Botvinnik — Tsvetkov

Chigorin MemorialMoscow, 1947

• Mikhail Botvinnik (1911–1995)The sixth World Champion and figurehead of the Soviet chess school, who held the title across three reigns between 1948 and 1963.
• Aleksandar Tsvetkov (1914–1990)Bulgaria's strongest player of the late 1940s, a multiple national champion and the first Bulgarian to earn the international master title.

Let us now look at a tactical feature of mobile central pawns, which can be put this way: when mobile central pawns of one color stand on the 4th rank (say, White's on e4 and d4), the opponent must reckon with both pawns advancing — e4-e5 as well as d4-d5 — since the pawns cover all the central squares between them.

We take the example of central pawns side by side on the 4th rank because that is the case met most often in practice. Having to reckon with both advances sharply limits the options for defense. Sometimes both threats cannot be parried at once.

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1. Black must take measures against e4-e5, which threatens material losses
2. 22.
3. 23.
4. White wants to trade off one of Black's bishops
5. 23.
6. 24.
7. 25.
8. e4-e5 threatens again
9. 25.
10. Black finds a clever way to parry the threat, but another trouble awaits them
11. 26.
12. For the third time White threatens e4-e5! (followed by ♗g2xc6). There is also the immediate threat of 27. ♖xc6. But that is not all. It turns out White has yet another threat: 27. d5! followed by ♗e3-a7. Black has no way to defend
13. This would have been answered by
14. 26.
15. Parrying two threats, but not the third
16. 27.
17. 28.
18. 29.
19. 30.
20. Black resigned