Re: OSBO Cup: ASV 4 - Bennekom
Geplaatst: vr 08 mei 2009, 18:22
But under the influence of Larsen, Korchnoi, Yusupov and Anand 9...Bc5 became more and more popular. After 9...Bc5 10 Nbd2 0-0 11 Bc2 both 11...Bf5 and 11...Nxf2 were supposed to give Black equal chances.
This was the nightmare for Karpov and the USSR against Korchnoi in Baguio 1978. But in Merano 1981 Karpov's team came up with two fantastic ideas to rehabilitate the old 9 Nbd2! After 9...Nc5 10 c3 d4 they played both 11 Ng5! (Tal) and also 11 Bxe6 Nxe6 12 cxd4 Nxd4 13 a4! (Karpov) with success.
This was a severe blow for the Open Spanish and for a long time it was abandoned. But Yusupov, and later on Anand, found improvements and rehabilitated many lines. Then came the match for the World Championship between Kasparov and Anand in 1995. Kasparov came up with an incredible novelty in the Tal line and again the open Spanish was dismissed.
But 9 years later Kasparov's line has been definitively evaluated as a forced draw. The funny thing is that in my database the drawing line was discovered for the first time by Eynon (2057 ELO!) in his game against Barry, played at Grangemouth in 1999! He found an improvement on an old idea of Timman's. It is rather possible that the correspondence world new of it before but I am not a specialist. In the game Morozevich-Ponomariov 2004 (see the archive) you can follow the forced draw if you want." (GM Oliver Renet, Chesspublishing.com November 2006).