A diagram in introduction is not from this game, but has a lot to do with the game and I will, as in the previous post, explain some points in strategy about these positions.
As in the previous post it will not be classical analyse of the game, but more an article about my articles about improvement in chess, but this time showed on practical examples.
It will contain some information from my old games too.
From the beginning...
My interest for so called Botvinnik system started in my junior days when I was looking for universal weapon to answer all closed systems which not starts with 1.d4.
The Botvinnik System is usually played in The English Opening by both, White and Black, but it can be used against any sort of The Closed Sicilian.
We can considered that in The Closed Sicilian black plays The English Opening with tempo down.
I had quite nice experience with it and I won couple of nice games, playing against it mostly with Black.
One of these games is against Niemi Mikko E2188 in the Rilton Cup 2007/2008.
During the springer of 2008 I played an interesting game with Black against GM Henrik Danielsen from Iceland (originally from Denmark) E2505 and I lost even if I than thought that I was not worse or inferior in the big part of the game.
From that time I changed my opinion about that game but it didn´t happened over the night.
As I wrote in my article about improvement in chess in part 3, it is very hard to change somebody´s opinion about strategy in some game as it is not concrete as tactics and everybody looks at the game from the point of view of their understanding of chess.
If somebody told me than that I was not at least equal most of the game I would disagree but today I understand that Danielsen played according to his well known strategy.
So how my understanding changed?
Well, I have to say that before I started to understand better these kind of positions, I lost one more game against The Botvinnik System against Erik Norgberg E2224 later in the 2008 (even if I was much better all the game) but won nicely against Svenn Gosta E2354 in the beginning of 2009.
Still, my understanding of this system was mostly based on my believe that The Botvnnik System is somehow odd system which one don´t need to learn as it is not ambitious.
When, after many years, I played some chess on Balkan again, in the summer of 2009 I noticed that many players against me plays either The Botvinnik System, or some other form of The English or The Closed Sicilian.
This is one of these examples.
It is from the game Ribli Zoltan E2577 -Bejtovic Jasmin E2306
where my famous opponent got nothing from his positional play and went for a draw after c4-c5.
This position with a bishop against knight often comes from The Maroczy Bind or other strategic openings.
It looks promising for the side with a bishop, especially when he plays b4, but all what black has to do is to put these pawns on c4-b4 under the pressure (if it is possible, provoke b4-b5) and knight can play successfully against the bishop.
A bit earlier in the same tournament I lost in the sort of The Closed Sicilian against Filip Pancevski E2423 and later on I played against Bosnian GM Ibro Saric E2555.
The position from the diagram in the introduction is from that game. I did the same as I did against Ribli, and I could provoke his advance b4-b5. I could even install my knight on the very nice square c5, but still he won the game convincingly.
What was the problem?
As I described in my article about improvement in chess, it is all about details and comparations.
Ibro Saric played very well and he managed to exchange e-pawns with e4-e5 advance and later on exd6,exd6 .
It changed position in the favour of the bishop.
The bishop has nice centralised position on d5, attacks f7 and b7 and protects his own king.
On the other hand Black knight is nicely placed but there is no coordination between Black knight and other pieces.
It is so called the parade knight.
If we imagine the same position with a pawns on e2 (or e3) and e7 (just like in the game against Ribli) then black would be no worse. He would push back white´s bishop and than organise pressure on c4-pawn.
After this tournament my interest in this kind of position grew and I started to play it with both colours and even when playing 1.e4 I played all kind of Closed Sicilian setups.
I played again against Henrik Danielsen in the Prague Open 2010 and I was close to winning with The Botvinnik System but he managed to save a draw.
Latter on I played many games with more or less successfuly and one of the best was victory against Russian young player Antipov and one of the worst was my defeat against German IM Jonathan Carlsted.
In 2012 I played some games in The Botvinnik System again.
I lost against GM Vladimir Talla in Marienbad GM tournament who took his revenge on his defeat against me in 2008, and only drew against Oscar Wieczorek in the same tournament.
I drew three games in Cappelle La Grande against Fucks Judith E2233 and Franklin Samuel E2187 with White and against Jeanne Mickael E2177 with black (even if I was seriously ill during the last game and gave a draw in completely winning position just to take some fresh air).
I won one game in the European Individual Chess Championship in Plovdiv 2012 against Hristodoulou E2203 and a very nice game against GM Colin McNab in Glasgow 2012.
