E Book

Contents
Contents................................................................................................................................... 2
Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................. 3
Instructions for the Video Course............................................................................................. 4
Introduction: More Information About Anatoly Karpov........................................................... 5
Lesson 2 – The Battle against the Opponent's Activity............................................................. 6
Lesson 3 – Slow Play, Preparation of Plans............................................................................ 15
Lesson 4 – Activate the King.................................................................................................. 24
Lesson 5 – Art of Maneuvering............................................................................................... 33
Lesson 6 – Art of Endgames................................................................................................... 41
Lesson 7 – How to Slowly Prepare Your Ideas and Breakthrough.......................................... 48
Lesson 8 – Control of the File................................................................................................. 55
Lesson 9 – A Practical Game.................................................................................................. 62
Practical Part........................................................................................................................... 69
INSTRUCTIONS.................................................................................................................... 69
The Practical Part: Task 1........................................................................................................ 71
Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 2

Acknowledgements
First, I would like to thank all those students who sent me their chess questions via e-
mail, comments on my website, etc. This course was created based on your queries.
I would like to thank IM Asaf Givon for his theoretical video lessons.
I would like to thank Angelos Kesaris for his help with the course development.
I appreciate Olga Carreño’s effort in polishing the texts of the course.
On top of that, let me thank the whole Remote Chess Academy team. They have made
a valuable contribution to the creation of this course. Also, they are awesome people!
 Thank you!
Finally, all of my work is only possible due to the inspiration and support of my wife
and family. Thank you for this!

Instructions for the Video Course
I would like to give you a few recommendations, which will make your study of the
video lessons more effective.
Focus on the study. Turn off your mobile phone, music, TV, etc.
Stop (pause) the video lesson sometimes. When you stop the video, you can
THINK about an interesting idea and digest it better. It is very important to do
it.
Print the text versions of the video lessons. When you think about different
ideas of the course, you will see them at the same time. It is very helpful. After
the study of one video lesson, please look through its text version. Pay
attention to the enhanced font –it will help you remember all the key ideas.
Write the important ideas. While studying the video lessons, you will find a
lot of useful rules, principles and so on. Also, you will probably make your
own conclusions. If you write them, you will remember and classify them
better.
Make pauses. Your brain needs to have some free time to digest new
information. Don’t try to study everything at once.
Repeat the lessons. Study the lessons several times. Of course, it is hard to
remember a lot of information after a quick acquaintance. So, you need to
repeat it sometimes.

Introduction: More Information About Anatoly Karpov
Hello everyone! This is the International Master Asaf Givon here. I wanted to
introduce my new DVD course about one of the greatest world champions that have
ever lived, who is still alive today at the time of recording this video, of course. We
wish him long and good years. He is Anatoly Karpov, who was the World Champion
from 1975 to 1985. He was only beaten by the great Garry Kasparov later on in 1985.
He was considered to be a very, very solid player, very safe, very stable; you can
almost hardly ever see major mistakes or blunders in his games.
In this video course, we will be talking about the different techniques and the style
that helped Karpov really become so great at the game of chess: What kind of
openings he played; the type of structures that he liked to play and tried to strive for;
the types of themes and plans that he implemented in his games, that would be
reoccurring in many of his games. The reason I chose to create this course about
Karpov is because his style of play is extremely educational for virtually any chess
player.
If you take the games of some chess players, like Mikhail Tal or Bobby Fischer; you
see some very nice sacrificial types of games, where they sacrifice many pieces and
eventually get some beautiful checkmate. This is beautiful to watch, but it would
hardly be something that the average chess player can really understand very well or
use it in his own games, while Karpov was not exactly this type of player. He has a
very solid approach to the game; he likes to keep his pieces safe, to slowly maneuver,
to play a lot of prophylactic types of ideas playing against his opponent's plans, and
pieces and activity.
In many games, as we will see in this course, he will win the game just because his
opponent will slowly run out of plans, run out of active moves; so very often, they
will either self destruct or slowly cramp themselves into a position where they cannot
really do too much, and they slowly lose.
I think the games of Karpov can really inspire any chess player with his approach and
his mentality. Playing a very solid game, he is coming to the opponent and says to
him: you know, the game of chess can also be won not by just going for quick attacks
and sacrificing everything, it can also be a slow build up type of game. I will kill you
slowly; that's the main approach. I'm very excited about this course! I think it can help
any chess player, whether you're a beginner or an advanced player; anybody can
benefit from this learning experience by this great player, Anatoly Karpov. I think
chess players can benefit in terms of being inspired by how these games are won
slowly, but with lots of confidence. As he knows what he is doing, he wins many of
his games in a brilliant style. I really hope to see you all inside the course; there are a
lot of games to cover, a lot of things to learn. I definitely hope to see you there. I wish
you all good luck in your games. Thank you, guys!

Lesson 2 – The Battle against the Opponent's Activity
Anatoly Karpov – Artur Yusupov [C53]

Bugojno Bugojno BIH (2), 27.05.1986
Hello guys! Welcome to this video lecture about the games and techniques of Anatoly
Karpov. This is the International Master Asaf Givon here. I wanted to start this video
course with perhaps one of the most recognizable or famous ones when you talk about
Karpov. This is the whole theme of fighting against your opponent's active pieces.
You can also call this the battle against the opponent's activity, in general. In many of
Karpov's games you might encounter cases where his opponent has those very well-
placed pieces inside his own territory of the board, and he takes it extremely seriously
and tries to do everything he can to either push them away or exchange them in some
manner. So, in this video lecture, I'm going to be using two examples.
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d3 d6 6.0–0 0–0 7.Re1 a6 8.Bb3
Ba7 9.h3 h6 10.Nbd2 Nh5 11.Nf1 Qf6 12.Be3 Nf4 13.Bxa7 Rxa7 14.Kh2 Ne7
15.Ne3 Ra8 16.a4 Be6 17.Bxe6 fxe6
The position you see here is from the game Karpov versus Yusupov, from the early
days of Karpov. The second example is going to be a much more famous game, which
is, I think, one of the holy grails of Karpov's game history.

Let's start now. This is the position after Black's move #17; he has just recaptured the
bishop on e6. It's White to move. This position came from the Italian Game. It looks
like a fairly equal position but, if you look at this position with a Karpovian type of
vision, there is one thing which is very apparent. Black has this very active and
annoying piece, the knight on f4. This piece is really creating lots of troubles for us.
It's putting pressure on the d3-pawn, not allowing our queen to move too much. It's
putting pressure on our kingside. In general, I think everybody agrees that it's a very
annoying and strong piece that needs to be dealt with. What do we do about it?
Let's see. Basically, when we have an enemy piece in our position, in our camp, this
means that if it's White who is going to be within the first four ranks and anything
beneath it, what we can and should do ideally is push it away with a pawn, if possible,
because any piece in chess that is being attacked by a pawn, has to move, because the
pawn is, obviously, of an inferior value.
Let's take a look at this position and see what we can do. Basically, there is this knight
on f4. What we would really like to do is play the 18.g3 simple move. (See the
variation below). To conclude, White really wants to play g3, but he cannot do this
immediately. Karpov comes up here with a concept in which he actually was famous
for. In many of Karpov's games that we will see in this video lecture and other videos
later on, you will see that Karpov has this unique talent of moving his pieces
backward with the intention of improving his own position. This is something that, for
many people, is a very difficult thing to do. Usually in chess, you look to move
forward, to attack and to expand. But for Karpov, in many of his games you will see
this kind of recurring theme. He played this little, but in a way, brilliant move:
18.Ng1!
The knight on f3 is centrally placed, but it's not doing too much. So, our idea now is
to push that knight away with g3 without getting under all of those tactical ideas that
I've mentioned earlier, Nxd3 and Nxh3. After his knight moves away, we can later on
basically bring this g1–knight back into the game; so, Karpov is not worrying about
that too much. [18.g3 The problem with this move is that it's currently not really
possible. In this position, this move has, very severely, weakened our knight on f3
and, thus, it's now allowing Black to commit some tactical operations. There are two
ways to do that. One of them is with the Nxd3 move. 18...Nxd3 (18...Nxh3 19.Kxh3
Qxf3 Black just won a healthy pawn and he's also now pressuring our f2-pawn. The
same thing can be done with Nxh3.) 19.Qxd3 Qxf3]
18...Rad8
Black played a normal move, centralizing his rook and preparing this d5-pawn break
in the center, trying to open up the position because, currently, the black pieces are
pretty actively placed; but now Karpov continues with his plan of playing
19.g3 Nfg6
The knight has to go back to g6. You can see that our pawn in f2 is now under attack,
so Karpov defended with
20.Rf1
In this position, you can see that already both of the black knights, which is typical in
this kind of positions, are looking to get into some kind of good central outposts and

are being dominated by the white pawns. So, this knight on e7 is being controlled by
this pawn on e4, which is not allowing it to get into any active square in the center (d5
or f5). This knight on g6 is being controlled by this pawn on g3, so he cannot go into
any active squares (f4 or h4) either. If you take a look at White's position, all of the
squares in the first four ranks inside White's territory are being defended by pawns or
can be defended by pawns. So, this is already one theme to remember and learn from
Karpov. He is never letting his opponent to easily invade his position, and if he does,
then Karpov does everything he can to push those pieces away. Black continued with
20...d5
This is his planned move, trying now to take on e4, using that pin on the d-file.
21.Qe2
Karpov moves that queen away; another prophylactic move, another defensive type of
move, getting the queen off the way. Now, Black played
21...Nc6
He sees that his knight on e7 doesn't have many options, so he's looking to maneuver
it around the board, perhaps to a better square. Now, White wants to continue his
strategy of pushing Black's knights back, using the same type of technique. So, this
knight on g6 is less active than it was on f4, but it's still pretty active; so Karpov
wants to play the moves h4 and h5. But now, we're going to see another very common
theme in Karpov's games. Karpov is never in a rush to do things. In many of his
games, you will see that he's playing lots and lots of moves that prepare his ideas, so
he is never in a rush. If you play h4 right now... (See the variations below). Instead, he
just prepared another type of move, which is
22.Ng2!
It's a move I really like. There are three good things about this move: it not only helps
White prepare the h4 move; also, in the long run, White has this idea to break through
with f4 to open up some lines for his pieces eventually. So, this also prepares this
pawn thrust; it's a very Karpovian type of move. This is a word you're going to hear
throughout this course a couple of times, when you see a move which is prophylactic,
a move that prepares plans. A move that thinks about the opponent's plans is
considered to be a very Karpovian type of move. He really made himself famous for
doing such moves. Black was actually left without many active things to do.
By the way, I forgot to mention another good thing about the Ng2 move. If at any
point, Black pushes the pawn to d4, which he might do, that would not be a tempo
anymore against the white knight. [22.h4?! That would be too early because Black
has, once again, some tactical opportunities that he can exploit. One of them is
22...Nf4! It's a very strong move, which goes back to the same square which was
supposed to be defended by the white pawn. If White takes on f4 23.gxf4 exf4 Black
takes back. Now, our knight is under attack and also the pawn on f4 is in danger.
24.Ng2 (24.Nc2 Qxh4+‚ Black can already take on h4, with a very strong attack. It's
definitely not what Karpov was expecting.) 24...f3 There is a fork.]
22...Rf7 23.h4 Rdf8

Black is trying to pile up on the f-file. This is currently not a threat because the pawn
is defended a couple of times.
24.Rad1
White centralized his rook.
24...Nge7
And Black found nothing better than just going back with his knight to e7, trying to
search for a better haven for this knight. After
25.h5
White is now making sure that this knight cannot go back to g6. In this position,
White is enjoying a very nice advantage. The white pieces are ready for the pawn
thrust to f4 that should happen one day. The black knights have been completely
dominated by the white pawns; they don't have any activity. If we compare this
position with the initial one of about seven moves ago –when Black had this active
knight on f4, and the other knight potentially coming to assist it–, we can see that the
position right now is completely different. The black knights have no activity and this
was the whole strategy taking place by Karpov.
We see this good example of how this kind of strategy can work out. If you want to
see how the rest of the game went, please go to the pgn files attached to the course, to
be able to see how Karpov managed to squeeze this position out into a victory.
Certainly, it's not an easy thing to do but, in order to focus in our topic, the Karpov
course, I'm going to leave this position right here and go to the next game, which is
the more famous example of the same theme.
25...g6 26.Nh3 Qf3 27.Qxf3 Rxf3 28.hxg6 Nxg6 29.Ne3 d4 30.Nc2 R3f7
31.cxd4 Nxd4 32.Nxd4 exd4 33.f4 c5 34.a5 b6 35.axb6 Rb7 36.Rc1 Rxb6 37.Rxc5
Rxb2+ 38.Rf2 Rxf2+ 39.Nxf2 Ra8 40.Ra5 Ne7 41.Ng4 Nc6 42.Rc5 Ne7 43.Rc7
Kf8 44.Ne5 a5 45.g4 a4 46.f5 exf5 47.gxf5 Nxf5 48.exf5 Ra5 49.Rc5 Rxc5 50.Nd7+
Ke7 51.Nxc5 a3 52.Kg3 Kd6 53.Nb3 Ke5 54.Kg4 h5+ 55.Kg5 h4 56.f6 Ke6 57.Kg6
h3 58.f7 h2 59.f8Q h1Q 60.Nc5+ Ke5 61.Qb8+ 1–0
Anatoly Karpov - Boris Spassky [B83]

Karpov - Spassky Candidates Semifinal Leningrad URS (9), 03.05.1974
In this game, Karpov was playing with the white pieces against Boris Spassky,
perhaps one of his biggest rivals at the time. Both of them were competing more than
once for the title of being the best player in the world.
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Be2 Be7 7.0–0 0–0 8.f4 Nc6
9.Be3 Bd7 10.Nb3 a5 11.a4 Nb4 12.Bf3 Bc6 13.Nd4 g6 14.Rf2 e5 15.Nxc6 bxc6
16.fxe5 dxe5 17.Qf1 Qc8 18.h3 Nd7 19.Bg4 h5 20.Bxd7 Qxd7 21.Qc4 Bh4 22.Rd2
Qe7 23.Rf1

Diagram #
In this position, which came from the Sicilian Defense, it's Black to move.
23...Rfd8
He played the very normal move Rfd8. I want you to take a look at this position as
White. Think about it for a little while and try to see if you have any Karpovian ideas
here for White. Obviously, you can take some inspiration from the previous game.
This is move #24; it's White to move. We can see that Black essentially has two pieces
in our camp. This is our theme, right? Fighting against the opponent's active pieces:
the bishop on h4, the knight on b4. The knight on b4 is very well-placed. It's defended
by a pawn; it's putting pressure against our pawn on c2. Actually, in this position,
there is a threat. If it's Black to move, Black will just exchange rooks and then take
our pawn on c2. That's not something we want to see. So, Karpov comes up with a
brilliant concept to push that knight away, using a similar type of technique to what
we have seen in the previous game. Regarding that bishop on h4, we will also see in a
couple of moves that that bishop is not going to stay on h4 for long. But the first move
in this position is perhaps the famous move in this game, once again, a very
Karpovian move, taking a piece backward just to move two steps forward basically.
The move is

