, p. 38). I doubt that Karpov's personal disinclination to study opening theory has changed much.

The number of games in this book - 43 - may be a subtly revealing statistic. Karpov obviously doesn't care about the aesthetic quality of round numbers (let alone primes!), just as he is less concerned with beauty in chess than with results. (My Best Games also had an unusual number of games: 58.) The real problem with the number 43, though, is that it is simply too small! Was Karpov trying to weed ruthlessly in order to leave us with just the purest games? Unlikely - Karpov has produced enough chess masterpieces that he should have had little trouble coming up with at least 60 (Fischer's total in My 60 Memorable Games, gathered from a much shorter pre-championship career), and in this collection there are many notable omissions. All this brings up my main quarrel with this book: despite its title, it cannot legitimately claim to be a complete collection of outstanding Karpov games from the last 25 years. For example, I was astonished not to find the well-known masterpiece Karpov-Kavalek, Nice 1974 Olympiad, in which Karpov grinds down the Accelerated Dragon in the endgame. A little-known favorite of mine is Karpov-Miles, Bugojno 1978, in which Karpov patiently exploits a positional advantage so tiny that many nonmasters might have preferred the other side of the board! This game is nowhere to be found in any of Karpov's anthologies. In Chess at the Top, Karpov called the game Karpov-Hübner, Bad Lauterberg 1980, "one of the best tournament games from 1980" (p. 8). It is a tactical slugfest, handled well by both sides. But this game, too, is missing from the present collection.

Another exciting game that won a brilliancy prize was Seirawan-Karpov, Hamburg 1982. It features a powerful theoretical novelty (13...b5!) in the Tartakower Defense to the Queen's Gambit, and is also noteworthy for reaching a virtual zugzwang position on a full board after Black's 14...Qe4! (DIAGRAM THREE). This game is nowhere to be found in the present book. Perhaps Karpov did not want to face in his notes the memory of his earlier defeat at the hands of Seirawan in the same variation (London 1982).

The Strategist as Tactician

In addition to showing off gleefully his greatest sporting successes, Karpov has another ulterior motive in his game selection. He has a reputation, like Petrosian, for being a dry, strategic, slow, and unartistic player who wins by relying on technique. When I mentioned the book How Karpov Wins to a friend at the chess club, he sighed, "Very boringly." When I was a member of the Harvard Chess Club, we defined the "karpov" as a unit of measure for positional advantage: the minimum amount needed for Anatoly to win a game against a typical strong grandmaster. The symbol +=, we surmised, was probably equal to about four karpovs. This book includes some good examples of Karpov's sterling technique, but since its quality has never been an object of dispute, he is naturally more eager to show off his attacking games.

The first item in any colection makes a statement. Karpov begins here with an attractive attacking victory from his youth, ironically over his current editorial assistant Yevgeny Gik. Other attacking games from the volume include the classic Yugoslav Attack against Korchnoi (Moscow 1974 Candidates Final Match, game 2), a brilliant victory with Black over Tatai at Las Palmas 1977 (my favorite Karpov attacking game, featuring the stunning 24...Qd3!!), and the king hunt against Timman discussed above. Later we encounter a slashing Yugoslav Attack win over Sznapik (Dubai 1986 Olympiad), a sharp tussle against Timman with an unusual material imbalance (Brussels 1988), and two ferocious mating attacks in the Queen's Gambit Declined against Yusupov (1988 USSR Championship, 1989 Candidates Semifinal Match).

If one of Karpov's goals in this book is to force us to rethink his playing style, then it's about time that we did! Public prejudice has always exaggerated the dryness of his approach. He is a much more active and aggressive player than Petrosian was. Karpov opened with 1.e4 for most of his career, and in his hands both the Keres Attack and the Yugoslav Attack were fearsome weapons. It is fairer to describe Karpov's style as pragmatic: he plays the position as it is, and attacks precisely when that is called for. It is closer than we think to the idealized "universal style." The same could also be said of Fischer, through his approach was often sharper, whereas the pragmatic Karpov would not take an unwarranted risk to play for a win in a position that didn't merit this. In Karpov's games we do not find Tal's spectacular highwire acts, or Kasparov's titanic struggle to obtain and maintain the initiative.

Karpov's personality has also been called dry. Maybe so. But consider his greatest rivals at the world championship level: Fischer, Korchnoi, Kasparov, and most recently, team Kamsky. Who would not seem colorless by comparison to that cast of characters?

While I am happy to see the nice attacking games in this volume, it is a pity not to have had some more of Karpov's positional wins, since these would show off better his own unique talent. Against the true culprit may be the shortage of games included in the book.