I had one painful defeat against Filip Pancevski (yes, he again) in Bosna Open 2012 in Sarajevo.
As you can see I have a big experience in The Botvinnik System during a last couple of years and I didn´t mentioned all my games!
It was time for Jörgen Eriksson to test my abilities.
Bejtovic Jasmin E2387 - Jörgen Eriksson E2213
This is the main position in The Botvinnik System if Black decides to play with pawn on c5.
He basically has two plans, to transfer his knight on f6 to d4, or first to play for a break b7-b5 with a6 and Rb8 and only later (usually after White stops his b5) transfer the knight on d4.
My opponent decided to play for the knight transfer immediately.
In that case White don not need to lose a tempo on h2-h3 and can just play Be3 and d4.
This is exactly what I did.
So the game went:
8...Ne8
9. Be3, Nc7
10. d4, cxd4
11. Nxd4
The best move now is 11...Ne6 and I got that position already three times this year.
However my opponent decided to exchange everything on d4 which was bed decision.
11...Nxd4 ?!
12. Bxd4, Bxd4 ?!
13. Qxd4
...and just as I did against Ibro Saric, he played:
13... Ne6
In my game against Ibro Saric we had moves a2-a3 and a7-a5 but I don´t know if this is in the favour of white or black.
I went:
14. Qe3
...just as Ibro did against me and Black now have all kind of problems.
White is clearly better.
I didn´t played anything special, just moved my rooks on central lines pushed e4-e5 and centralised my knight.
We got this position in which I could win the game with:
21. Nc7, Qxe5
(or 21...Qxc7 22. Qxc7, Nxc7 23. Rxd7 with the same position. Only difference is rook position on e1 instead of e5 but this is of no importance)
22. Rxe5, Nxc7
23. Rxd7
and White will win at least two pawns.
Instead I played:
21. h4 ?!
This is positionally good but still I missed easier win.
Later on we came to the moment when I was forced to show some creativity (not hard to be honest) in order to finish him off.
There are two weak points in his position.
One is the square h6 and the second is his knight on e6.
In order to win this knight I need to exchange my knight on d5 for his bishop on d7. It can be achieved if I just win a pawn on a7 and later play Nd5-b6.
It will win the game immediately.
I played:
24. b4, Qc8
25. Qe3!
attacking the pawn on a7 and weak square on h6.
The game is over.
He played some moves by inertion but it could not help him.
You can see the whole game in the PGN viewer.
The Botvinnik System is usually played in The English Opening by both, White and Black, but it can be used against any sort of The Closed Sicilian.
We can considered that in The Closed Sicilian black plays The English Opening with tempo down.
I had quite nice experience with it and I won couple of nice games, playing against it mostly with Black.
One of these games is against Niemi Mikko E2188 in the Rilton Cup 2007/2008.
During the springer of 2008 I played an interesting game with Black against GM Henrik Danielsen from Iceland (originally from Denmark) E2505 and I lost even if I than thought that I was not worse or inferior in the big part of the game.
From that time I changed my opinion about that game but it didn´t happened over the night.
As I wrote in my article about improvement in chess in part 3, it is very hard to change somebody´s opinion about strategy in some game as it is not concrete as tactics and everybody looks at the game from the point of view of their understanding of chess.
If somebody told me than that I was not at least equal most of the game I would disagree but today I understand that Danielsen played according to his well known strategy.
So how my understanding changed?
Well, I have to say that before I started to understand better these kind of positions, I lost one more game against The Botvinnik System against Erik Norgberg E2224 later in the 2008 (even if I was much better all the game) but won nicely against Svenn Gosta E2354 in the beginning of 2009.
Still, my understanding of this system was mostly based on my believe that The Botvnnik System is somehow odd system which one don´t need to learn as it is not ambitious.
When, after many years, I played some chess on Balkan again, in the summer of 2009 I noticed that many players against me plays either The Botvinnik System, or some other form of The English or The Closed Sicilian.
It is from the game Ribli Zoltan E2577 -Bejtovic Jasmin E2306
where my famous opponent got nothing from his positional play and went for a draw after c4-c5.
This position with a bishop against knight often comes from The Maroczy Bind or other strategic openings.
It looks promising for the side with a bishop, especially when he plays b4, but all what black has to do is to put these pawns on c4-b4 under the pressure (if it is possible, provoke b4-b5) and knight can play successfully against the bishop.
