The Alekhine Defense Contd by GM Magesh and GM Arun
For anyone who follows professional chess at the top the level, it is obvious that the Alekhine defense is not a common choice at the Super GM level, and this is not without good reason. In many cases, White is able to get a reasonable space advantage over Black out of the opening. Today let us take a look how some of best players in the history of chess take on the Alekhine defense.
Our first game features the former world champion Garry Kasparov ruthlessly overpowering the English Grand Master Michael Adams.
Kasparov quite systematically dismantled Black's position into shambles. The middle game position that came out of this game could be a good example of what White should try to achieve out of this opening. A slightly better, yet thoroughly dominating position is very pleasant to play.
Our next game is from our current world champion Vishwanathan Anand taking on the wonderkind Magnus Carlsen. There is plenty of imaginative action involved when we hear these names and we cannot expect anything less in a blindfold game between these two champs.
Again a very simple and instructive game. White gained some simple advantage out of the opening and continued to put pressure on Black until Black eventually conceded.
Our last game today is between the current World Cup quarterfinalist Dmitry Jakovenko and the Chinese Grand Master Bu Xiangzhi.
This game started out just like the other games we saw today with a strong positional advantage out of the opening, but ended with a sharp attack on the kingside. We hope our readers enjoyed the games and benefited from it as much as we have while analyzing them.