24.Nb1!!
This is really a multipurpose move. It is not only preparing to push the knight away of
b4 with pawn to c3, it is also defending our pawn on c4 with the queen, so it's going
well with the Karpovian policy of always keeping all of your pieces defended at least
once. Very often, we will also see in his games that he's trying to keep his pieces
defended twice actually. But not only this, we can see that also, in case of the rook
trade on d2, now White is ready to recapture with the knight. This improves the
position of the white knight because, if you see the initial position, this knight on c3 –
once again, it's a bit similar to the knight from the previous game against Yusupov–
might look nice and centralized, but it's actually not aiming to do anything because of
that pawn on c6.
Remember, when you see such a pawn standing in front of the knight, it's like a spine,
not allowing him to land in the center. Basically, this knight on c3 has nothing to do
there. This is why Nb1 has a couple of ideas. First of all, pushing your opponent's
pieces away and, at the same time, improving your own pieces and thinking about a
better future for them; so, I would give this move the exclamation mark. It's not a
queen sacrifice, it's not a forced checkmate, it's not like Mikhail Tal's type of brilliant
attacking idea; this is the way of Karpov, this is how he wins games. [24.-- Rxd2
25.Bxd2 Nxc2]
24...Qb7
His opponent, Spassky, played Qb7, defending his pawn on c6 because this pawn is
going to be attacked very quickly. Now White can immediately play c3; there is not so
much wrong about it, but Karpov played another prophylactic move, thinking about
his opponent's plans. He wants to also fight against that bishop on h4, don't forget. He
doesn't want to allow that bishop to have any active squares inside his camp. So, he
played
25.Kh2!
There are a couple of ideas there: preparing to push that bishop away if needed, once
again, not allowing that bishop to invade on g3, and also stepping out of this long h1–
g1 diagonal. Sometimes, we see some troubles appearing when your king stays on that
diagonal. [25.c3!?]
25...Kg7
It's a similar type of move; he wants to get his king out of the potentially dangerous
diagonal of the white queen. White continues his plan by playing
26.c3 Na6
Black is forced to do that. We can already see the huge difference between this
position and the initial position. This knight was forced back to a very unfortunate
square on a6 and this knight on b1 might look passive at the moment, but we will see
that in a couple of moves, it will become a very active piece. Now the white knight
wants to get back into the game, but the d2-rook interferes with it, so Karpov played
27.Re2

It's a very technical move. He doesn't want to trade off rooks because that will give
Black some control of the open d-file and will simplify the game. Karpov doesn't
want to simplify the game just yet because he feels that once the b1-knight becomes
active, the black king will be weak because most of the opponent's pieces are
concentrated on the queenside of the board; so, he already thinks about the upcoming
attack. Black now feels that his f7-pawn is sensitive to some attacks, so he played
27...Rf8
White continued with his plan of
28.Nd2
This knight is now threatening to come to f3 with a double attack against the bishop
and the e5-pawn,
28...Bd8
so the bishop has to retreat. White played
29.Nf3
attacking the pawn on e5. Black played
29...f6
defending the pawn on e5. This move is a weakening move. Karpov had a great sense
for spotting that weakening type of moves that his opponents would make
occasionally. Now, he's going to exploit that little weakening in a nice fashion. He
plays
30.Rd2
He's alread y thinking about invading into the seventh rank. He sees that the queen
and the king are piled up on the same rank.
30...Be7
Now, it's possible to play Rfd1, but Karpov chose another very good move. He played
31.Qe6
not only preparing Rd7, but also putting pressure against Black's position. [31.Rfd1!?]
31...Rad8
Now, White is preparing his final operations.
32.Rxd8 Bxd8
Please pay attention that Black cannot take back with the rook (Rxd8) because now
his king is not defended properly, and White can already use that rook on f1 to invade
on f7 with Ng5 or even Nxe5; so, Bxd8 is forced. [32...Rxd8 33.Nxe5!? (33.Ng5!?) ]

33.Rd1
Threatening Rd7+.
33...Nb8
The knight goes back to b8, defending that square on d7. Just look at Black's position:
All of his pieces are very unfortunately placed on the 8th rank. There is nothing they
can do against White's coming attack.
34.Bc5 Rh8
In this position, I'm urging you to find White's winning continuation; this is already
becoming tactical. All of White's pieces are now ideally placed; that rook on the d-
file, that queen on e6 is very well-placed, every piece is in the attack, so it's a good
time to search for tactics, a good time to calculate. Stop the video and see if you can
come up with some idea for White to win. Even though I assume there is more than
one good idea, there is one which is particularly concrete. This is
35.Rxd8!
Actually, Spassky resigned in this position. See why in the variation. So, Spassky
saved himself from the embarrassment and resigned after Rxd8. You can see this is
really one of the most brilliant games ever being played by Karpov. From the
beginning position to the end, basically step by step, he pushed all of his enemy's
active pieces back to more passive positions. He improved his own pieces, especially
that knight maneuver to f3 (Nb1, Nd2 and Nf3) was extremely brilliant. Eventually,
once all of his pieces were active enough and the opponent's pieces were passive
enough, he went for the final operations and tactics, and he was obviously also a very
good calculator, so he didn't miss any such opportunities.
I hope you really enjoyed this video, that you noticed some of the different techniques
that Karpov used in his games, the whole concept of pushing your opponent's active
pieces away using your pawns, sometimes moving your pieces back just to do that, as
we have seen with the Nb1 move and, in the other game, it was Ng1. Also, in the
process of improving your own position, preparing your plan, this kind of idea that
we're going to see in much more detail in the next videos. I'll see you guys in the next
videos. Bye!
[35.Rxd8! Rxd8 36.Be7 threatening the black rook (Bxd8) and also threatening to
capture the f6-pawn (Qxf6+) with a decisive attack. 36...Re8 37.Qxf6+ Now, it doesn't
matter where the king goes. Let's say he plays 37...Kh7 I see lots of ways to win here,
but one of them is 38.Qf7+ threatening the black rook 38...Kh6 39.Bg5# There is even
a checkmate.] 1–0

Lesson 3 – Slow Play, Preparation of Plans
Anatoly Karpov – Yasser Seirawan [D20]

Skelleftea World Cup Skelleftea SWE (8), 08.1989
1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e4 e5 4.Nf3 Bb4+ 5.Bd2 Bxd2+ 6.Qxd2 exd4 7.Qxd4
Qxd4 8.Nxd4 Bd7 9.Bxc4 Nc6 10.Nxc6 Bxc6 11.Nc3 Rd8 12.Ke2 Nf6 13.f3 Ke7
14.Rhd1 a5 15.Rac1 Rxd1 16.Rxd1 Rb8 17.Ke3 g6 18.Bb3 Ra8 19.Rd4 Nd7
20.Bd5 Ra6 21.f4 f6 22.h4 h6 23.g3 Bxd5 24.Nxd5+ Kd8 25.Nc3 Rb6 26.Rd2 c6
Hello guys, welcome back! In this video, we're going to discuss some of Anatoly
Karpov's finest endgames, and his endgame technique in general. Karpov, being a
very positional player, was also very famous for his really brilliant endgame
technique. Lots of his games were crowned to be some the best endgames that have
ever been played. I wanted to address some specific techniques that were his
trademark techniques, a couple of them he used very often. One of those techniques is
the whole concept of creating weaknesses and exploiting them. Another concept is the
maneuvering in the endgame using some backward moves, as we have seen in a past
video. Finally, there is the king invasion; I think it reoccurs many times in his
endgames.
This position is taken from the game played between Anatoly Karpov and Yasser
Seirawan, back in the 80's. It's White to move. White, in this position, is evidently
slightly better. His king is more centralized, an important factor in the endgame. His
pawns on the kingside are more advanced than the black pawns on the queenside,
where he has the majority. Black has three pawns on the queenside versus two pawns
of White's. White has four pawns on the kingside versus three pawns of Black's on the
kingside. This essentially means that White will focus his attention on the kingside of
the board; Black will focus his attention on the queenside of the board. How would
you continue as White? Try to figure out a plan for White. You're welcome to stop the
video and try to think about it. Karpov realized that, in this position, White's problem
is that Black's position is too solid at the moment; he has no apparent weaknesses. So,
he decided to create weaknesses for his opponent, using this little move:
27.h5
It's a really nice concept. Obviously, the pawn on g6 is now under attack, so Black
must take action about that. He had two choices, either to push the pawn forward or
just capture the pawn on h5. In the game, instead of capturing (see the variation),
Black played
27...g5
So, he chose the move that would suit for most of us, g5, trying to close up the
position. I think in this position, and also in the previous position when Karpov was
anticipating this position appearing on the board, he already realized that with the g5
move Black creates a weakness for himself that White can exploit. He has this square
on f5, which is no longer defended. Immediately, he tries to exploit that by playing
Kf3. [27...gxh5 The reason why he chose not to take the pawn is because now Black's
whole structure on the kingside is damaged and cannot be repaired. You can see that
now all those pawns are separated from each other. White can simply play 28.Rh2
And, eventually, pick up this pawn on h5 and, all of the pawns on Black's kingside are
very likely to fall in the long run, and this will be undesirable for Black.]
28.Kf3
The immediate idea is that king invasion that we were talking about earlier on, trying
to get your king to the opponent's pawns and eating them (See the variation). Now,
from this position onwards, White's target will be that pawn on h6. This is the only
pawn on Black's whole position that can never be supported by a friendly pawn, and it
cannot move either; it is fixed. This is another theme to keep in mind, especially in the
endgames: fixing an enemy pawn, basically making sure that it cannot move forward,
and by this, making it more likely for us to eventually eat it. So, Black played
28...Ke7
It's a good defensive move; first of all, unpinning the knight from the upcoming attack
on the knight on d7. Instead of playing 29.Kg4, Karpov decided to go for a different
plan. He said to himself: ok, my king invasion is not going to work, but the square on
f5 is also pretty juicy for another piece, for our knight on c3. [28...-- 29.Kg4 -- 30.Kf5
-- 31.Kg6]
29.Ne2
This is why he played Ne2 here which, as you will see very soon, is another Karpov
type of move, and provokes more weaknesses from the opponent. In short, you will
see how this comes about. It's another idea which is equally good, perhaps even better
was Nd1, with the intention to go Ne3, followed by Nf5, in some cases, even Nc4 is

possible. Basically, it's a very similar type of plan. The knight is heading towards d4
and f5. [29.Kg4 This would not be as effective because Black can stop it by playing
29...Ke6]
29...c5
So, Black felt obliged to play c5, covering that square on d4. But, as we already know,
pawns can only move forward, so once Black made that c5 move, he can no longer
defend the d5-square. So it's another weak square in our opponent's position. There
are now two very weak squares (d5 and f5) that we can try to exploit them.
30.Nc3
White went back to c3.
30...Rd6
White could easily play Nd5+, which would also be a very good decision. But he
chose to exchange rooks at this point because he realized, since his knight is so much
stronger than the opponent's knight, it makes sense to exchange the remaining pieces.
That's another principle to keep in mind, I would say not only in endgames, also in
chess in general. If you have one piece in your camp which is significantly stronger
than the enemy's piece, it makes sense in some cases to trade off all of the other pieces
on the board, just to emphasize how better that one piece of ours is versus that other
piece of the opponent's.
31.Rd5
[31.Nd5+]
31...Rxd5 32.Nxd5+
By exchanging rooks here, Karpov made sure that his knight is now very well
centralized on d5, without Black having any counter-chances later on, for example,
with the invasion of the rook into his own camp.
32...Ke6
Now, White found an opportunity to improve his position even more. He played
33.Ne3
heading towards the original intended square on f5. Even such simple threat cannot be
really met properly by Black. There is no good way to defend the pawn on h6.
33...b5 34.Nf5 Nb6
Black tried to capture White's pawns on the queenside.
35.Nxh6 Nc4
But the problem is that White's pawns on the kingside are much more advanced and
much more dangerous.

36.Nf5
If Black tries to take the pawn on b2... (See the variation below). In the game, Black
played
36...Kf7
But this is too passive. [36...Nxb2 37.h6 White will start marching with his pawns on
the kingside. 37...Kf7 38.h7 As you can see, the black king is completely dominated.
As it cannot approach the pawn, thus the white pawn just promotes.]
37.b3
safeguarding the pawn on b2.
37...Nd2+ 38.Ke3
Black, in this position, just resigned. He realized there is nothing that he can do in the
long run about White's advancing pawns. Also, his knight is very likely to get trapped
in this position. For example, if Black plays
38...Nf1+ 39.Ke2 Nh2
This knight is forced to go to h2, which is a very unfortunate square. Now, White has
lots of good ways to continue. Amongst others, he can play
40.Nd6+ Ke6 41.Nxb5
And pick up also some of the pawns on the queenside. So, this endgame is essentially
just losing for Black. It was a nice game by Karpov. Now, the three techniques we
encountered in this game: One was the creation of weak pawns and weak squares in
the opponent's position that Karpov exploited really masterfully. The second one was
the potential king invasion that eventually didn't take place because Black blocked it.
The third one was the whole concept of maneuvering our pieces into the newly-
created outpost that the opponent allowed us to do. 1–0
Bouaziz, Slim – Karpov, Anatoly (2720) [C54]

Hamburg TV–A Hamburg (5), 09.1982
In the second game, we're going to see Karpov playing now with the black pieces. His
opponent was a less-known player at the time, Slim Bouaziz; he was representing
Singapore.
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.d3 Nf6 5.0–0 d6 6.c3 a6 7.Bb3 Ba7 8.Nbd2
0–0 9.Nc4 h6 10.Ne3 Be6 11.Re1 Re8 12.Bxe6 fxe6 13.h3 Qd7 14.Ng4 Rf8 15.Be3
Nxg4 16.hxg4 Bxe3 17.Rxe3 Qf7 18.Qe2 Qg6 19.Nh2 Rf6 20.Rf3 Rxf3 21.Qxf3
Qg5 22.Qe3 Qxe3 23.fxe3 g5 24.Rf1 Kg7 25.Kf2