A bit earlier in the same tournament I lost in the sort of The Closed Sicilian against Filip Pancevski E2423 and later on I played against Bosnian GM Ibro Saric E2555.
The position from the diagram in the introduction is from that game. I did the same as I did against Ribli, and I could provoke his advance b4-b5. I could even install my knight on the very nice square c5, but still he won the game convincingly.
What was the problem?
As I described in my article about improvement in chess, it is all about details and comparations.
It changed position in the favour of the bishop.
The bishop has nice centralised position on d5, attacks f7 and b7 and protects his own king.
On the other hand Black knight is nicely placed but there is no coordination between Black knight and other pieces.
It is so called the parade knight.
If we imagine the same position with a pawns on e2 (or e3) and e7 (just like in the game against Ribli) then black would be no worse. He would push back white´s bishop and than organise pressure on c4-pawn.
After this tournament my interest in this kind of position grew and I started to play it with both colours and even when playing 1.e4 I played all kind of Closed Sicilian setups.
I played again against Henrik Danielsen in the Prague Open 2010 and I was close to winning with The Botvinnik System but he managed to save a draw.
Latter on I played many games with more or less successfuly and one of the best was victory against Russian young player Antipov and one of the worst was my defeat against German IM Jonathan Carlsted.
In 2012 I played some games in The Botvinnik System again.
I lost against GM Vladimir Talla in Marienbad GM tournament who took his revenge on his defeat against me in 2008, and only drew against Oscar Wieczorek in the same tournament.
I drew three games in Cappelle La Grande against Fucks Judith E2233 and Franklin Samuel E2187 with White and against Jeanne Mickael E2177 with black (even if I was seriously ill during the last game and gave a draw in completely winning position just to take some fresh air).
I won one game in the European Individual Chess Championship in Plovdiv 2012 against Hristodoulou E2203 and a very nice game against GM Colin McNab in Glasgow 2012.
I had one painful defeat against Filip Pancevski (yes, he again) in Bosna Open 2012 in Sarajevo.
As you can see I have a big experience in The Botvinnik System during a last couple of years and I didn´t mentioned all my games!
It was time for Jörgen Eriksson to test my abilities.
Bejtovic Jasmin E2387 - Jörgen Eriksson E2213
He basically has two plans, to transfer his knight on f6 to d4, or first to play for a break b7-b5 with a6 and Rb8 and only later (usually after White stops his b5) transfer the knight on d4.
My opponent decided to play for the knight transfer immediately.
In that case White don not need to lose a tempo on h2-h3 and can just play Be3 and d4.
This is exactly what I did.
So the game went:
8...Ne8
9. Be3, Nc7
10. d4, cxd4
11. Nxd4
The best move now is 11...Ne6 and I got that position already three times this year.
However my opponent decided to exchange everything on d4 which was bed decision.
11...Nxd4 ?!
12. Bxd4, Bxd4 ?!
13. Qxd4
...and just as I did against Ibro Saric, he played:
13... Ne6
In my game against Ibro Saric we had moves a2-a3 and a7-a5 but I don´t know if this is in the favour of white or black.
I went:
14. Qe3
...just as Ibro did against me and Black now have all kind of problems.
White is clearly better.
We got this position in which I could win the game with:
21. Nc7, Qxe5
(or 21...Qxc7 22. Qxc7, Nxc7 23. Rxd7 with the same position. Only difference is rook position on e1 instead of e5 but this is of no importance)
22. Rxe5, Nxc7
23. Rxd7
and White will win at least two pawns.
Instead I played:
21. h4 ?!
This is positionally good but still I missed easier win.
Later on we came to the moment when I was forced to show some creativity (not hard to be honest) in order to finish him off.
One is the square h6 and the second is his knight on e6.
In order to win this knight I need to exchange my knight on d5 for his bishop on d7. It can be achieved if I just win a pawn on a7 and later play Nd5-b6.
It will win the game immediately.
I played:
24. b4, Qc8
25. Qe3!
attacking the pawn on a7 and weak square on h6.
The game is over.
He played some moves by inertion but it could not help him.
You can see the whole game in the PGN viewer.
The history leading up to the games recently played - just excellent. I think most players who are serious with their chess improvement, their own and others, could benefit greatly from this.
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