Luck In Chess

Lucky Topalov

" A good player is always lucky."  -  J.R. Capablanca

Indeed, competitive chess at the top level is a combination of mistake and opportunity. One needs to play good and a little bit of luck - to WIN! 

Grandmaster Topalov after his miracle turnaround against the current champion Carlsen in the first round, managed to gain victory again when his opponent blundered the game away. 

Here are some game fragments between GM-Hammer(NOR) and GM-Topalov(BUL) during Sunday's 5th round encounter. While following the game on ICC, i noticed an interesting idea for Black to proceed from the current position.

Black's turn

It is the move 68...Rb6!? (at first, thinking it is Veselin's main idea - with bishop moving h8 then back to d4) that caught my attention. The Rook cannot be taken (69.Rxb6? Bxb6 70.Kb5 Ba7 71.Kc6 Ke6-+) as the position will transpose to what eventually happened in the game. 

69.a7 Rb1! Skewer motif comes in handy. 70.Rd6 (70.Rc7+ Ke6 71.Rc6+ Kf5 72.Rd6 Bxa7 73.Rf6+ Kg4 74.Rxg6 Kxf4 75.Rg7 Bd4=+) 70...Bxa7 71.f5 gxf5 72.Rf6+ Kg7 73.Rxf5 Kg6=+ transposing to the theoretically drawn rook+bishop vs rook ending with correct play. But in practice, the stronger side usually wins most of the time. 

After five more moves from the diagram above, the position below emerges. An improved version of the line with 68...Rb6 69.Rxb6 Bxb6 mentioned earlier and should be an easy draw. 

White's turn

Looking at the second position, White needs to shuffle his King between d6 and e5 or trade Black's only chance for a win (pawn that can promote) with 75.Ke5 Ke7 76.f5! = capturing the pawn next move leaving Black with insufficient mating material 1/2-1/2.

Then, "lightning strikes" with White making an unbelievable blunder - 74.Kc6??  (thinking about winning) and after the simple 74...Ke6! Black is winning 0-1.

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Be An Endgame Expert

        Learn the two main endgame plans and know how to use your pieces in this last phase of the game. An endgame improvement amplifies your positional play automatically.

You can get the necessary endgame skills from the course: 
"An Endgame Expert"

An Endgame Expert

Additional Study Material:

The art of the Endgame