In this position, it's Black to move. Let's flip the board. To be honest, when I was first
looking at this game, I was amazed by how Karpov managed to squeeze this
extremely innocent-looking position into a victory, and a very convincing one also.
This position, which arose from the Italian Game, looks almost equal; the pawn
structure is extremely symmetrical. Each player has a rook and a knight; nothing
seems too special here. I think in this position, a lot of inexperienced players as Black
would be very much excited about the Rf8+, for example. (See the variation below).
But Karpov had other ideas in mind. He realized that in order to, first of all, keep
some winning chances, he cannot really exchange rooks; he must keep the rooks on
the board. He was asking himself: Where in my opponent's camp does he have
weaknesses that Black can exploit? Let's see.
First of all, White has those doubled pawns on the g-file. It's not so easy to exploit
them, but perhaps a knight can attack those pawns. Also, if you look at White's
queenside structure, you will see that the pawns on d3 and on b2 are not defended. So,
these are small weaknesses that Black can try to exploit. Even with this in mind, I still
couldn't believe that Black could really win in this position, but Karpov, being a really
masterful endgame player, managed to find here a maneuver which was extremely
brilliant, and I would really be happy if you guys can stop the video and think about
that for a little bit. He played here the extremely paradoxical move:
25...Nb8
The knight goes back to b8. I think if we saw such a move in a beginner's game, we
would just assume that it would be a completely ridiculous move, that takes a piece
which is developed into the game, and just gets it back to its place. But, as we see in
this game, and also in other games that are featured in this course, Karpov was really
a master of maneuvering. Very often he used backward moves with his knights to
maneuver into better outposts on the board. With Nb8, his intention was to get his
knight to d7. From d7, he has two choices: Either to go to c5, and put pressure on
those pawns on the queenside. The second option is to go to f6 in some cases, and
attack the pawn on g4. It depends on what White does. [25...Rf8+ And just trading
rooks along the f-file. 26.Ke2 Rxf1 27.Nxf1 perhaps just agreeing to a draw in a
couple of moves.]
26.Nf3
It's very logical, getting his knight out of the corner. Black played
26...Nd7 27.Kg3
This move was criticized by commentators, saying that the king was heading in the
wrong direction. Some sources suggested the Ke2 move, which is probably slightly
better. But, just to show you what can happen in this case, if this knight ever moves to
f3, then Black can actually consider going Nf6 and picking up that pawn on g4. Then,
Black will have an extra pawn on the kingside, with good winning chances. I think
Black would still have some chances to win the game, even if White went in the
correct direction, but White played Kg3 because he wanted to safeguard the pawn on
g4. The problem with this move is, as you will see very shortly, the white king is
going to be far away from action in the future where White will need it on the
queenside and it will be missing there. [27.Ke2]
27...Nc5
Now that the king went to the kingside, Black played his knight into the queenside,
Nc5, attacking the pawn on d3; also taking advantage of the fact that White cannot
advance the pawn, since the pawn on e4 will be hanging in this case. So, White played
28.Rd1
Basically, it's almost the only move that defends the pawn on d3. Here comes another
very important moment in this game. So, Karpov finished his maneuver of the knight
from c6 to c5. The knight is very well-placed on c5, but now it's time to activate also
his rook, which is currently not doing too much. How do you do that? Let's ask
ourselves, where ideally do we want to have our rook in such a way that it might also
help us put pressure on White's queenside? We already agreed earlier on that it's
basically where we want to play. [28.d4 Nxe4+]
28...a5
Black came up with the a5 move. Once again, it's not a move you see everyday. It
looks like a very little move, like it doesn't do too much. The idea becomes pretty
clear very soon.
29.Kf2

He realizes his king is needed on the queenside, but it's late by now. Now Black plays
29...Ra6
with the idea to go Rb6 and put pressure on White's queenside. My assumption is that
White just missed this whole idea when he played his #27 of Kg3, and it came by
surprise to him. After Ra6, it becomes almost impossible for White to maintain his
queenside pawns. White played
30.Ke2
If White played Rb6 immediately, there would be b3 coming. It's not so easy to break
through. So, Black started with
30...Na4
This is a really annoying move for White because he can now no longer move his b-
pawn since the pawn on c3 will be hanging. If he plays the obvious move, Rd2, for
example, now Black can play Rb6, threatening the pawn on b2, waiting for this pawn
to advance just to take that pawn on c3 with a gain of check and White is already
losing in this position. (See the 31.Rd2 variation below). Going back to the position
after Na4, White realized that he is in trouble since he found a resource that tried to
complicate the game a little bit. He played
31.d4
allowing Black to take the pawn on b2, but then, trying to somehow recapture the
pawn on e5, Karpov calculated it very well here and found another precise move.
Instead of taking on b2 with the knight, which would be ok, ideally we want to have
the rook on b2; so, he played [31.b3 Nxc3+; 31.Rd2 Rb6 32.b3 Nxc3+]
31...Rb6
Once again, he takes advantage of the fact that White cannot play b3. [31...Nxb2
32.dxe5]
32.dxe5
So, White took on e5. [32.b3 Nxc3+]
32...Rxb2+
Now you can see that all of White's pawns on the queenside will inevitably fall very
shortly.
33.Kf1 Nxc3
In this position, White played this basically one last chance type of move:
34.exd6
I think it's fair to say that this type of move would work against many players. If
Black captures the rook on d1, after d7, it suddenly turns out that it's not so easy to

stop this pawn from advancing and this gives Black some unnecessary troubles to deal
with. Instead of that, Karpov obviously saw that
34...cxd6
so, he took back on d6, allowing the Rxd6 move. [34...Nxd1 35.d7]
35.Rxd6
Now comes another technical move from Karpov; I really like those kind of little
moves that interrupt your opponent's position.
35...Rb1+
Once again, it's a very little move. It doesn't seem like it does that much, but it forces
White to make a very passive and unfortunate move. He plays
36.Ne1
Since if he goes Kf2, then there would be Nxe4+, this fork on the rook and the king.
So, White is forced to play Ne1, a very passive move. In this position, the material at
the moment is still equal, but White's position has been completely destroyed. Just
look at his pawns, it's a huge pile of weaknesses that Black will just slowly take up
inevitably. Now, comes the final part of the game, where Karpov shows his great
technique to win the game without giving his opponent any chances. He plays [36.Kf2
Nxe4+]
36...Kf6
also inviting the king into the party; it also goes well with the whole technique of king
invasion. Like in the previous game, White wants to centralize his king on e5, using
the fact that there are so few pieces on the board that the king can very safely stand on
e5, and actually be very happy because he can slowly pick up the white pawns. White
played the very passive move:
37.Rd2
I think White is already lost at this point, but he probably should have searched for
some better resources. Black played another very Karpovian type of technical move:
37...b5 38.Rc2 b4
Also safeguarding that knight on c3 and activating his queenside majority. To me

really this kind of ideas are extremely pleasant to see. How a player like Karpov really
managed to, with very simple moves, completely make White's position be without
any active moves. If you take a look at White's position, you cannot even find a single
active move because your opponent just basically stopped all of them.
39.Kf2
At this point of the game, Black probably has a lot of good ways to win the game.
39...Ra1

Karpov chose to hunt the pawn on f2.
40.e5+
This is already desperation.
40...Kxe5 41.Nf3+ Ke4
activating the king.
42.Nd4 Kd3
White already resigned. You can see that his rook is running out of squares to move.
His whole position is just so pathetic that there is no really need to continue further.
So, I hope you enjoyed this video lesson. We saw some kind of key themes in
Karpov's endgame techniques: the king invasion, the whole maneuvering, the creation
of weaknesses and exploiting them. All those themes are extremely popular in
Karpov's games. They are techniques that any chess player should master in order to
become better. Thank you for watching. Guys, I'll see you in the next video! 0–1

Lesson 4 – Activate the King
Anatoly Karpov – Garry Kasparov [D31]

Karpov - Kasparov World Championship Mat Moscow URS (22), 05.11.1985
Hello guys, welcome back! In this video, we're going to continue to discuss some of
Karpov's best endgames. Once again, I tried to choose some of the lesser known
endgames that Karpov played. The main theme of this video about endgames is
specifically about Karpov's great ability and technique in centralizing and activating
his king in the endgame. If we look at many of his games, that would be one of his
finest abilities. He just knows the best squares, the best moments to choose, when to
activate his king or not. I want to illustrate this to you with two examples.
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bf4 Nf6 6.e3 0–0 7.Nf3 Bf5 8.h3 c6
9.g4 Bg6 10.Ne5 Nfd7 11.Nxg6 fxg6 12.Bg2 Nb6 13.0–0 Kh8 14.Ne2 g5 15.Bg3
Bd6 16.Qd3 Na6 17.b3 Qe7 18.Bxd6 Qxd6 19.f4 gxf4 20.exf4 Rae8 21.f5 Nc7
22.Rf2 Nd7 23.g5 Qe7 24.h4 Qe3 25.Rd1 Nb5 26.Qxe3 Rxe3
This position is from the game between Karpov and Kasparov, once again, the big
rivals. This game is extremely unknown. I don't even remember seeing myself this
game before the creation of this course. The second game was Karpov versus Gelfand,
perhaps one of his biggest rivals in the later stages of his career. In both of these
games, we will see Karpov taking really small advantages in the endgame, and slowly
converting them into a full point, into a victory with a very masterful king
maneuvering and king activation.
In this position, we can see that White is probably slightly better. He has the kingside
majority with his pawns; his pawns are very well advanced. At the moment, they
cannot really advance forward, but in the long run, they definitely hold some poison.
Secondly, White is having the bishop versus the knight and, as we know, bishops tend
to be slightly more active pieces when we talk about positions where both sides have
pawns on both sides of the board. If there are pawns on the kingside as well as on the
queenside, the bishop tends to be more dangerous than the knight because it's a more
long range piece and it can control both angles. But to take this position in a pretty
straightforward fashion to win against a player of Kasparov's caliber, Karpov begins
to slowly improve his position until, finally, he wins the game. First of all, he plays
27.Kh2
This is an ndgame, he wants to activate his king, but not only this, he is preparing the
g3-square for his knight. If White does not play Kh2, Black might play Rfe8 on the
next move, threatening the knight on e2; and that knight might find that it doesn't have
too many active squares to go to, so Kh2 was played. Black played actually a move
that I didn't anticipate, which turned out to be a good maneuver. He played [27.--
Rfe8]
27...Nb6
At first glance, I didn't like this move at all because it seems like the knight is going
straight into a wall of pawns that restrict its movements. Actually, Kasparov had a
good intention: to maneuver his knight from b8 to c8, and then to d6. d6 is already a
pretty square for the knight because it is putting pressure on the f5-pawn, which is a
very weak pawn and, from there, it might also jump into the central square of e4 later
on. White continued with his plan by playing [27...-- 28.Ng3]
28.Ng3 Nc8
So far so good, as we remember, one of the key things in Karpov's game is the
continuous fight and the continuous struggle to push away your opponent's active
pieces out of their outposts. In this position, he is playing a sequence of moves I really
like. First of all, he plays
29.Nf1
He sees that rook on e3 as a threat. There is an enemy piece inside our camp; first of
all, we push it away. Black plays another good move:
29...Re7
It's a real ly cool move. You make sure that this knight never lands on c3, and you also
make sure that that rook from e7 will never land back on e3 once that the knight on f1
moves away.
30.Rd3

He plays his planned move.
30...Ncd6 31.Ng3
Covering the square on e4, now the black rook can no longer access the e3-square.
Karpov made a really good job of restricting Black's pieces. Actually, in this position,
Kasparov, playing with the white pieces, in my opinion, lost his patience. The position
is objectively still ok for him, if he played a normal move. One idea that I was
thinking about was activating the rook on e1, trying to find some targets to attack
from behind. But Kasparov wanted to force the game a little bit, to clarify the
situation. When he played his next move, he missed Karpov's move in three moves
from now. Kasparov played
31...Ne4
basically, forcing the exchange of pieces. [31...Re1]
32.Bxe4 dxe4 33.Re3
Of course, White cannot move the rook to d1 since it allows this pawn to advance and
become dangerous. [33.Rd1 e3]
33...Nxd4
In this position, he was anticipating that White would just take on e4, or move to f4,
trying to regain that pawn that Kasparov took on the last move. But, in this position,
Karpov played a really cold-blooded move which I really like, very suitable to the
theme of this video, the activation of the king. He played
34.Kh3
Karpov was really the master of activating the king in the endgame. In many games,
you see him using his advanced pawns as a shelter for his king and his activity. This
move is so great. First of all, it's a very quiet move. Black is a pawn up; you would
think that the average player will very quickly try to regain the pawn that he lost, but
not Karpov. He just wants to activate his king to g4. Then White can just proceed to
recapture the pawn he has lost a couple of moves ago. [34.Rf4; 34.Nxe4]
34...Re5
attacking the pawn on f5.
35.Kg4
In this position, it's pretty amazing that Black is a bit awkwardly placed. If he does
nothing at all, White will slowly regain the pawn on e4 and he will have a very big
advantage; just compare White's king position to Black's king position. It's almost like
White is playing a piece up because, in the endgame, the king becomes a legitimate
piece that should be activated. Kasparov felt a bit under pressure, so he played a pretty
resourceful move, but one that didn't help him much at the end of the day. He played
this little tactical move:
35...h5+

His idea was to liquidate some pawns off the board.
36.Kxh5 Nxf5 37.Rxf5 Rfxf5 38.Nxf5 Rxf5 39.Rxe4
We arrive at this endgame: The material is completely equal, but the position is
probably completely losing for Black for two reasons. Probably, the main reason is
that the white king is so active compared to the black king. He is now threatening to
go Kg6, and he's already threatening to checkmate the opponent using his own king.
So, Black was forced to play
39...Kh7
Now, the second reason why this endgame is so difficult for Black is that now the
white rook can invade the seventh rank:
40.Re7
As we know, in chess, rooks tend to stand very well on the seventh rank of the
opponent; there are lots of targets to attack on that row.
40...b5 41.Rxa7
Karpov simply took the pawn on a7. Actually, Kasparov will resign pretty soon.
41...b4
If Black does not play the b4 move, White will always have the option of playing a4,
creating another passed pawn; so b4 is trying to stop that.
42.Kg4
After this move, Kasparov decided to resign in this position, even though he is only a
pawn down because his position is just too passive. For example, if Black moves
away his rook by playing
42...Rd5 43.h5
White can just push his pawn, threatening h6. Even this kind of very trivial threat is
not so easy to parry and I think Kasparov just knew that even if he continued playing
with his impeccable technique, Karpov would still be winning. So, he didn't want to
suffer so much and he decided to resign. This game is very remarkable for the ease
with which Karpov outplayed the great Garry Kasparov like he was nothing, basically,
from a very small advantage into a full point. Let's move to the second example. 1–0
Karpov, Anatoly (2725) – Gelfand, Boris (2700) [D79]

Linares 09th Linares (6), 1991
In this game, Karpov was playing with the white pieces against Boris Gelfand. Boris
Gelfand was, probably at this time, one of the top five players in the world. He was an
extremely promising player, who was young and was at his best form. He is from the
same generation of Ivanchuk. Definitely, he was a good rival for Karpov.
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 0–0 5.Bg2 c6 6.Nc3 d5 7.cxd5 cxd5 8.Ne5
Bf5 9.0–0 Ne4 10.Be3 Nxc3 11.bxc3 Nc6 12.Qb3 e6 13.Nxc6 bxc6 14.Qa3 Re8