The "Karpov" in Action

Upon hearing Richard Teichmann's aphorism "Chess in 99% tactics," Karpov reportedly said, "What rubbish." Karpov's notes reflect his tasts. Concrete variations are presented when needed to clarify a position, but they never clutter or confuse the text. In his memoir, he described how in his youth he sought harmony on the board, somewhat like a young musician improvising at the keyboard. His strength still lies in his almost mystical connection with the chess cosmos, which gives him a keen insight into the strategic possibilities of a position. It is difficult to explain to non-chessplayers (or even to chessplayers!) the intuitive concept of harmony in chess. Smyslov is also said to have excelled in this way. The ancient Greeks would have understood it perfectly: their word "harmonia" referred to things related mathematically in an esthetically pleasing way. Although I may not be able to define chess harmony, I do know that a spectacular example of it can be found in Karpov's play in game 27 of the Moscow 1984-85 World Championship Match (described on pp. 73-78 of this book). We will begin with a position suitable for a course in the graduate school of chess in "Applied Nimzovich Theory" (DIAGRAM FOUR), in which he has that quantum of positional advantage that we have defined as the "karpov."

I can only wonder if Capablanca, Petrosian, Smyslov or Fischer would have come up with Karpov's fantastically precise and profound moves in this situation!

Remarkable Rooks

We tend to think of strategic players, notably Petrosian, as being masters of using the knights. Karpov certainly uses them creatively enough. In no fewer than three games in the collection (versus Spassky, M. Gurevich, and Kamsky), he retreats a knight to the b1 square. Although it is not uncommon for Karpov to regroup his pieces, this is an extraordinary coincidence. The fact is not lost on Karpov, as he indicates in his notes to Karpov-Spassky, Leningrad 1974 Candidates Semifinal Match, game 9 (pp. 29-33). In that game, he discovered that his knight was on the wrong bishop-three square. With iron logic with would have made Botvinnik proud, he put all other activities on hold and took care of his knight (see DIAGRAM FIVE).

This fine game, incidentally, also serves as an example of Karpov's characteristic weakness when annotating his own wins: he does not usually describe very clearly where his opponents went wrong. Consequently there is an unreal air of inevitability about his victories, compounded by the fact that the book is a collection of wins only. In the Spassky game above he fails to point out, either here or in his earlier My Best Games, that Spassky could have made his defensive task easier by exchanging rooks before 27.Re2!

This book abounds with remarkable rook moves. There is the rook tour (reminiscent of Lasker's maneuvers against Tarrasch: Düsseldorf 1908 World Championship match, game 4) in his well-known Keres Attack against Hort, from Moscow 1971. There are some profoundly "mysterious" rook moves, such as the aforementioned 17.Rfc1. But nowhere, even in advanced strategy books, have I encountered a discussion about moving a rook off an open file to avoid exchanges and exert more pressure later in the game. This unusual idea occurs not only in the game above against Spassky, but also in game 9 of the Merano 1981 World Championship match against Korchnoi (see DIAGRAM SIX).

Karpov's next move 21...Rb6! is a stroke of genius, but he modestly labels it "an interesting positional idea." The explanation is simplicity itself: "Since White has been deprived of the possibility of attacking on the kingside, it is important for Black to preserve his major pieces from exchange so that he can put pressure on the isolated pawn" (pp. 57-58). Karpov proceeded to do just that, winning in just 43 moves. A study of Karpov's games could add many such maneuvers to a player's strategic repertoire, or - dare we say - improve a player's chess-harmonic "ear."

Perhaps Karpov's greatest student is none other than Gary Kasparov himself. In Kasparov's notes in New In Chess (1996, #3) to a recent victory over Anand at Amsterdam, 1996, he pontificates at length about his "absolutely stupid" - read: Karpovian - rook move 13.Rc1!!, placing the rook for a move behind a doubled pawn, in order to influence the subsequent tactical course of events. By drawing attention to his own insight, he appears to be trying to compete with Karpov in this category. But perhaps he would not want to admit being influenced by Karpov, who claimed at the abrupt cancellation of their 1984-85 world championship to have given Kasparov a valuable set of "48 chess lessons."

Anatoly Karpov's Best Games omits the politics and gossip but leaves a fine, streamlined collection of a great player's favorite games, with annotations rewarding for the depth of their streategic insights. But do not expect to be lightly entertained. Instead be prepared to delve and work hard to appreciate the greatness of this quiet but mighty champion. You can learn a few lessons from him too.

Click here to return to the Chess page.