Tal and Rubinstein Deliver Again!

Hi, chess lovers....

Just found, by chance, another pattern in common between Rubinstein and Tal.

It is uncanny how similar the particular maneuver is!

The first game is from St. Petersburg, 1909, a tournament organized to honor the great Mikhail Chigorin, who passed away in 1908. We are lucky to have the game with comments with Dr. Emanuel Lasker, who was World Champion from 1894 to 1921.

(A wonderful book, full of empathy and genuine admiration for Rubinstein's talent and skill)

The pattern starts with White's Qa5! move.....

...and is completed when the Queen comes back to the e1 square....

The parallel game by Tal is game 11 of his 1960 World Championship match with Botvinnik;

(Another jewel of a book; probably one of the best chess books of all time!)

Tal considered this game as his best creative achievement of the match, as he was  able to beat Botvinnik in great positional style. Tal started the game with Nf3, which Spassky never played on the first move; Spassky considered Nf3 as "half a move"!

In his wonderful, intimate and personal style, Tal gives us some background about this game.

"In tournaments, the games that decide the final places are almost always played in the closing round. The specifications of a match are such that the result is determined not by the last match game, but by each game, and often, not by the concluding games. Even the games which do not exert such a decisive influence on the match's outcome have their place. Their significance is not simply limited by the fact that they may increase one player's edge. Let us take perhaps the most famous example- the titanic duel between Alexander Alekhin and José Capablanca. Alekhine himself thought that the match, which was played until six game were won, was decided by the score of three to two in his favor. Is it possible that such an outstanding player like Capablanca was not able to equalize the score? No. The question is not of a sporting nature. A much more important role was played by the feeling of confidence in his abilities and a feeling of haughtiness by the other. At the time, this feeling was responsible for some very important points. No less a player than Emanuel Lasker resigned his match with Casablanca when there were still ten games left, since he well knew that he would not be able to win back the four games in that situation. Tus, the deciding games in this match were likewise played somewhere in the middle of the competition. I have conducted this small historical digression to stress the huge feeling of responsibility with which we approached the second ten match games."

"The first ten games had passed very stubbornly and had not given an advantage of any significance to either opponent. The score, 5 1/2- 4 1/2, only confirmed that a) the decisive games were still in the future; and b) that the tenth game had been of the best quality so far, which proved that both opponents, up to this time, were playing vigorously. Botvinnik had been able to surmount unfavorable conditions which had plagued him from the very beginning and I had succeeded in 'straightening myself out" after the difficult counter-blows I suffered  in the eighth and ninth games."

"Therefore, the next game might again resolve the question, if it can be expressed this way: Who was the psychological master of the match? At this very critical juncture inn the match, I received some very good advice from my trainer: inasmuch as I had frankly breached the ramparts of the Caro-Kann Defense, he advised me to defer the "refutation" of this defense until a better time."

"Both Botvinnik and I had been used to the first move being e4. A closed opening system might therefore be a small surprise to him. My problem of what opening to use in the eleventh game had nothing to do with any compulsion to obtain an opening advantage, but rather with something else- how it would be possible to arrive at the most complicated position so as to delay decisive developments until the last part of playing time- in other words, to create a position "full of problems." I was very satisfied that I was able to solve this problem. Actually, the eleventh game demanded a huge amount of energy from both opponents (as did the tenth and twelfth games) and in my opinion this explains why Botvinnik (after the eleventh game) and I (after the thirteenth), were forced to take a break."

Let's take a look at Tal's game:

...and the second parallel is when Tal, like Rubinstein, also retreats his Queen to e1!

That is all for now.....I hope you enjoy these two games!