15.Bf4 e5 16.Bxe5 Bxe5 17.dxe5 Rxe5 18.e3 Be4 19.Rfd1 Qf6 20.Rd4 h5 21.h3
Rb8 22.Rad1 Bxg2 23.Kxg2 Qe7 24.Qxe7 Rxe7 25.R1d2 Rb6 26.c4 dxc4 27.Rxc4
Kg7 28.Rdc2 Rc7
In this game, probably Gelfand didn't play the opening the best way he could. I'll be
honest with you. In this game, White has a tiny but very unpleasant advantage from
Black's perspective. Black has one weakness, this pawn on c6. White has no
weaknesses. This makes Black's position really passive because he is forced to keep
his rooks constantly on the defensive. But once again, winning this position as White
is a completely different story, especially when you play against such a good player as
Gelfand.
Let's see how Karpov managed to slowly but surely improve his position and squeeze
water out of stone. First of all, his pieces are extremely well-placed –his rooks. Now
Karpov already starts planning the activation of his king. If you went straight away
into the center of the board (Kf3, Ke4), that would be possible; but, first of all,
Karpov uses a very well guided technique of securing the king to a good outpost in
the center by pushing his pawns on the kingside. So, the first move is
29.g4

The intention of Karpov's is to push his pawn to g5. By this, he is fixing the black
king to its place, not allowing it to get active, and then the white king can slowly
approach the middle of the board without the black king being able to interrupt it.
29...hxg4
Gelfand took on g4; that's the correct decision. Black is on the defensive on this
position and, for him, his chances of drawing the game increase as much as he can
exchange pawns.
30.hxg4 Kf6
Black is also getting ready to activate his king. And now, Karpov begins the process to
slowly activating his own king:
31.Kg3 Ke6
Karpov makes another preparatory move:
32.a4
It's a very useful move, putting that pawn on a defended square. It's also fine to have
the option of playing a5 at any given moment, whenever White needs it. It's also nice
to have your pawns as much advanced as possible when you have the advantage since,
in some cases, if you manage to somehow take that pawn on a7, for example, you
want your pawn to be as close to the promotion as possible. So, basically, the idea is
improving your position first before acting.
32...Kd7
Now, Karpov played his planned move:
33.g5
Fixing both of these pawns on f7 and g6; that means they can no longer move in this
game so much. This prepares the ground for White's king invasion. It's surprising how
little Black can do about this.
33...Ra6 34.Rd4+ Ke8 35.Rc5
Karpov is never, never rushing to do anything. He always takes his time to improve
his position until the end. He doesn't want to allow his opponent's pawn to advance to
c5. He doesn't want to allow Black to play the Ra5 move, attacking his pawn on g5;
so, he secures his position first. Now, after
35...Rb6
Black moves back to b6,
36.Kf4
He can finally activate his king. His plan is now to invade either on d6 or f6, putting
pressure on Black's pawns.

36...Rd7
But, in this position, the white king is so active that Karpov doesn't really care about
exchanging the rooks.
37.Rxd7 Kxd7 38.Ke5
Karpov is just in time to activate his king and not allowing the black king to reach the
square on d6. White is now threatening to go Kf6, invading further; so, Black is
forced to play
38...Ke7
Now, White in a way finished the first part of his plan. He got his king active; his rook
is already very well-placed. What else can we really improve in our position? What do
you think? Karpov found a way to further improve his position. White, let's not forget,
has the majority of three pawns on the kingside versus Black's two pawns. So, he
starts pushing his pawns in the center. He plays
39.f4
Black is forced to be on the defensive here. I want you to notice how well Karpov
makes sure that his opponent is not going to get any counterplay. Gelfand plays
39...Rb4
attacking his pawn. Karpov plays
40.Ra5
He is not interested in Black's weak pawn on c6 for White's good pawn on a4; he's
also attacking the pawn on a7.
40...Rb7
Gelfand is forced to go back to b7, which allows White to continue his plan with the
move:
41.e4
The threat is now to go f5, potentially maybe even f6. Black plays
41...Rc7
threatening the advancement of the pawn on the c-file.
42.Rc5
So, White is going back on the c-file.
42...Rc8
Now, White reaches a point in the game where he is probably in time trouble. He is
not sure how exactly he wants to improve his position, so he makes a couple of

waiting moves. This is also a strategy that I would suggest you sometimes do. If you
reach a position where you maximize the power of your pieces and you are not sure
how exactly to continue, how to win or make progress, a very good strategy is just to
shuffle your pieces around, potentially waiting for your opponent to commit some
kind of a weakening move. Maybe that will help you win, maybe you'll create some
weakness, maybe he'll move a piece to the wrong place.
43.Rc3 Re8
But Gelfand stays solid. He plays Re8; that's a little trap. If now White takes the pawn
on c5, Black will play Kd7; and after Kd5, Black can already play Rxe4, using the
fact that the white king still has to defend his own rook; so, Black gets a necessary
chance to make a draw.
44.Rc4 Rc8 45.Rb4
trying to also invade on the seventh rank.
45...Rc7
Finally, Karpov finds his plan to improve his position. Remember that little move, a4;
he now uses that to play
46.a5
The plan is now to go to a6, followed by potentially Rb7, transitioning the game into a
won pawn endgame.
46...Kd7 47.Rb3
Another good waiting move because Black is currently in Zugzwang right now. If the
rook moves, it allows the white rook to invade on e7,
47...Ke7
so, the king has to stay still. [47...Rc8 48.Rb7+]
48.a6
Now, White plays a6, when the black king is away, forcing Black to play
48...Kd7
to defend the rook on c7. Now, White can invade with
49.Kf6
It's a really brilliant activation of the white king by Karpov in this game, from the
very modest square on g2. Very slowly and masterfully, the king reached all the way
to f6. From here onwards, Black is completely busted. White is inevitably going to
push his pawns with e5 and g6 eventually. I will already show the game until the end,
just for the sake of completion.
49...Kc8 50.Rh3 Rd7 51.f5 gxf5 52.exf5

Black is very much helpless against the advancement of the g-pawn.
52...c5 53.Rc3 Rc7 54.g6 fxg6 55.fxg6 Kd7 56.g7
Obviously, this pawn is going to promote much quicker than the c-pawn, which is
blocked.
56...Rc8 57.Rg3
Black just resigned at this position because there is no way to stop the g8 move. If
Black plays
57...Rg8
then White will play
58.Kf7
And there is really no point in playing onwards. So, I really hope that you enjoyed
both of these games, that you learned something about the art of activating your king
in the endgame. In those games, Karpov really masterfully activated his king to a
point where the opponent just had nothing to do. His king became too active.
Sometimes, when your king becomes too active and your opponent's king is passive,
this in itself can be enough for a victory. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed
it. I'll see you in the next videos. Bye! 1–0

Lesson 5 – Art of Maneuvering
Anatoly Karpov – Mark Taimanov [B46]

16th Soviet Team-ch qual group 2 Moscow URS (2), 16.07.1983
Hello guys, welcome back! We continue to discuss some Anatoly Karpov's games and
themes. This time we're going to deal with Karpov's art of maneuvering in chess.
We'll see two games where Karpov had the white pieces. The first one is versus Mark
Taimanov and the second game against Georgadze, probably two of his biggest rivals
at the time.
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 Nge7 7.0–0 Nxd4
8.Qxd4 Nc6 9.Qd3 Nb4 10.Qd2 Be7 11.b3 0–0 12.Bb2 Qc7 13.Rad1 Rd8 14.a3
Nc6 15.f4 b5 16.Kh1 Bb7 17.Qe3 b4 18.Nb1 bxa3 19.Nxa3 d5 20.Qg3 Bf8 21.e5
Ne7 22.Qh3 Nf5 23.Bd3 Rac8
Let 's begin with this position, which occurred after Black's last move, Rac8. From
looking at this position, you might think that the game came from the French Defense.
This pawn structure in the center is very typical of that opening. But, in reality, the
game was not even close to any kind of French Defense, but Black has a similar type
of problem, which he faces also in the French Defense. He has this potentially bad
piece, the bishop on b7, which is blocked by his own pawn on d5. Probably, one day,

Black wishes to push his pawn to d4. Otherwise, the position is nice for White; he is
well-positioned. His bishop on d3 is especially a good piece, pointing at the black
king while also defending White's own structure, more notably the pawn on c2. So,
what should White do here?
We're talking about the art of maneuvering. One of the most important things is –and
this is going to be a recurring theme in most of these videos–, always think about your
piece, which pieces are badly placed and should be improved, which pieces we want
to preserve on the board, maybe try not to exchange. This is actually pretty easy here.
There is one piece which is extremely badly placed, this is the knight on a3, and also
maybe that bishop on b2; it's not a very happy camper at the moment. These two
pieces definitely need to be taken care of. We cannot do much about for the bishop on
b2 because it's hindered by its own pawn, so we need to wait for the right opportunity.
But, definitely, we can do something about this knight on a3. We need to find a new
square for this piece; and one good way to do that is by looking at the board and,
without even moving that piece, ask yourself, where do I want that piece to stand on?
If I can choose whatever square I want, what would that be?
If we look at this knight, there are many good squares. One of them might be g5,
putting pressure against Black's pawn, threatening some attacking ideas against the
black king. d4 is a nice central square. There are not probably so many good squares
for this knight. Both d4 and g5 can be achieved from f3. If we can get our knight
there, in some cases, it can go to d4 as g5. There is some kind of hidden square that
that piece can go to. So, how do you get to f3? How exactly do you find the quickest
and more certain route for a certain piece? What I like to do sometimes is to go
backwards. Basically, start with the final square, f3, instead of thinking of how I get
my knight from a3 to f3; I'm moving backward. Pretty quickly, I'm finding out that
from d2 and b1, you can get to a3. Karpov played
24.Nb1
This is one more kind of backward move. This is really one of the most frequently
appearing themes in this course, a piece moving backward in order to maneuver it to a
better square; it was a recurring theme in Karpov's games. Black played
24...g6
which is a decent move, safeguarding Black's kingside, blocking up this d3-h7

diagonal. White continued with
25.Nd2
He is not hiding his intentions. The knight wants to go from f3 potentially to g5 or d4,
as we mentioned. Obviously, Black is not going to just sit and wait for White to do
whatever he wants. He goes
25...Qb6
which is a normal move, threatening to invade with the knight on the e3-square,
forking the white rooks. This is obviously not something that White can allow Black
to do. So, White actually takes a very good decision, in my opinion, he decides to
exchange the bishop on d3 for the knight on f5:
26.Bxf5

Let's try to think about the logic of this decision. First of all, the bishop on d3 is no
longer that nice piece that it used to be, ever since Black played his g6 move, that
blocked its diagonal. It's not like it's important for us to keep that piece on the board,
so we might as well get rid of it. Also, if we look at Black's position, we can say that
the only active piece that Black has is this knight on f5; all his other pieces are not so
significant at the moment. So, it makes sense as a strategic thing to exchange your
opponent's only active piece when possible. I think, in this position, Black might
consider gxf5, even though it looks a bit scary because, as you can see, it opens up the
g-file against the black king; so, White might consider some ideas of eventually
maneuvering his rooks with a rook lift towards the king. But it's also easy to
checkmate the black king still later on.
26...exf5
The fact that Black actually decided to recapture with the e-pawn gave White a very
important resource that is going to be reappearing as the game progresses. Now, the
c2-pawn is hanging. But Karpov made a very wise, dynamic decision here to just
allow Black to take that pawn because he understood that his attack on the kingside is
much more significant. As you can see, there are no really good ways to defend the
pawn on c2. If White plays c3, then he completely blocks his bishop on c2: Rc1 is
very passive, c4 actually would probably be the worst option because now Black takes
on c4 and opens up the diagonal for that bishop, which becomes a formidable piece,
and the rooks get activated. Karpov shows a very much dynamic understanding here.
He plays [26...gxf5]
27.Nf3
just continuing his plan to maneuver the knight towards some better squares. [27.c3;
27.Rc1; 27.c4 dxc4]
27...Rxc2
Black saw this opportunity and took on c2. Now White plays
28.Bd4
His bishop was under attack, and this is definitely the best way to deal with it because
now White also gets a tempo. One more thing that I like about this move is that it
blockades that pawn on d5. This means that that bishop on b7 –remember, I said it's
always potentially a bad piece– now it's going passive practically forever. Black plays
28...Qc6
In this position, currently White is a pawn down, but his pieces are slightly gaining
momentum. The knight that used to be a very passive piece on a3 is now actually a
very well-placed piece on f3. It's ready to jump on g5. Currently, Ng5 is not so strong
because Black just pushes the knight away with h6. Karpov prepares a really nice
idea: [28...Qxb3 Please note that taking the pawn on b3 would be ill-advised because
White just plays 29.Rb1 skewering the queen and the bishop. 29...Qc4 (29...Qd3
30.Rfd1 Qe2 31.Re1 Qc4 32.Rxb7+-) 30.Qh4 Rb8 31.e6 fxe6 32.Qf6+-]
29.Qh4

He plays Qh4, first of all, gaining a tempo on the rook on d8. Black plays
29...Re8
Now, it's one of my favorite moves in this game and a theme I also once made a video
about for the RCA. It feels like his position explodes. Suddenly, all of his pieces
become active at once and he opens up lots of good lines against the enemy king. You
can stop the video and think about that. Once again, Karpov shows a great
understanding with the following move:
30.e6!
It's a really appealing move if you think about it. White basically says: please take that
pawn, I don't need it. I want that bishop to get opened up and I want my knight on f3
to have this very juicy outpost on e5, which he gets. Please pay attention that Black
cannot play Rxe6 or Qxe6 because of the simple Ng5 move with a threat of
checkmate as well. Black plays
30...fxe6
[30...Rxe6 31.Ng5; 30...Qxe6 31.Ng5]
31.Ne5
which is a really nice picture. From the very miserable square at a3, it's basically the
best square he can get on the entire board, e5, and together with White's other well-
placed pieces he can create a decisive attack.
31...Qc7 32.Nxg6
This is a small tactical detail that returns White's investment. If this knight is taken,
White can play Qh8+, followed by Qh7+. Actually, it's going to be a checkmate on the
next move. Even though, from this position, Black continued to play, there is no doubt
that White is going to win. The material is equal, White's pieces are completely
dominating and this black king is already badly exposed since the disappearance of
the pawn of g6. You can find the full game at the pgns attached to this course.
32...Bg7
[32...hxg6 33.Qh8+ Kf7 34.Qh7+ Bg7 35.Qxg7#]
33.Ne5 Qe7 34.Qg3 Rec8 35.Rfe1 R8c7 36.Nf3 Kh8 37.Bxg7+ Qxg7 38.Nd4
Qxg3 39.hxg3 R2c3 40.Nxe6 Rc8 41.Kh2 Rxb3 42.Nd4 Rb6 43.Nxf5 Rf8 44.Nd4
Rg8 45.Re7 Rg7 46.Rde1 Rh6+ 47.Kg1 Rhg6 48.f5 Rb6 49.R7e6 Rxe6 50.fxe6
Rg8 51.e7 Re8 52.Nf5 Bc6 53.Nd6 Rg8 54.e8Q Bxe8 55.Nxe8 Rxg3 56.Nf6 1–0
Anatoly Karpov – Tamas Georgadze [B92]

