The key defender
by Jan Markos
When determining whether a piece is good or bad in a specific position, a number of factors come into play: if the piece is active, we generally consider it valuable. The question of whether the piece restricts the opponent's play is also relevant to assessing its quality. In addition, the vulnerability of the piece also plays an important role. And last but not least, the piece's contribution to its own defence is also taken into account in the assessment.
Jan Markos’ new article deals with this last aspect, or more precisely, with pieces that perform well due to their special defensive capabilities. Jan Markos approaches the topic from the perspective of the attacker. The attacker's task is to identify the most important piece within the opponent's defence and remove it from the board.
The first example from his video contribution comes from the game between Karsten Mueller and Zurab Azmaiparashvili (2003), and it is a very complex position in which only one pair of pawns has been exchanged so far:
Black is to move. Which is the most important defensive piece in the white position here? It is the bishop on g2, because it performs two defensive tasks at once: it covers the exposed knight on d5 in the centre and at the same time protects its king. Black found a way to exchange the defender with 21...Nh4! 22.Bh1 Nhf3+ 23.Bxf3 Nxf3 24.Rxf3 Qxd5. The resulting weakening of the white squares in the white camp quickly proved to be decisive for the game. However, the second example in Markos’ video shows that it is not always easy to identify the most important defensive piece in the opponent's camp.
As in previous contributions to his series, our author has provided a small collection of exercises to accompany the video. Enjoy!
Training exercises
Find a defender for the pawn on d6 that
you can successfully exchange. Navara,D - Leko,P
How can removing a defensive piece simplify
White's path to victory? Harikrishna,P - Chirila,I
How should White proceed to effectively
attack the weak d6 pawn? Vachier Lagrave,M - Wei,Y
How should Black proceed? Shirov,A - Kramnik,V
Where should the bishop move on g2?
Or should it move at all? Postny,E - Kaplan,S