Radjabov-Anand: an unusual version of ‘Potassium Cyanide’

In my 7 May 2013 post CJS Purdy: my favourite author I mentioned several of the ideas that I had learned from him; with my favourite, because his expression amuses me is 'Potassium Cyanide' do describe the very common situation of two pieces of the same colour, same rank, one space apart.

As I write this, today's round in Norway is not overr, with Karjakin having a difficult task of beating Nakamura: Sergey no doubt should win, with Q+3p v R+N, with black's pieces uncoordinated, but two of white's pawns are doubled, so I can see this game going on for a further fifty moves. (On the other hand, Houdini is saying the position at move 52 is +6, so it could be over very soon).

Anyway, by the time I had got home from work, Vishy Anand has won a lovely game as black against Radjabov: I have only had time so far to flick rapidly through the moves, and look forward to understanding it better tonight or in the coming days. The final position appealed to me, being Potassium Cyanide with a twist:

The d2 pawn forks the Rc1 and Qe1, so we have the motif: but one second glance, the d2 pawn is en pris, and on a further glance, en pris in two ways. The lovely point is that if 35 Bd2 then 36 Nd3! is curtains, with one aspect being that N*e1 would be check; and 35 Qd2 loses more prosaically to 35…Qc1 36 Qc1 Rc1 37 Bc1 Nd3, and the b pawn queens.

Great to see Vishy win two great games in this tournament: augurs well for a good world championship match in Chennai later this year.

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