16th Soviet Team-ch final A Moscow URS (4), 26.07.1983
In this game, Karpov is once again playing with the white pieces against Georgadze.
This is the Sicilian Defense, the Sicilian Najdorf. Both of these games were played
when Karpov preferred the first e4 move, even though later on, he very dramatically
switched to the d4/Nf3 openings. It was probably in the last twenty or thirty years of
his career, it was very rare to see him playing e4. This is an old game. I have not seen

much coverage of this game in other sources. It takes some classic game from Karpov
as well as some lesser known games of his.
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e5 7.Nb3 Be7 8.0–0
0–0 9.Be3 Qc7 10.Qd2 Re8 11.a4 b6 12.Bf3 Be6
This is a Sicilian position. Here Karpov shows his magic by thinking about the future
of his pieces. In all of those Najdorf Sicilian openings, there is one piece which is the
problem in this position. This is the knight on e3. Currently, it does not have any
squares to aim it because all of the squares in front of him are controlled by an enemy
pawn. Karpov starts a very long maneuver that he actually uses more than once in his
career. He plays
13.Nc1
It's a very paradoxical move, once again, moving a piece back. With a clear intention
from d2 or e3, reaching that square on d5 –a very juicy square for the knight–, we're
going for a central outpost. Another potential idea, by the way, if Black somehow
manages to stop that with Ne2, Ng3, this is also a maneuver I've occasionally seen in
similar games. Eventually, the knight might also aim at the square on f5. I'd say this
maneuver is also less efficient because even if White's knight eventually gets to f3, it's
enough for Black to play g3 to stop the knight altogether. Black plays

13...Nc6
Now, Karpov understands that with the knight on c6, he cannot execute his original
maneuver. [13...-- 14.N1a2 (14.N1e2 -- 15.Ng3 -- 16.Nf5; 14.Nd3 -- 15.Nb4 --
16.Nbd5) 14...-- 15.Nb4 – 16.Nbd5]
14.Nd5
He changes his plans by playing Nd5. This is also a move which I really like. Karpov
is a very reactionary player. So, he is very flexible, basically. He has a plan in his
mind, but he is flexible enough to change his plans slightly if the opponent plays
certain moves that make his original plan not attractive anymore; which is something I
really adore about his games. He sees the knight on c6, so for him, it's an opportunity
to play Nd5 under good conditions because now Black cannot really withstand this
knight on d5; he is forced to capture it.
14...Bxd5 15.exd5
Now, you see that White has this nice tempo against the knight on c6. Black played
15...Na5
aiming towards the square on c4. Now, I think in this position, obviously, I was not
attending this game, but I would assume that Karpov played his next move in this
position in a couple of seconds, definitely, in less than a minute. If you've already seen
some other Karpov's games, then the whole theme of restriction and prophylaxis is
something you have seen many times. He played
16.b3
which is a very important move, controlling that square and, in the future, preparing
White's expansion on the queenside. You can see that White has four pawns on the
queenside versus three pawns of Black's. In the long run, White might be thinking
about pushing his pawns there to eventually create passed pawns; which would be a
good plan. Black plays
16...Rec8
attacking that pawn on c2. In this position, Karpov could very well play c4, but he
chose to play a slightly more restrained move:
17.Ra2
You can see that Karpov is a player who has a very safe and solid nature. He likes his
pieces to be defended always. Once again, this is also a recurring theme in this video
course. If you look at this position, in many of Karpov's games, you will very rarely
see hanging pieces in the air in his position; which makes it so difficult for his
opponent to create any tactics or any attacks on the board –really inspiring. Black
played [17.c4]
17...Nb7
This is a good move because the knight on a5, as you can see, is completely cut off
the game since it doesn't have any access to the c4-square. From this position

onwards, within the next six or seven moves, Karpov plays lots of little, prophylactic
–what we call small improvement– type of moves. First of all, he develops his rook
into the game, which is very useful, defending the pawn on d5 which can be attacked
basically at any moment. White plays
18.Rd1 Nc5
aiming the square on e4, attacking the white queen. That was another opportunity for
Karpov to show his prophylactic understanding. He played
19.Qe1
He's already in advance, moving the queen away from the potential attack. Black
played
19...Qb7 20.g3
preparing a lift square for his bishop on g2, safeguarding his king slightly. In this
position, White was lost for a plan. In the next moves, he's not showing that he is
doing much.
20...Qd7 21.Bg2
The planned move! Remember, he's always defending all of his pieces.
21...h6
creating a lift square for his king.
22.a5 b5
I want you to take a close look at this position and try to find a plan of action that is
suitable for our theme in this video. I hope you could find the correct idea. Karpov
played
23.Bxc5
It's a very good moment for this exchange. Black cannot take with the pawn since
becaise, first of all, the pawn on e5 is hanging; but I think even stronger is just to push
the pawn on d6, not only attacking the bishop on e7, but also opening up this g2-a8
diagonal.
23...Rxc5
[23...dxc5 24.d6]
24.Nd3
Now, Karpov finishes the maneuver that he originally started, by playing Nd3, with a
tempo against the rook.
24...Rcc8 25.Nb4

We see that once this knight reaches the square on c6, basically, there is no pawn in
Black's camp that can push that knight away. Basically, with the knight on c6, I will
regard to White's position as being already strategically winning.
25...Re8 26.Nc6 Bf8
You might say to yourself, ok, this is a bit of an exaggeration. Is it really so bad for
Black? Basically, the answer is yes! Thanks to this knight on c6, Black has no
counterplay: this knight is controlling a lot of squares in Black's camp and, slowly,
White is going to push his pawns on the queenside, create a passed pawn and,
basically, win the game on that side of the board because of that knight on c6. Black
would have much to do about that.
You can find the full game in the pgn attached in the course. Definitely, I recommend
you to go to this game and study it by yourself. All in all, I hope you enjoyed this
video about Karpov's maneuvering. In both games, we saw the very strong theme of
turning your worst placed piece into your best piece, a thing in which Karpov was
very good at. It's very inspiring to see these ideas in his games. I'll see you in the next
videos.Bye!
27.Qe2 e4 28.c4 bxc4 29.Qxc4 Qf5 30.Re2 h5 31.Rde1 Qxd5 32.Qxd5 Nxd5
33.Bxe4 Nc7 34.Ne7+ Rxe7 35.Bxa8 Rxe2 36.Rxe2 Nxa8 37.Rc2 1–0

Lesson 6 – Art of Endgames
Karpov, Anatoly – Hort, Vlastimil [C06]

Budapest Centenarium Budapest (2), 14.02.1973
Hello guys, welcome back! We continue to discuss some of Anatoly Karpov's finer
endgames. This time, we're going to deal with some of Karpov's art of maneuvering in
chess. I wanted to deal with some endgames of same-colored bishop endgames. This
was Karpov's famous techniques to win those endgames. One particular technique that
I'm going to focus on is the concept of fixing weaknesses, or fixing your enemy's
pawns on the right color from your perspective. You will shortly see what that means.
It's a game between Karpov and Hort.
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.c3 c5 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.Ne2 Qb6 8.Nf3
cxd4 9.cxd4 f6 10.exf6 Nxf6 11.0–0 Bd6 12.Nc3 0–0 13.Be3 Qd8 14.Bg5 Bd7
15.Re1 Qb8 16.Bh4 a6 17.Rc1 b5 18.Bb1 Bf4 19.Bg3 Bxg3 20.hxg3 Qb6 21.Ne2
Rae8 22.Nf4 Nxd4 23.Qxd4 Qxd4 24.Nxd4 e5 25.Nfe6 Bxe6 26.Rxe5 Bd7 27.Rxe8
Rxe8
This endgame might look nothing special. White has a couple of nice advantages here.
First of all, he has this well-placed knight on d4 in the center. Black's structure is
slightly compromised. He has weaknesses on a6 and d5. Please pay attention to the
fact that both of those pawns are fixed on light squares, so those pawns are going to

be easily attacked with White's light-squared bishop. Another thing which is nice for
White here is the fact that, basically, he has no particular weaknesses, so he can just
slowly improve his position and try to pressure the opponent's pawns without being
worried too much about his own pawns. The question is how to exactly proceed from
this position. It's White to move. The first move of this game should be very
automatic, looking at Karpov's previous games. The move is
28.f3
There are a couple of ideas there. First of all, taking away some squares from the
enemy's pieces, basically all of his pieces don't have access to the g4- and c4-squares
anymore. More importantly, it's giving his king a route to activate itself into the
center. Black played [28.Rc7 Re1+ 29.Kh2 Rxb1]
28...Rc8
offering the exchange of rooks. He doesn't have many options. If he doesn't do this,
the rook will eventually invade into his camp on c7. Please pay attention that White
cannot do this move immediately because Black will invade on e1 and annihilate all
of White's pieces.
29.Rxc8+ Bxc8 30.Kf2
White starts his journey towards the central square of d4.
30...Kf7 31.Ke3 Ke7
In the next couple of moves, Karpov is making sure to fix all of his opponent's pawns
on light squares. It's very important: White has the light-squared bishop and Black has
the light-squared bishop. White wants to fix as many pawns as he can on light squares
in order to make sure that he won't be able to move, and he will be able to attack
Black's pawns.
32.b4
That's already a very important move, fixing those two pawns on a6 and b5 on light
squares.
32...g6
safeguarding his pawn on h7. I would prefer that Black played h6; he had a better
chance to win the game. But he played g6, and now White also wants to fix those
pawns on light squares. [32...h6]
33.g4 Nd7 34.f4 Nf8 35.g5
This is now the perfect structure from White's perspective. He's about to put all of his
pawns on dark squares, while Black's pawns will be ideally on light squares. Some of
you might say: how to exactly win this position? Let's see what Karpov did.
35...Kd6 36.Kf3
White is already hinting at the option of expanding on the kingside with g4 and f5
using his kingside majority. You will notice that Black has a passed pawn on d5 in this

position. It has no meaning because this pawn cannot really move forward to any
point.
36...Ne6 37.Nxe6 Bxe6
Here comes a very, very important move:
38.Ke3!
The king goes back to e3. There is no way White is going to allow this pawn to
advance forward and, by this, allowing the bishop to be activated.
38...Bg4 39.Bd3 Be6 40.Kd4
This is exactly the type of position that White was aiming for. The fact that all of
Black's pawns are fixed on light squares will inevitably mean that eventually you will
be in Zugzwang. For those of you who don't know what Zugzwang is, it's basically a
position where one side is forced to make a move that he doesn't want to do, a move
which is harmful for him, but he has no choice as any other move would be illegal.
Basically, what White tries to do in his position is to slowly maneuver his bishop into
a position where it can invade into the enemy's camp. Basically, Black has three
weaknesses in this position. d5 is one, a6 is two and h7 is three. Those are the three
pawns that are not defended by other pawns and those are what White is aiming for.
40...Bg4 41.Bc2
aiming for the b3-square.
41...Be6 42.Bb3 Bf7
Now, since the bishop has left this c8-h3 diagonal, White is changing directions:
43.Bd1 Be6 44.Bf3
Finally, now Black is in Zugzwang. Why is that? Let's see. First of all, the king can
never move because every move by the king will allow White to invade on e5 or c5,
which is something Black can definitely not allow. All of his pawns are fixed thanks
to Karpov's well-played strategy. So, only the bishop can basically move, but the
bishop must also defend the pawn on d5. For all of the legal moves that Black has in
this position, it narrows basically to only two moves: Bf7 and Bg8.
44...Bf7
White immediately seizes the chance to get to the abandoned h3-c8 diagonal by
playing
45.Bg4
Now, there is nothing that can stop the white bishop from invading on c8 and start
collecting Black's pawns on the kingside. Please note that if Black plays
45...Be6

the transition into the pawn endgame is completely winning for White because his
king is much better placed. I think the most technical way to win in this position
would be to play g4, maybe not the only way, but the one which is not allowing Black
any counterplay.
46.Bxe6
Black is now forced to play
46...Kxe6 47.g4 Kd6 48.f5
And this is a completely lost endgame. White will slowly advance his pawn. Even in
this position, Black is in Zugzwang again.
48...gxf5 49.gxf5 Kc6 50.Ke5
White can already invade on e5 and Black must lose his d5-pawn. After Bg4, Black
already resigned in this position. Basically, in this game Karpov made it look easy to
just take a position with a very seemingly small advantage after f3 and, slowly but
surely, improve his position using the technique of fixing your opponent's pawns on
the correct color in order to win a bishop's endgame. 1–0
Karpov, Anatoly (2715) – Lautier, Joel (2580) [D45]

Biel Biel (1), 1992
Let's see the other game I've prepared for you. Once again, Karpov is playing with the
white pieces. His opponent in this game is a player which is, in my understanding, one
of the most promising players of the nineties. This is Joel Lautier from France.
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.Nf3 Nbd7 6.Qc2 Bd6 7.Be2 0–0 8.0–0
Re8 9.Rd1 Qe7 10.h3 b6 11.e4 Nxe4 12.Nxe4 dxe4 13.Qxe4 Bb7 14.Bf4 Rad8
15.Bxd6 Qxd6 16.Ne5 Nxe5 17.dxe5 Qc7 18.Bf3 Ba8 19.Rxd8 Rxd8 20.Rd1
Rxd1+ 21.Bxd1 Qd8 22.Bf3 Qd2 23.b3 Qxa2 24.b4 Qa1+ 25.Kh2 Qa6 26.Qd4
Qc8

