The Flow of Creative Ideas....

Sergey Voronkov has published a three-volume set of books titled

"Masterpieces and Dramas of the Soviet Championships".

These books are masterpieces of chess literature and chess history. Each chapters has, before the actual games shown, stories and narratives about the players involved, the circumstances they were in and their triumphs and tragedies (some of them did not survive neither the Stalin regime or the realities of WWII).

I highly recommend these books. They contain games which are difficult to find otherwise, with original comments from tournament bulletins and articles in the Soviet chess magazines.

Vol. III,

published in 2022, contains a game from 1950, a game from Konstantinopolsky (who was Bronstein's trainer in the late 50's). This game triggered a memory- something I saw in a game by Tal. The game was played by Tal in 1964, and is featured on page 274 in "The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal"

....in my opinion one of the best chess books ever written. Tal makes you feel like you are his friend, and he is showing you his games over a cup of tea.

Now, in his notes, he mentions that the idea of transferring his rook from a8 to a7 and then e7, doubling rooks on the e-file, came from a game he witnessed inn the 3rd USSR Spartakiad (Team Championship).

The game in question is Tchaikovskaya- Rozhlapa, 1963.

I could not find this game in chessgames.com, my usual source. My good friend, Simaginfan, found it for me. My gratitude to him for his kindness!

Now, the Tal game in question is Thorbergsson-Tal, Reykjavik 1964:

Now, imagine my surprise when I saw the following game from 1950 in Voronkov's book!

The idea is the same, but with colors reversed:

And, thanks again to Simaginfan, here is a game from 1947.......

Simaginfan: "A little find. In his notes to the Lipnitski game Konstantinopolsky mentions this one."

Players from one generation inspire players from another.....the ideas are immortal, and we are just passing along.

Peace.