Positional Concept : Maneuvering

While most amateurs can recognize and appreciate a snappy combination and sacrifice, subtle positional concepts are not recognized at all or are often viewed as boring. And that is a terrible shame since if you cannot recognize positional concepts, you would not enjoy the full master game experience. 

To outstanding trainers, seeing positional mastery at work is one of life’s great pleasures. They want others to feel the same way about positional chess. So they sometimes would decide to highlight a few slightly advanced but fundamental positional strategies.

Maneuvering is something that can be very hard to grasp since maneuvering often avoids making threats, and even seems to be based on doing nothing over a long period of time. But, is it really nothing? Or, as is obviously the case, is the nothing just something you are not able to understand? Please keep in mind that these things are very hard to do in actual play. However, the basic aim is not to turn you into a prime Karpov, but rather to give you enough positional insight so that you can look at a master game and say, “Wow, the way he improved his Knight while turning the enemy Bishop into a tall pawn was awe inspiring!”

In many strong games, you will see some grandmasters, as if by magic, turn their opponent’s perfectly reasonable position into a total wreck with outstanding knowledge of maneuvering. To quote Fischer about good maneuvering in his notes to a game vs. Petrosian (from My 60 Memorable Games) “I was amazed during the game. Each time Petrosian achieved a good position, he managed to maneuver into a better one.”

The following is an excellent example of maneuvering by GM Petrosian.

[Event "Lone Pine"]
[Site "Lone Pine, CA USA"]
[Date "1976.03.08"]
[EventDate "1976.??.??"]
[Round "2"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Petrosian"]
[Black "John A Peters"]
[ECO "A34"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "99"]

1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 c5 3. g3 Nc6 4. Bg2 e6 5. Nf3 Be7 6. d4 d5
7. cxd5 Nxd5 8. O-O O-O 9. Nxd5 exd5 10. dxc5 Bxc5 11. a3 a5
12. Ne1 d4 13. Nd3 Bb6 14. Bd2 Re8 15. Rc1 Bg4 16. Re1 Rc8
17. h3 Bf5 18. Qb3 Be4 19. Bxe4 Rxe4 20. Qb5 Na7 21. Rxc8 Nxc8
22. Bg5 Qd6 23. Rc1 Na7 24. Qf5 Re8 25. Bf4 Qd8 26. Rc2 Nc6
27. h4 h6 28. Qb5 Na7 29. Qf5 Nc6 30. Kf1 Re6 31. Qb5 Na7
32. Qb3 Nc6 33. h5 Ne7 34. Ke1 Nd5 35. Qb5 Nf6 36. Kd1 Nd5
37. Be5 Ne7 38. g4 Nc6 39. Bg3 Na7 40. Qb3 Nc6 41. Kc1 Re4
42. f3 Re3 43. Kb1 Ne7 44. Bh4 Qd6 45. Bxe7 Rxe7 46. Rc8+ Kh7
47. Rf8 Qc7 48. f4 Bc5 49. Qd5 Re5 50. Rxf7 1-0