This is the position after Black's 26th move, Qc8. We can see that this position is
actually very curious. First of all, White is a pawn down; he actually had to sacrifice a
pawn in order to get to this position. But Black, on the other hand, has it very difficult
to solve issues. First of all, the white queen is much more centralized than the black
queen. It can always go to d6 and attack the black pawns; the black queen is very
passive. But perhaps the biggest problem in this position from Black's perspective is
the black bishop on a8. It is essentially dead as long as he cannot play the pawn break
to c5. This is exactly why Karpov, before anything else, plays a fixation move:
27.c5
which is conceptually a very important move. If White does not play this move, Black
can play b5 at any given moment, and completely solve all of his problems. Black has
a very gloomy choice in this position. If you try to close the position with b5, his
bishop will be completely dead and White will slowly win in this position. One way
would be to just slowly start pushing his kingside pawns. At some point, White will
create some attack on the kingside and Black will inevitably lose because he is just a
piece down. He can erase that bishop out of the board and probably nothing will
happen. Black plays
27...bxc5

to slightly reduce the quantity of pawns on the board. It's already something we talked
about in previous videos. When you have a difficult endgame, and you're trying to
hold onto a draw, always try to exchange some pawns if possible; that improves your
chances for a draw because this way your opponent has less pieces to eat on your side,
so do that. [27...b5]
28.Qxc5
The queen is very well-placed on c5, putting pressure exactly on the right spots.
28...a6 29.Qe7
The queen also continues to invade into Black's position. What I like about this move
is that it is not only a very active move, but also it has a prophylactic feeling to it
because this white queen is not allowing the black queen any kind of active squares to
go to. It basically makes sure to keep his opponent's pieces passive; this is Karpov's
trademark technique. Always try to keep his opponent's pieces at bay. Black is forced
to create a lift square for his king for any kind of back-rank issues.
29...g6 30.h4
threatening some attacking ideas against the black king with h5 and h6. It's a sensible
move. But this goes straight to the hands of Karpov's fixing strategy because very
similarly to the previous game, we can see that all of Black's pawns are now fixed on
the light squares with White having the light-squared bishop, and Black also having
the light-squared bishop.
30...h5
How do you improve the position here? Try to take some inspiration from some other
Karpov's games that you have seen so far. See if you can come up with any kind of
strategy. Stop the video if you need to. Karpov here starts activating his least active
piece: he plays
31.Kg3
Using the fact that Black slightly compromised his position and he thinks of invading
Black's camp with those maneuvers by the king. White will do it very easily because
Black has no pieces that control the dark squares currently. Black probably felt under
pressure and decided to exchange queens, which probably was a mistake. Probably a
better chance for Black would be to keep the queens on the board and hope for some
counterplay, by playing Qb8, instead. But he chose toplay
31...Qb7
[31...Qb8]
32.Qxb7
after which, Karpov very happily traded off the queens.
32...Bxb7

Once again, this bishop on b7, if you look at it very carefully, almost looks like one
more pawn. It feels like Black really has a bishop in this position and now the king
can start invading into Black's position by playing
33.Kf4 Kf8 34.Kg5 Ke7
Now my final question for you guys, before you see the next move. Stop the video
and try to come up with a winning plan for White. So, Karpov is completely
dominating in this position, and he can basically do whatever he wants, but he
chooses the plan of going
35.Be4
eventually, creating a passed pawn on the h-file, which basically secures his victory.
Black cannot do anything about it.
35...Ba8 36.f3 Bb7
You see that Black is deprived of any counterplay.
37.g4 Ba8 38.gxh5 gxh5 39.f4 Bb7 40.Bf3 Ba8 41.Kxh5
Black just resigned here. He couldn't do anything anyway. Black will slowly move his
king away and advance the h-pawn. The a8-bishop cannot do anything, so it was
Black's decision to resign. I hope you enjoyed this video as well. Please pay attention
to this whole theme of fixing your opponent's pawns, especially when the endgame is
approaching. Try to fix your opponent's pawns on the correct color. Be ahead of your
opponent from this perspective, especially if there are bishops on the board; pay extra
attention to that. So, thank you for watching, I'll see you in the next videos. Bye! 1–0

Lesson 7 – How to Slowly Prepare Your Ideas and Breakthrough
Karpov, Anatoly – Zheliandinov, Viktor [C93]

URS Army-ch Final Riga, 1970
Hello guys, welcome back! In this video lesson, we continue to discuss Karpov's
strategic endgames. I want to focus on great ideas for breaking through the opponent's
defenses in a very calm, efficient way because, in many games that I've came across,
what I often see –especially in club players games–, is that there is hardly a
preparation for the type of moves. If you have a plan, and you want to create some
kind of idea, you must go straightaway and do that, basically as soon as possible. The
logic usually goes, the earlier the better. What Karpov did was the exact opposite of
that. He had a plan and he knew he had time. He would very often prepare and
improve his position as much as he can before he made the final breakthrough.
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0–0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0–
0 9.h3 h6 10.d4 Re8 11.Nbd2 Bf8 12.Nf1 Bd7 13.Ng3 Na5 14.Bc2 g6 15.b3 c5
16.d5 Bg7 17.Be3 Nh7 18.Qd2 h5
I want to present two games. The first is the position right in front of you. It was
played in 1970; Karpov was very young at the time, but you can already see the style
that he can later on became very famous for. The position is after Black's 18th move.
This is just after the opening; this is the Closed Spanish, the Closed Ruy Lopez. You

can see that all of the pieces are on the board right now; there is not even a single
pawn that is exchanged. We have this very typical pawn structure in the center, which
is very much closed. Something we immediately realize is that the game becomes
slower and both players really have much more time to maneuver and improve their
position.
If we look at this position, White had more space advantage because he has the more
advanced pawn on d5, and Black has basically no pawns of his that passed the middle
of the board; so, I would say that White is already better in this position, but not by a
huge margin. How would you further improve the position? How would you break
through Black's defenses? You can stop the video and think about this for a little bit.
Karpov decided to go for the most typical plan in this type of position, to push his
pawn eventually to f4. He played
19.Nh2
He had to move the knight away. There are no really other squares where the knight
can go to, other than h2. I think many of you have anticipated that after Nh2, the next
move would be f4, right? That's the planned move.
19...Nb7
When Black plays Nb7, that's a very good move because you see that the knight on a5
is very badly placed. So, he tries to go back and seek some better opportunities for
this knight, even though, as you will see in this and also in the next game, this knight
on b7 will find it very, very hard to be included in the game since it is completely
blocked by some pawns and pieces. Now, Karpov, takes lots of time to prepare and
make sure he is fully prepared for the f4 move before he actually commits it, actually
even more than ten moves.
I would not say that the moves that Karpov played in this game are by no means the
most accurate. I'm sure if you run this game through a computer engine, the engine
would probably say that there are probably better or quicker ways of playing, but
Karpov was not the type of player that plays very concrete and calculated moves. He
is the kind of player that relaxes and prepares his plans in an ideal scenario. First of
all, he plays lots of prophylactic moves before playing f4. If he plays f4 right now,
you see that this bishop on the g7-a1 diagonal gets opened up; perhaps there are some
ideas for Black playing e4. First of all, Karpov took some measures against that. He
plays
20.Rac1
with the sole idea of getting the rook out of this potentially wrong diagonal; so it's a
prophylactic move, defending your pieces in advance, one of Karpov's key themes in
his games. [20.f4 exf4 21.Bxf4]
20...a5
Black is seeking counterplay. He wants to play perhaps a4 in the next move and try to
open up the a-file. I want you to think of a way for White to stop this a4 move, or at
least make it less efficient. Once again, many of us would play a4, which immediately
stops the advance of this pawn. But this pawn allows to open up another front,
perhaps the b-file. I really like Karpov's move. He played

21.a3
Why do I like this move so much? Because now, at any point that Black plays a4,
White can just close up the position on the queenside by playing b4. In general, we
should know that White is happy, as much as possible, to try to close up the game on
the queenside, since then he can focus on his own plans on the kingside, without
worrying too much what can happen in the other side of the board. [21.a4]
21...Qb6
Black played Q6, a logical move, developing the queen, connecting his rooks. Once
again, maybe many of us would play f4 immediately, but once again Karpov sees the
potential danger that this b6-f1 diagonal might be opened up, with c4+, it would be a
possible discovered check against his king. [21...a4 22.b4]
22.Kh1
Once again, he played a very Karpovian type of move, Kh1. He knows that maybe
one day he is going to push up f4, and Black is tired of sit and wait. [22.f4 exf4
23.Bxf4 c4+]
22...b4 23.axb4 axb4 24.c4
Karpov tries to keep the position as close as possible on the queenside. Black did get
something; he got the a-file, soheimmediatelyplays
24...Ra2
seeing the nity to activate his rooks. But Karpov actually realizes that the a-file, as
nice as it is, is perhaps not the most dangerous thing in the world for him because
other than getting his rook to a2, it's not very clear that Black has actually a way of
exploiting his open file because you see that White's position is just rock solid. This is
already a key theme in Karpov's games; he always keeps his pieces defended at all
times. If you look at this position and, basically, in every point in this game, you will
see that it's very rare to see one of Karpov's pieces in any way undefended. Now, once
again, would you play f4 right now? Is this the right time to go for it? Well, not yet.
Once again, if now White plays f4, the diagonal gets opened up and that g7-bishop
can make our life miserable. So, White plays another prophylactic move: he plays
25.Qd1
This is a very good move since it also gets the queen out of the potentially dangerous
square on d2, with the rook being on a2; another prophylactic move. Almost every
move in this game by Karpov is having at least some kind of prophylactic vibe, so he
really takes his time to prepare his plan. He is in not in a rush to do anything. [25.f4
exf4 26.Bxf4 Bc3]
25...Rea8
seizing the open file; and Karpov is taking the time to prepare even more.
26.Rf1

It's always a good idea to put your rook behind the pawn before pushing it; so, when
you make that pawn push, the rook is already well placed. You can see that Black has
this problem right now; it's not so clear how to improve his position. The worst piece
on Black's camp is this knight on b7. In this position and also in the next one, this
knight is completely passive, actually after the loss of the game, it never manages to
get activated. This is an idea that I would suggest for Black here as a potential means
of improving his knight, something that really happened in the game.
Actually, I would say that Black played this game very passively. Karpov's opponent
was not a very famous player at the time. Maybe if he had played against a higher
rated player, he would potentially have more chances of a successful defense as well.
One idea is to play Nd8, with the idea to push the f-pawn one step forward. Actually a
knight on f7 would be very useful because then, if White pushes f4, Black can take
and the f7-knight is ready to jump on f5. Black didn't do that. He played
26...Qd8
seeking perhaps some activity for the queen on the long diagonal. What do you say?
Is White ready to play f4 right now? Once again, many of us would play this. I would
not say that f4 is bad here. Maybe f4 is actually ok in this position. But, why rush if
you can prepare slightly more? Black has lots of counterplay here. Black is basically
sitting and waiting for you to do something. The most logical thing that you can do is
improve your position as much as you can, and only break through when you feel like
you completely exhausted your options of improving your position. I want you to try
to find a way. Stop the video and try to find a way for White to improve his position
even more and make the f4 break even stronger. Karpov, in this position, starts a very
long maneuver. Once again, time does not have much of a value, so you can take your
time and do that. He played
27.Ne2
We will see the point of this plan very soon. Black played
27...Bf6
which is a le move, trying to exchange his bad bishop on g7. Karpov is not allowing
that. He plays
28.Nf3
temporarily blocking the f-pawn; but he understands that it's more important to stop
the bishop from getting exchanged, and he can always go back to the plan later on.
28...Kh8 29.Rb1
Now, it becomes clear what White's plan with the Ne2 move was. He was going to go
Nc1 and Nd3. With the knight on d3, the pawn break with f4 is even more significant
because then, you put extra pressure along the e-file on the c5- and e5-squares; and
we will see later on that it will be very significant.
29...Qe7 30.Nc1 R2a3 31.Nd3
The knight reached its destination. One more thing that I want you to notice, I would
say, is the relevant insignificance of Black's control on the a-file. Many people that

look at this position would assume that Black is just better because he has the control
of the only open file, but those rooks really did not have many squares to aim at on the
a-file; so, I would say that it's White who has more potential in this position because
of the eventual f4 break.
31...Bg7 32.Nd2
White is going back to the idea of pushing f4, now that his knight is already on d3.
This is probably Black's last chance in this game to try to do something. There are
definitely some things that can be done, but Black just played
32...Qf8
renewing perhaps the idea of exchanging the dark-squared bishops. But right now,
after maneuvering this knight to d3, making sure that the rook would be out of the a2-
square, improving his position until the very end, Karpov finally played
33.f4
This move is almost 15 moves later than the initial Nh2. If you remember, he was
actually preparing the f4 move. It's really unbelievable the amount of patience and wil
to improve your position before you make the final pawn break.
33...exf4 34.Bxf4
Maybe now we can appreciate more the power of the knight on b3 as, not only White
broke through with f4, but he also opened up the f-file for his rook. He has already
helped fully prepare for the pawn break in the center with e5, which is the next pawn
break that White should be preparing because White plans to open up the position
even more to get his other pieces into the game. I would say that this position is
already difficult to defend for Black because his pieces, as you can see, are completely
uncoordinated, especially his knights. This position could be fairly decent for Black if
one of his knights were controlling the e5-square. But you see that his knights are far
away from it, actually.
34...Qe7
trying to make it more difficult for White to push e5. Now another good move by
Karpov comes:
35.Nf3
renewing the threat on e5. Black cannot really take the pawn on e4, as that would run
into tactical difficulties, which are related to the fact that the bishop is now facing the
diagonal of the queen. So, Black played
35...Ra2
If Black would have tried f6, trying to stop e5, then it would create some new
weaknesses for him, more specifically the pawn on g6. If my opponent played this
move, I would probably go Nh4, almost without thinking. The threat is very obvious
to just take on g6 and fork the queen and the king. Even if Black goes to defend it, at
some point, White will still break through with the e5 move and his bishop from c2
will assist the knight to attack the pawn on g6.

