Lajos Portisch. Three Games Inspired By Other Posts.

Afternoon everyone. Am still bored on lockdown, and have been taking more notice than usual of other writer's articles here on chess.com. Curiously three of the games given in other's articles reminded me of games won by Portisch. Curious coincidence !?

Let's get straight to the chess!

First of all Sam Copeland posted a famous Tal miniature.

He comments that few players would be brave enough to grab a poisoned Pawn offered by Tal.

Well, Portisch was brave enough and more than lived to tell the tale - in an important game too.

My friend Kamalakanta posted another Tal game - a loss in the French Defence.

Well, one of Tal's most crushing losses was another game where he tried the French Defence a few years later, in 1961, when he looked like this.

And finally. Simon Williams posted a famous endgame position of Karpov's.

To be honest - no attempt to be controversial here - the actual Pawn sacrifice didn't get me carried away as much as it has some people. The idea - sacrifice a Pawn to enable the King to penetrate in the endgame - was hardly new at the time, and the Pawn is regained easily enough. However, I am totally in awe of Karpov's technique in the remainder of the game - some of the subtleties of what followed are way beyond my understanding.

The fact that the sacrifice happened on the h-file reminded me of a Portisch game - against Paul Keres. Another Griffin picture - the man is incredible - of the players at Beverwijk in 1964. 

If you love you endgames this is a really fascinating one. I am not sure I fully understand it - endings with Knights on are really tough to work out - so I wouldn't be surprised if my analysis is flawed.

 I hope you enjoyed the chess, Portisch is still with us, and so, to him from me, a big Simaginfan 'cheers mate!!'.

Take care everyone.