Positional chess understanding

This is the position I showed yesterday on this blog. Below is the analysis done by world famous chess author IM Mark Dvoretsky for www.ChessCafe.com.

The Worst-Piece Principle

Secrets of Positional Play, by M. Dvoretsky and A. Yusupov (the fourth volume in our series, “School of Chess Excellence”) contains a lecture by Alexei Kosikov, entitled “Constructing a Plan in the Game of Chess.” In this lecture, Kosikov formulated his “worst-piece principle.”

In situations involving strategic maneuvers (when the time factor is not of decisive importance), look for the piece which stands worse than the others. Making this piece more active will often turn out to be the surest way to improve your position as a whole.

Offered for your consideration: a small selection of examples where using the worst-piece principle makes it easier to search for the strongest continuation. Some may wish to train themselves in the use of this technique: for them, the question mark beneath the diagrams (right after the indication of whose turn it is to move) denotes that the position would be a good one to use as an exercise.

White needs to get his knight involved in order to increase the pressure; currently, the knight does not stand well. Its place is at g5, coordinating with White’s light-squared bishop, rooks and queen.

19.Ng3-h1!! Ra8-e8 20.Nh1-f2+/=

This is the position that occurred in the game (by transposition of moves – in the actual game, the white rook was on f1, and the black bishop on c8; after 18.Rfe1 Bd7, the diagrammed position was reached. The actual move order was 18.Nh1! Bd7 19.Nf2 Rae8 20.Rfe1.
It’s not a simple matter to decide which of two move orders is better, and I generally try to avoid using exercises with more than one possible solution. In the interests of improving an exercise’s quality, a trainer has the right to alter the position slightly, which I sometimes do.)

Note that in my demonstration of the rest of the game, I go from full notation to abbreviated notation. This is not accidental. A trainer should indicate, as much as possible, the boundary between the answer to the exercise (the moves that must be found) and further illustrative variations. This I do with the help of a change in notation.

Here is the full analysis from world famous author IM Mark Dvoretsky.