36.e5
Now comes the final breakthrough, e5, after which, Black is completely lost. If he
takes on e5, he allows White's pieces to completely become irresistible. Instead, he
tried
36...Bf5 37.Re1
putting the rook facing the black queen on e7.
37...Qc7 38.Rc1
It's another preparatory type of move in order to defend that bishop on c2 from many
kinds of potential tactics. He also prepared the eventual pawn break on c5, as you
shall see. Black is now completely deprived of any active moves. The best move that
he found was
38...Kg8
which is a very miserable move.
39.exd6 Nxd6
I invite you to try to find some tactics for White which should work as White's pieces
are now immensely active. How would you proceed? Would you improve your
position until the end? Should some tactics appear on the board right now? Karpov
didn't go wrong. He played
40.Nxb4
It's not a very complicated tactic, but still a very nice one. As the rook is under attack,
40...cxb4
Black is forced to take the knight.
41.Bxf5
And Black basically resigned in a couple of moves since, after gxf5, White can play
c5, not only regaining the piece, but now White will remain with those two connected
pawns in the center, which are completely irresistible.
41...Bc3 42.Bb1 Ra1 43.Re2
Black just resigned here. Having material disadvantage of one pawn doesn't seem that
much, but it's mainly about those pawns that will very soon start moving. He'll also
have some tactical problems along this f4-c7 diagonal. I can definitely understand
why he resigned.
This video was probably long enough. I will keep the next game which is slightly
more famous for the next video. I hope you enjoyed this one. There are three key
themes in this video: the theme of preparation in chess, keeping your pieces defended
at all time; taking your time, patience and, of course, prophylactic thinking. How to

anticipate your opponent's potential ideas? Probably these themes appear almost in
any of Karpov's games out there. It's very hard to find a game where you don't see at
least a couple of prophylactic moves here and there. I hope you enjoyed this video. I'll
see you in the next one. Bye! 1–0

Lesson 8 – Control of the File
Karpov, Anatoly – Unzicker, Wolfgang [C98]

Olympiad-21 Final A Nice (3), 17.06.1974
Hello guys, welcome back! In this video, I'm going to continue to discuss Karpov's
magic ideas in positions where he has the advantage, and he slowly prepares the
breakthrough against his opponent without caring too much how much time it will
take, how quick he's going to win. He doesn't care about that at all. He wants to make
sure that he's ready when the time comes. I would say this is perhaps one of the most
famous Karpov's games in this video course. His opponent was Wolfgang Unzicker, a
very prominent player in the 70's. Even though in this game it might have, like
Karpov, completely annihilated him on the board, he's a very strong grandmaster. This
shows how powerful was Karpov at his prime.
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0–0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0–
0 9.h3 Na5 10.Bc2 c5 11.d4 Qc7 12.Nbd2 Nc6 13.d5 Nd8 14.a4 Rb8 15.axb5 axb5
16.b4 Nb7 17.Nf1 Bd7 18.Be3 Ra8 19.Qd2 Rfc8 20.Bd3 g6 21.Ng3 Bf8
This is a similar type of structure to the one we saw in the previous chapter in the
Closed Ruy Lopez. I had to include a couple of games with this type of structure

because this is one of Karpov's trademarks, the type of positions he really excelled in
this low maneuvering type of game. It's White to move. Black has a very similar type
of problem here, this knight on b7, completely stranded out of the game and, actually,
for a very long time. How would you improve White's position? This would be my
first question to the audience. You can stop the video and think about it. What pieces
can you improve? And what can you do in the position? The first move is a very
innocent move:
22.Ra2
There is basically the open a-file here; there are two rooks facing each other here.
White is trying to fight for that open file with this little move. If Black captures the
rook at any point, then White will recapture with the queen and seize control over the
a-file. Black played
22...c4
For the time being, he wants to make sure that White won't be able to make anything
else on the queenside other than opening up the a-file.
23.Bb1
Karpov went back to b1, according to the policy of keeping all of his pieces defended,
actually, at least twice because in this position it's hard to find a piece in White's camp
that is not defended. Most of them are probably defended more than once.
23...Qd8
The position is extremely slow going. It's a very closed-type game. Both sides are
maneuvering the pieces to better positions and they really take their time, as they
should. In this position, Black is preparing himself to capture on e2 (Raxe2) and then
play Ra8, and continue the fight on the a-file. Now, it's move #24; it's White to move.
If you've never come across this game, the next move by Karpov will really stun you,
not in a way of a brilliant sacrifice or something like that.
This is not a course about Mikhail Tal or Kasparov or any of those more aggressive
players; this is Karpov. Karpov was the master of those amazing prophylactic and
very deep positional moves. I urge you to stop the video and try to think at least for a
couple of minutes. Basically, the idea is to fight for the a-file, but in a very clever way.
In this position, Karpov succeeded in finding this extremely resourceful move:
24.Ba7
which looks like a nonsense-type of move. You almost never put your bishop inside
your enemy's territory like that, but Black has really no way of attacking this bishop
one more time; so it's fairly safe. The main idea is basically to stop that rook on a8
from exchanging our rook on a2. This gives White just enough time to move his
bishop away (Bc2) and to seize control over the a-file (Rca1). It's really an amazing
move in my opinion, perhaps one of Karpov's most famous moves of all time. Black
played
24...Ne8

Black is evidently very passive here. He's trying to maneuver his pieces into better
positions. He doesn't really succeed in doing so.
25.Bc2 Nc7 26.Rea1
basically, finishing the first part of his plan, of squeezing his opponent's position.
Black can now never exchange the rooks. Black plays
26...Qe7
Now Karpov starts a series of Karpovian type of moves that he was so famous for.
First of all, he knows that he has an almost infinite amount of time to improve his
position, so he is playing this little move:
27.Bb1
just making sure that his pieces are defended a couple of more times, so giving that
rook on a2 more options, if needed, to move towards the center or the kingside, which
might be useful; you can never know. Black played
27...Be8
starting to prepare his kingside in anticipation of White's coming assault. The position
is still too close at the moment, so there is no way to immediately break through.
White will have to make that same pawn push from the previous video, this f4 move,
eventually. Karpov continues with a series of moves to prepare the f4 move. First of
all, he plays
28.Ne2
in anticipation of the coming f4.
28...Nd8
Black is playing good moves here, maneuvering his pieces towards the kingside.
29.Nh2 Bg7
There are no more useful moves in this position, so he finally goes with f4.
30.f4
Right now, Black, in my opinion makes his final mistake in this game, after which, I
think it's no longer possible to hold his defense. He should have taken the pawn on f4
(exf4), at least giving himself one good square to aim for, perhaps maneuvering his
knight like that (Nf7, Ne5), with at least some chances to play a successful defense;
but he chose to play
30...f6
I would say, if he had been a modern day player, he would never have played such a
move. We have to realize that, back in the day, chess players tended to be more
passive in their approach; so, if they were under pressure, they would do anything
they could to keep their defenses very tight. Maybe more modern players are much

more open to the idea of trying to counter attack or create counterplay and not actually
sit and wait passively, as Unzicker did in this game. The f6 move allowed White to
continue advancing to f5. [30...exf4]
31.f5
If Black takes on f5, it makes things worse. In this position, I would consider not
capturing on f5, even though it's probably the best move, and go for a more Kasparov
type of move; for those of you familiar with my course about Garry Kasparov. There
are at least a couple of games of Garry, Karpov's biggest rival, where he would play
Ng3, just allowing Black to take another pawn, with the idea to use the square on f5
for his knight. Even though for those of you who like to make it simple, it's also
possible to take on f5, and then maneuver your knight to e4, potentially. But Black
tries to close up the position with this move:
31...g5
If you look at this position with a short glimpse, it will seem like the position is very
close. How can you win such a position? It must be a draw, but this is all wrong
because there's a huge difference between the potential of White's pieces and the
potential of Black's pieces. Black is completely cramped here. All of his pieces are
dead. White can continue maneuvering his pieces as much as he wants, until he finally
finds the way to break through. Once again, you are Karpov, you have time to
improve your position, what do you do? You can stop the video and think about it. He
plays
32.Bc2
Now that Black played that g5 move, this gives White the opportunity to use the
square on h5 for his pieces; so Karpov finds the plan of playing Ng3, Bd1 and Bh5.
32...Bf7
You will see in the next moves that Black has almost nothing he can do.
33.Ng3 Nb7
Black is completely helpless.
34.Bd1
continuing with his plan. In this position, Black plays another bad move; he is
probably losing regardless of what he is doing since he is too passive. White will
eventually break through using the h5-square, maybe even pushing the pawn to h4,
but Black makes it easier for White by playing
34...h6
Why is this a very bad move? First of all, one principle that you must remember, the
weaker side should not move the pawns on his weak side. Black is obviously weaker
on the kingside; he should avoid moving his pawns there, as any pawn move on that
side of the board might create more potential weaknesses for White to exploit, which
Karpov goes straight away to exploit. That square on g6 was eventually a square that
Karpov used in a very nice manner.

35.Bh5
It makes lots of sense for White to exchange the bishops. Look at the pawn structure;
almost all of White's pawns are positioned on the light squares, which makes his light-
squared bishop his bad bishop, and the other one his good bishop. Black's bishop on
g7 looks more like a tall pawn. His light-squared bishop has slightly more freedom, so
Bh5 makes lots of positional sense.
35...Qe8
Black tries to exchange the bishops under his conditions, but Karpov once again takes
his time.
36.Qd1
He really lures White into taking on h5, after which, the knight will be very well
positioned there. Once again, Black is back to doing nothing, that's all he can do. He
plays
36...Nd8
In this position, Karpov realizes that he is completely deprived of any active moves
that he can do, so he makes a more Karpovian type of preparatory moves. He plays
37.Ra3
To me, this is the more Karpovian type of move. I think that Karpov is the only chess
player in chess history that would play Ra3. Almost all moves in this position are
good for White, but to play Ra3 and then R1a2, as Karpov did,
37...Kf8 38.R1a2
just to make sure that this pawn on c3 is defended is very true to the policy of keeping
everything defended. Just a small improvement is what makes these little moves great.
It's also possible that Karpov played those 2 moves just to get closer to move #40
because when you get to this move (in the seventies or eighties), usually the game is
adjourned and is resumed on another day, so you can go on and analyze the position at
home; so, when you come back into the game, you already know what to do.
38...Kg8 39.Ng4
He played this using a little tactical trick. If Black takes twice on h5 (Bxh5, Nxh5,
Qxh5), it will fail thanks to the simple tactics, Nxf6+, followed by Qxh5. Instead of
Bhx5, Black plays
39...Kf8
Once again, he cannot do too much. White played
40.Ne3
slightly improving his position furthermore.

40...Kg8
Finally, after lots of preparation, White plays
41.Bxf7+ Nxf7 42.Qh5
And he starts penetrating with his pieces on the kingside. Now Black is really sorry
for playing h6 as now White has another access to a very juicy square on g6. If Black
does nothing, White can play Qg6, followed by Nh5. So, Black tried to exchange
queens with
42...Nd8
Now White played a neat move that I really like:
43.Qg6
This is the last nail in Black's tomb. If Black exchanges on g6, not only White gets
this dangerous pawn on g6, which might become a passed pawn very soon. Now this
square on f5 got cleared up for the white pieces, obviously, for the white knights. One
knight can come to f5, the other one to h5, and Black is completely compromised.
43...Kf8 44.Nh5
Black resigned at this position. It is remarkable considering there is no material deficit

on the black side, it seems like there is nothing immediate going on, but Black realizes
what is going on. The immediate threat is obviously checkmate on g7 (Qxg7#), but
even if Black stops that with Qe7, for example, then White might add the other knight
to g4. Look at this beautiful configuration of pieces on the light squares: if you
remember a couple of moves ago when Karpov exchanged his light-squared bishop,
this position is exactly what he was anticipating in his mind, his pieces to be slowing
crawling inside his position. Black should have avoided the h6 move, even though he
would still be in a bad shape.
So, this sums up this game. Once again, one theme that was featured in this game, and
also in the previous video, is the whole theme of preparation and, of course,
prophylaxis. I think it's now very clear in every game that Karpov plays. If you
remember the Ba7 move, it's purely prophylactic, avoiding your opponent from
exchanging rooks and seizing the control of the open file. But for me, really the theme
in this game, what basically distinguishes Karpov from other players is his ability to
very slowly and patiently prepare and improve his position before his final decisive
operations. It always impresses me how long and patience Karpov can get when
preparing his final breakthrough. To me, a very Karpovian type of move, as I
mentioned, is Ra3 amongst others. It's just a small move, improving a little bit the
position before going on and killing your opponent. There is something about this
move which is psychologically very devastating.
I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll see you in the next one. Bye! 1–0

Lesson 9 – A Practical Game
Jussupow, Artur (2610) – Karpov, Anatoly (2755) [E29]

Candidates sf1 London (6), 1989
Hi guys, welcome back! This will be our video about the defensive strategies that
Karpov used and implemented in his games. As you know, Karpov was well-known
for his very positional play. Sometimes, his opponent would, very aggressively, try to
attack him straight out from the opening, trying to avoid getting into a very slow
maneuvering, grinding type of game that Karpov was really good at. His opponent
would try to be very aggressive with him. Very often, Karpov would have to defend
his king position from very quick attacks.
I chose this game of Karpov, playing with the black pieces, against Artur Jussupow to
illustrate some key defensive strategies that I think Karpov was very good at
implementing. Those are the themes that will be featured in this game. One of them is
what I call "cold-blooded defense". It's basically going into variations that might seem
scary at first glance, but if you calculate very well and see that everything is ok, you
should still go for them at times. Number two is repelling the dangerous pieces out of
your territory. Number three is blockading key attacking pieces of the opponent,
keeping them at bay. Number four is creating strong, central outposts for your pieces
as a defensive measure against your opponent's attack. Let's go to the game. Jussupow
started with
1.d4
Karpov was playing along his career lots of different lines against d4. In this game, he
chose the Nimzo-Indian, which is a very classical opening, much to his style.
1...Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4
In this position, White has many different options, but Jussupow went for a very
standard line.
4.e3 0–0 5.Bd3
Now, Karpov played 5...c5 trying to attack White's center.
6.a3 Bxc3+
It's a very good time for Black to capture on c3.
7.bxc3
We really want, in the Nimzo-Indian, to create those doubled pawns (c3 ad c4) for
White, but usually Black wants to wait for White to waste this tempo with a3 in order
to make that move.
7...Nc6 8.Ne2
It's an indication of White's plans. Instead of going with a normal Nf3 move, he wants
to put the knight on e2 specifically not to block his f-pawn. As you will see later on,
this pawn will go forward and join White's attacking strategy. Black plays

8...b6
getting ready to develop his bishop. Now comes the aggressive move:
9.e4
This is perhaps the first move in this game that I think forced Karpov really to think
and try to make up his mind about what he's going to do because e4 is a very direct
move, an indication that White is planning to go for some kind of kingside attack. You
see that both of his bishops are aiming at the black king. If, at any point, White plays
e5, opening up his light-squared bishop, perhaps followed by an advancement of the
pawn on the f-file f4, then f5), definitely some danger is lurking. Already now,
Karpov is going to create a very subtle defensive strategy, which is based on
blockading the white pawns. How does he do that? Let's see. First of all, he plays
9...Ne8
To some of you, this might look like a very counter-intuitive move, moving your
knight back, to a seemingly very passive square. But, as you will see later on, this is a
very key, thematic move in Karpov's strategy. First of all, the knight is not so badly-
placed on e8. As we will see later on, it might go to d6 to exert some pressure on the
weak pawn on c4. You will see that it's quite tricky for White to defend that pawn

because there are not so many pieces that can actually defend it. But the most
important theme of this move is the fact that it enables Black to push, at a very good
moment, his f-pawn forward in order to blockade White's pawns from advancing.
10.0–0 Ba6
Black continued his development while also indicating some pressure against White's
weak pawn on c4. I would say this is Black's main plan in those positions. White
starts his offensive with this move:
11.f4
In this position, I always find it to be quite interesting that if you put this kind of
position into a computer engine, very often the engine will not really appreciate
White's attack so much. For example, when I turned on first time the engine on this
position, it said that Black can go either Na5 or even Nd6, and just grab the pawn on
c4. In the beginning, the engine thinks that Black is doing ok but, if you take this
position, for example after 13.f5... (See the variation below). Karpov understood all of
that in advance. After f4, what do you think? What should be Black's move in this
position? Remember our key idea, the one we talked about earlier. You can stop the
video and think about it for a little while. So, he plays
11...f5
It's an extremely important move, in my opinion. With this move, Black achieves
everything he needs. He blocks this d3-h7 diagonal for the bishop on d3 and also the
other c1–h6 diagonal for the bishop on c1. So, he made sure that both of these bishops
will stay out of White's attack. If White cannot get his bishops involved in the attack,
he has very limited resources of attack. [11...Na5 12.e5 Nxc4 13.f5 Now White
actually succeeds in getting his pieces activated. The c1–bishop is suddenly opened
up, the bishop on d3 can be opened up, f6 is coming, the knight might come to g3 or
f4 and the queen, at any moment, can jump to h5. So, even without calculating too
much, we can see that White has a very serious attack coming. Even though the
engine still thinks that the position is maybe about equal, over the board, it's
extremely dangerous. If you analyze this kind of position further with the engine,
eventually, the engine will understand what is going on and will tell you that Black is
in some troubles.]
12.Ng3
White continued with this move, trying to provoke Black to capture on e4, but Black
does none of that. He plays a very common move:
12...g6
Normally, it would be a very dangerous idea to put your pawns on such a position,
when the opponent has a dark-squared bishop. What is special about this position is
that the bishop on c1 doesn't have any good way to actually get to those weakened
dark squares; so, actually, Black's defensive position is extremely solid. The most
important thing is that he keeps his bishops at bay. White plays
13.Be3

