Today I want to tell you about a fascinating recent book by Thinkers Publishing: Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2021, by Grandmaster Daniel Fernandez. It is an absolutely monumental piece of work, covering the Tata Steel supertournament in incredible detail.
When I ask my students about the opponent's weaknesses in this position, they often correctly identify the pawn on d6 (one attacker, one defender) and the knight on e7 (due to the battery on the e-file). But they have a hard time finding the strong move Lasker played:
This reminds me of something the famous Indian coach RB Ramesh once said about playing superior endgames: You should think about the drawbacks of the opponent's move!
This is yet another example of ignoring the opponent's threat by creating your own equal or stronger threat! It is also a good reminder to continue to seek aggressive, forcing moves in the endgame.
