Anatoly Karpov – the 12th World Chess Champion – turned 70 yesterday and today we celebrate the occasion with a selection of Karpov’s checkmating attacks.
Karpov has already featured in our Checkmate Monday series once before but we have by no means exhausted the supply of excellent examples from the great champion.
Try your hand at the following positions to see if you can match the champion’s skill. Can you finish off Karpov’s checkmating attacks?
Highlight the space under each position to reveal the answers.
A Single Move
Our first example is checkmate in just one move.
The Delicate Touch
The next example requires a delicate touch – typical of Karpov’s style.
A Knight to Remember
Karpov played many games against Jan Timman. White has an extra knight but sometimes that is not enough to win. However, Karpov finished off in style, with a forced checkmate.
A Big Sacrifice
All of the deft touches shown above may give the impression that Karpov never finished games with a sacrificial flourish. The next example refutes the idea.
Answer: Karpov unleashed a brilliant queen sacrifice. 53.Qxh7+ Kxh7 54.Rh2+ Kg8 55.Rdh1 f6 56.Rh8+ 1-0. 56…Kf7 57.g6 checkmate would have swiftly followed had Ribli not resigned.
Pawn Power
In today’s final example of Karpov’s checkmating attacks, his opponent, the tricky Ivanchuk, has just promoted a pawn on h8 to earn himself a new queen. White is ahead by one point, but Karpov finishes off the game with a fine checkmate. Accuracy is required!
Incidentally, our friends at chess24.com have published a the first part of a very recent interview Karpov, which is definitely worth reading.
Chessable Courses
You may like to know that there are many more beautiful checkmating patterns in our course, The Checkmate Patterns Manual, by International Master John Bartholomew and CraftyRaf. This course won third place in our Chessable Awards for 2020.
There is a shortened, free version of the course here.