A normal developing move, putting pressure on the pawn on c5, also defending his
own pawn on d4. Black plays
13...Nd6
This was an over-planned move. A couple of moves ago, when we played Ne8, we
knew that we would probably get this knight to d6 eventually. Now, White cannot
defend the c4-pawn immediately. If he plays Qe2, for example, it looks like he
defends the pawn on c4 but, at any given moment, Black can do Na5 if he wants and
just attacks the pawn on c4 one more time. There is no point for White to even try to
defend the pawn on c4, so what they usually do is give up that pawn and try to focus
on the attack on the kingside.
14.exf5
Jussupow just takes on e5; I think it's a reasonable move. Now, Karpov makes a very
important decision in this game. He decides, instead of just recapturing the pawn on
f5, to go into a position where he has some material advantage. But it seems like
White will have a very strong attack. What he does is basically keep a cold-blooded,
cool mindset and decides to go with it anyways because he sees in advance that there
is nothing forcing for White, and he has enough defensive resources. [14.Qe2 Na5]
14...Nxc4
So, he takes on c4, creating a very big threat of taking on e3.
15.Bxc4
White is forced to take.
15...Bxc4 16.fxg6
Now, White is absolutely forced to play fxg6. There is no time to take the rook on f1.
For example, if White plays Rf2, Black just recaptures on f5; and I think Black is
doing tremendously well because White has no attack whatsoever. Black will put his
rook on e8 very soon. Please note how passive that knight on g3 is, with that pawn
structure and the pawn on f5 and g6. It has absolutely no scope; it's almost like a dead
piece. [16.Rf2 exf5]
16...Bxf1
In this position, White played a very good move
17.Qh5
creating the obvious threat of checkmate. Please note that it would be a bad idea for
White to keep on capturing pawns (gxh7+) because now I believe that Karpov didn't
mean to recapture on h7, but rather play this defensive move of Kh8, just getting out
of the way. You can see this pawn on h7 is actually acting as a pawn shield for the
black king in a way. White should keep this Qh5 attack going. This position might
look very scary in advance if you think about it because it looks like Black is about to
be checkmated. [17.gxh7+ Kh8]
17...Qe7

But Karpov saw in advance that he had this defensive move of Qe7. Scary as it looks,
White doesn't have too much of an attack going on here. The only pieces that can
participate in the attack are, basically, the queen and the g6-pawn. The knight on g3
cannot really jump to any dangerous square anytime soon. Thanks to Black's very
successful blockading strategy, that bishop on e3 is also out of the attack.
18.Rxf1
White recaptured on f1, so, currently, Black is up an Exchange against one pawn;
thus, he has a small material advantage, but White still has some attacking chances.
18...hxg6 19.Qxg6+ Qg7
In this position, I think Jussupow made what I consider a psychological mistake

because he sacrificed some material; he felt obliged to keep the queens on the board
and try to somehow continue to attack. But I think he overestimated his attacking
potential here because, let's admit it, White doesn't have the critical amount of pieces
to go for a serious attack. Probably, in this position, White should have preferred to
exchange queens (20. Qxg7+) and take one more pawn on c5, after which, I would
assume, the position is close to being equal. Black is having an Exchange for two
pawns; White is having quite a lot of passed pawns, so it's balanced out. Instead of
that variation, Jussupow played
20.Qd3
trying to keep the queens on the board. But this is a bit of a risky strategy since now
White is starting to retreat his pieces; so, the attack is gone altogether. Now, Black
gains some time to consolidate his position. When we talk about consolidating our
position, which basically means finding good defensive outposts for our pieces, that
would make our opponent's attack ineffective. Let's see how Karpov does that.
[20.Qxg7+ Kxg7 21.dxc5=]
20...cxd4 21.cxd4 Qh7
Now, we have another move I really like from Karpov, Qh7. This is related to the
theme of repelling your enemy pieces out of their attacking positions. By threatening
to exchange queens, Karpov lures his opponent to move into a less scary square than
d3.
22.Qb5
You see that now the black king is fairly safe. At this point, Karpov makes another
key move strategically, which is:
22...a6
It looks like a very simple move, but I think that going over some Karpov's games in
this course and also in the past, I came to the conclusion that those simple moves were
Karpov's cup of tea, those moves that might seem insignificant. So, basically, what is
the idea? After a6, if Black just takes the pawn on b6 (Qxb6), it really allows Black to
be activated with Qd3; so, it forces White to retreat his queen. [22...Ne7 23.Qxd7;
22...Rac8 23.d5 exd5]

23.Qb3
Now, since queen is no longer on b5, Black has this key defensive idea with Ne7.
[23.Qxb6]
23...Ne7
After this move, I think White is already 100% certain that Karpov is not going to lose
this game because his defensive position becomes too strong. If you made the move
22...Ne7 immediately, it would fail due to 23. Qxd7. What Karpov really said to
himself was: ok, let's give my opponent one pawn and, later on, I can relocate my
knight into a very strong defensive outpost (Ne7, then Nd5). If Black doesn't play
anything special, White can play d5 on the next move.
Let's see an imaginary scenario. Let's say Black plays a generic move, 22...Rac8,
getting his rook on the open file, 23.d5 exd5. You see that, all of a sudden, this e3-
bishop has more potential one day to stand on a dangerous spot (d4). The queen takes
on d5, the knight on g3 gets liberated; so, suddenly, he might later on jump on some
dangerous squares (e4, f5). Really the a6 move has a lot of meaning; it forces White
to go back.
24.Rf3
It's a very logical move, trying to get the rook into the attack. This is what we call too
little, too late.
24...Rac8 25.Qxb6 Rc6 26.Qa5 Nd5
And this is the last theme of this video. Once that knight stands on d5, we can see that
White's attack is now completely gone, that knight is completely stable, there is no
way to move it away. If anything, Black now might start thinking about his own
counterattack. Since his pieces are already active, he might play Rb8 on the next
move, trying to invade into White's camp. Look at that queen on h7. It not only
defends the black king, it also, at any given moment, might jump to some aggressive
squares (b1, c2, d3). So, the principle said that once you stabilize your defensive
position, you might already think about the counterattack. If you want to check the
rest of this game, I would suggest you to study the pgn files attached.
I really hope you enjoyed this video about this game of Karpov versus Jussupow. He
implemented a lot of good defensive strategies that helped him repel White's
potentially very dangerous attack by some key defensive ideas. I will repeat them. We
have the cold-blooded defense, sometimes you need to calculate in a cold-blooded
manner to avoid getting into some dangerous scenarios. Number two: repel your
enemy pieces out of your territory. Number three: the blockade, what we've seen here
with the pawns on f5 and g6, they were blockading your enemy pieces out of the
attack. And, finally, creating some strong, central outposts as a defensive measure;
this knight on d5 was actually a very good picture to illustrate that. I hope you
enjoyed the video, I hope you learned something.
27.Nf1 Qf5 28.Qe1 Rb8 29.Qh4 Kf7 30.h3 Rc3 31.Kh2 Rg8 32.Ng3 Qf6
33.Qh5+ Qg6 34.Qe5 Qg7 35.Qd6 Ke8 36.f5 Qe7 37.Qb8+ Qd8 38.Qe5 Qc7
39.Qxc7 Rxc7 40.fxe6 dxe6 41.Ne4 Rc2 42.Bd2 a5 43.Rb3 Kd7 44.Rb5 Ra8 45.a4
Kc6 46.h4 Rc4 47.Rc5+ Rxc5 48.dxc5 Nb4 49.h5 Kd5 50.Nf6+ Ke5 51.Bc3+ Kf4
52.g4 Rd8 53.h6 Kg5 54.h7 Kg6 55.Kg3 Nc6 56.Kf4 Kg7 57.g5 Rd3 58.Be5 Rd1
59.g6 Rf1+ 60.Kg5 Nxe5 61.Nh5+ 0–1

Practical Part
INSTRUCTIONS
The video lessons of the course, “Karpov's Positional Style Revealed!”, give you a lot
of useful knowledge. It’s highly recommended that you watch these video lessons
SEVERAL TIMES. This will help you digest and automate the skills that separate
the amateurs from the pros.
Now it is necessary to put the knowledge received into practice. This

practical addition to the course will help you do so. I am giving you the training
program which accurately explains exactly what you should do.
Remember, you MUST train and automate these skills (especially your
thinking process) before you can use them in real games.
What will this practical part give you?
You will understand the ideas of the course better.

You will remember the ideas of the course better.
And the main thing: you will start putting the course’s ideas into practice. Thus, you
will acquire these practical skills fully.
The practical course contains eight tasks. Each of them is in a different folder. A
separate instruction accompanies each task. You should carry out all of these tasks
consistently (from 1st to 8th), following the corresponding instructions.
NOTES:
In each task, you will see that it is White’s or Black’s turn.
Remember that you should focus on the quality of your training, not on the quantity
of work performed.
Do not use computer engines while performing these tasks. In order to train your
skills, you should think for yourself.
If something is not clear to you –watch the video lessons once again.
Even if any task seems simple to you –I strongly recommend that you perform it
seriously.
The chess games are in *.pgn format. Any chess program can open this.
You should think about every single position for not less than 3 minutes and not
more than 15 minutes.
In most tasks, you will need to find the next move in a given position. Then you will
study the answer. While looking at the answer, I recommend you to go over the whole
game (not only the first move). These games are very instructive and you can find a
lot of useful ideas in them.
Now you should start performing the tasks:
1.Read the instruction (from the relevant file) for a certain task.
2.Go to the folder with chess games/puzzles.
3.Go to the folder with chess games/tasks.
While performing these tasks, you will encounter a lot of positions where you
need to find the following move. Please take note of the main purpose of such
training: you should THINK about it, APPLY the general ideas (from the video
lessons) and UNDERSTAND more deeply how these ideas work practically.
These ideas can help you find the answers to the puzzle positions.
While you often need to find the best move in a certain position, your main goal is
NOT simply to detect the right answer. Your objective is to train your correct
system of thinking.
Please don’t be upset if you can’t find the solution to all tasks: after all, “no pain,
no gain!” The HARDER and SMARTER your training, the GREATER your
progress!
Good luck!
GM Igor Smirnov

The Practical Part: Task 1
The first part of the practical course is about combinations.
The task contains 10 illustrative games. Enjoy Karpov's cool sacrifices and sharp your
tactical vision.
Open the file “Task-1” and try to find the best move in the position.
Then, open the file “Answer-1” and check the solution and the game.

The next task of the practical part is about creating weaknesses.
Strong players don't create weaknesses by themselves; so, you need to create them.

The next task of the practical part is about exchanges.
One of the most important strategic elements is how and when to exchange pieces. It
can make the difference and help you win a lot of chess games.

The next task of the practical part is about exploring weaknesses.
When your opponent has already a weakness or if you created it, the next step is to
exploit it correctly.

The next task of the practical part is about the plan.
In chess, it's important to have a plan in order to coordinate your pieces. A good plan
will increase your possibilities to be successful and win the game.

The next task of the practical part is about prophylaxis.
This is something that Karpov does very well! You should protect and defend your
pieces in advance in order not to lose them.

The next task of the practical part is about regrouping.
Sometimes you need to regroup your pieces, to place them in better positions.

The next task of the practical part is about endgames.
It's important to play well in the endgames because they will arise often in your
games.
Thank you very much for studying this course. We’ll be in touch, and we’ll talk again
in the next course.
With every good wish,
GM Igor Smirnov

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Contents

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 2

I appreciate Olga Carreño’s effort in polishing the texts of the course.

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 3

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 4

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 5

Anatoly Karpov – Artur Yusupov [C53]

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 6

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 7

22...Rf7 23.h4 Rdf8

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 8

White centralized his rook.

Anatoly Karpov - Boris Spassky [B83]

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Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 10

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 11

White continued with his plan of

so the bishop has to retreat. White played

attacking the pawn on e5. Black played

Now, White is preparing his final operations.

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 12

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 13

Anatoly Karpov – Yasser Seirawan [D20]

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 15

White went back to c3.

33...b5 34.Nf5 Nb6

Black tried to capture White's pawns on the queenside.

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 16

safeguarding the pawn on b2.

38...Nf1+ 39.Ke2 Nh2

40.Nd6+ Ke6 41.Nxb5

Bouaziz, Slim – Karpov, Anatoly (2720) [C54]

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 17

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 19

So, White took on e5. [32.b3 Nxc3+]

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 20

Also safeguarding that knight on c3 and activating his queenside majority. To me

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 21

This is already desperation.

40...Kxe5 41.Nf3+ Ke4

activating the king.

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 22

Anatoly Karpov – Garry Kasparov [D31]

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 24

basically, forcing the exchange of pieces. [31...Re1]

32.Bxe4 dxe4 33.Re3

attacking the pawn on f5.

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 25

36.Kxh5 Nxf5 37.Rxf5 Rfxf5 38.Nxf5 Rxf5 39.Rxe4

Karpov, Anatoly (2725) – Gelfand, Boris (2700) [D79]

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 26

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 27

Karpov makes another preparatory move:

Now, Karpov played his planned move:

33...Ra6 34.Rd4+ Ke8 35.Rc5

Black moves back to b6,

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 28

37.Rxd7 Kxd7 38.Ke5

attacking his pawn. Karpov plays

threatening the advancement of the pawn on the c-file.

So, White is going back on the c-file.

Karpov's Positional Style Revealed! | https://chess-teacher.com Page 29

44.Rc4 Rc8 45.Rb4