Nakamura vs Alekhine, Who Is Correct?
There are certain classic games that really show the "ABCs" of chess. They demonstrate some basic chess concepts that any educated player must know. The following famous game by Alexander Alekhine is one of them. You can find it almost in any book of his selected games, but I learned it when I was about 12 years old from Aron Nimzowitsch's iconic book, My System.
Alekhine calls the move 22.d4? a positional capitulation, after which Black gets a relatively simple win. An inexperienced player might be surprised by such a harsh evaluation of this natural-looking move, which puts White's pawn on the central d4-square.
I recommend you pay attention to how Alekhine took full advantage of the backward c3-pawn and a very weak c4-square. Now, once you know the reason for Alekhine claiming "a relatively easy win" due to White's bad pawn structure on the queenside, let me demonstrate for you a game played by another world champion.
Here we can see the same hopelessly looking backward c3 pawn and the same weak c4 square as in Alekhine's game above. And yet, World Champion GM Vladimir Kramnik is repeating moves, clearly showing that he doesn't mind a draw. Even more surprising is GM Hikaru Nakamura's decision to reject a draw, even though he had to put his knight on the very awkward b1-square in order to avoid the repetition of the moves!
What's going on in this game? Didn't Nakamura see the weakness of his queenside? Or maybe he knew something that Alekhine didn't? So, who is right Alekhine or Nakamura? The answer will probably surprise you: They are both correct!
You see, while the placement of White's pawns on the queenside is identical in both games, the positions are very different, and it is White's e5 pawn that makes all the difference! Let me explain.
In the majority of cases, a pawn on e5 gives White good chances for a kingside attack for two simple reasons:
- White has more space there, thanks to the e5-pawn.
- The best defender of Black's king, the knight on f6, is missing, again thanks to the e5 pawn.
And you can see, that Nakamura wasted no time in starting a kingside attack by pushing his h-pawn. Here is another cute game that demonstrates the same concept:
In this game, White deliberately created a backward c3-pawn and a weak c4-square by playing 11.Nc3! But two-time Soviet champion GM Lev Psakhis knew what he was doing and quickly decided the game with a direct kingside attack.
In a very recent tournament, Germany's biggest chess hope used the same strategy. While it was a very balanced game for most of the time, in the end, GM Vincent Keymer managed to demolish the black king's defenses:
It is a totally different situation, however, when White has no e5-pawn and consequently no counterplay on the kingside. In this case, Alekhine's evaluation is spot on. In the following game another world champion, GM Anatoly Karpov, even sacrificed a pawn in order to get this favorable strategical situation:
In all the games that we analyzed so far it was White who had a spoiled pawn structure. But of course, Black can have the same problem too. Here is another classic game by a great master of positional play.
I hope these games by top grandmasters will help you to take advantage of this important positional pattern if you ever see it in your own games.
Also, notice that in chess you shouldn't evaluate a position based on just one criterion—you need to see the whole picture. In this case, the presence of the e5-pawn makes all the difference!
