Anatoly Karpov & Jerome Gambit (Part 6)
(by Yury V. Bukayev)
The Part 6 of this my work is about the World Champion, Top GM Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov and about his most important Jerome-ish game I know.
These days everyone in the chess world thinks about his health, about the incident in Moscow, because he was a World Champion, the strongest chess player during a very long time, and there are some other “very positive” and “very negative” causes too. I can’t exclude that his thought was about some bright chess event or even about his ‘My Best Games’ up to that dark moment.
Anatoly Karpov’s most important Jerome-ish game was played in the last round of the Top GMs’ tournament, when both opponents of the game pretended to the first place.
Top GM Shirov, Alexei – WCC Top GM Karpov, Anatoly
Vienna Millenium Tournament
Vienna, 1996
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 Ne7 6.0-0 c5 7.c4 Nbc6 8.Nc3 dxc4 9.dxc5 Nd5 10.Nd4 Nxc3 11.bxc3 Bxc5 12.Nxf5 exf5
I’ll not comment this initial stage of the game, but since this exchange of pieces we can start to see an absolutely open position where White has an advantage.
13.Bxc4?! Bxf2+!
Probably, Alexei Shirov missed this World Champion’s Jerome-ish blow. The game continued:
14.Kh1 Qxd1! ,
and Black got a better position here. But, in my opinion, the best way for White was the following one: 14.Kxf2! Qh4+ 15.Kg1! Qxc4. It is one of typical Jerome-ish situations. I disagree with the commentators who say that Black has a serious advantage here, and they haven’t shown a proof of it. The situation is complicated. Here is one of possible variations: 16.Rxf5!? Qxc3!? 17.Rb1! AN Qd4+!? 18.Qxd4 Nxd4 19.Rf2 b6 (19…0-0-0!, although White also continues to attack here successfully in spite of Black’s active counter-play) 20.Ba3 Rc8 21.Bd6! (with the idea 22.Rbf1) with White’s excellent compensation for a pawn, and even more.
We can see the large psychological effect of Anatoly Karpov’s Jerome-ish blow 13…Bxf2+, and it brings this move closer to the Jerome gambit – to its standard system, to its deferred systems including strong ones.
Contact the author: istinayubukayev@yandex.ru
© 2022 Yury V. Bukayev (Copyright © Bukayev Yury Vyacheslavovich 2022). All rights reserved.
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