Jim West On Chess: Improvements for White in Tuhrim

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Improvements for White in Tuhrim - West

Below is the position after Black's 36th move in Tuhrim - West, from Sunday's tournament at the Marshall Chess Club. The time control for this game was 30/90, followed by game/60. I was more than an hour ahead on the clock, which probably explains a couple of inaccurate moves by my opponent. First, he played 37.g3 when 37.g4 would have been better.

Next, take a look at the diagram after Black's 42nd move. Even though White has lost a pawn, he could still have drawn by 43.Kf2 Rc3 44.Kg2. As Frederic Fournier points out, this is where White made the losing move 43.Rc4, which I answered by 43...Rg4 with a winning position.

"My study of chess was accompanied by a strong attraction to music, and it was probably thanks to this that from childhood I became accustomed to thinking of chess as an art, and have never regarded it as anything else, for all the science and sport involved in it. And, moreover, an art which in some ways is closer to music than it is customary to think. Perhaps chess and music are drawn together by laws of harmony and beauty which are difficult to formulate and difficult to grasp, or perhaps by something else." - Vasily Smyslov