Learning to play easily from Alexander Shvartsman

09.01.2025

We were very pleased to see Alexander Shvartsman at our family tournament “Bratislava open 2024”. It is very interesting to watch Alexander Mikhailovich’s game, which includes several components. Here, both the psychological component and the game aspects merge into one.

On our Youtube-канале We have started publishing all Alexander Shvartsman’s games at our tournament. Each of the participants, who got the world champion in the opponent, tried to play a draw. Practically no one has managed to do this. The closest to the coveted draw was Zinaida Alexandrova in the 6th round. But… but… but…

The author of these lines has personally experienced the grandmaster’s vision and intuition of the world champion. We publish a fragment from our party and one of the parties from our channel below. See the rest of the games on our website Youtube-канале.

V. Teterin – A. Shvartsman, Round 4. 

The rivals came to this key position in the party with a good amount of time. And it was in this position, which the draughts program estimated as almost equal (+0.3 with a slight advantage of black) that white tried to find the optimal solution. After Black’s last two very precise moves of       1. 45-40 3-9 and 2. 40-34 15-20, White had a difficult choice.:

  1. Immediately make a two-for-two exchange (3. 38-33 28:39, 4. 30-25 39:30 5. 35:15) and having found myself in a very difficult position, after that I immediately dropped trying to find the best way to a draw. Abandoning this plan if there are no other options left.
  2. 3. 47-41? or 3. 37-31?, but after black’s answer 3. … 13-18, there are few ways to equalize the position, and three half-board pieces (34,35,30) could have played a role, but in the direction of white’s defeat.
  3.   It was necessary to find a plan or idea on which the white position could not only stand, but on occasion it would be possible to seize the initiative. (Naivety of the first degree).But… such an idea came up, as it seemed to me during the party. For myself, I considered the following options:
    3.1. 3. 34-29 8-12 (it is impossible 3. … 20-25?7 because of a simple sucker 4. 26-21! with a win) 4. 37-31 (or 48-42, it was my doubts about this choice that influenced the result in the game, but more on that later) 16-21 5. 31-27 22:31 6. 26:37 and the position is more stable and seems equal.                                                                                                                       3.2. 3. 34-29 16-21 4. 37–31 and on black’s move 4. … 20-25, it should have been 5. 31-27 with a sucker and a completely defensible position. But the temptation to wait one tempo and make a stereotypical 4. 48-42 move “twisted” me from the inside. So for black, after the attack of 4. … 20-25 and the response of 5. 30-24, I did not see any danger for white. (Oh! These are the doubts of an inexperienced gambler).                                                                3.3. I considered another option, but it also caused me to worry about choosing between moves 4. 37-31 or 4. 48-42. After the answer option: 3. 34-29 16–21 4. 37-31 21-27?? I have prepared a beautiful trap. But it was very optimistic to think that Alexander Mikhailovich would fall for her.
In the end, my doubts led me to lose the option. The game was played:

3. 34-29 16-21 4. 48-42??? (oh, horror!) 20-25 5. 30-24 and 4-10!!. It was this move that fell out of my field of vision. Now white’s position was immediately lost! There is no escape from black’s maneuver: 10-15, 14-20 followed by a piece win!

Conclusion: And were your doubts necessary?

After the attack in version 4.37-31 21-27??, I prepared the following trap:

5. 47-41! 27:47 6. 26-21! 47:24 7. 30:10!!, but if you take the checkers for black correctly, despite white’s one-piece advantage, it turns out to be a draw.

This is the experience of the author of these lines playing with the world champion Alexander Shvartsman. An invaluable experience. All the games of our tournament will soon be available in our Telegram channel.

 

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