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Chess Mon, Apr 24, 1972 – 17 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
Players below master caliber often underestimate the value of an initiative when their opponent lacks positive counter-chances. Chess theory and chess writers are also geared to concrete types of advantage—a mating attack against a weakened king's position, a pawn, or the exchange ahead. The initiative is a more nebulous factor, difficult to define and therefore rarely the major target of a player's plan.
It ought not to be so. The objective of a position where the opponent is reduced to passive and negative defence is a theme which runs through the styles of several of the greatest players of our generation. Where they differ is not in the objective but in their methods of achieving and exploiting it. Fischer likes clear-cut technical advantages, of the kind which Capablanca also used to exploit with precise accuracy. Give Fischer an active rook and bishop against a passive rook and knight in the ending and he will score the full point at least 95 per cent of the time. Petrosian likes space advantages with a few weak squares in the enemy pawn front as in the Savon game discussed last week. Petrosian scores a high percentage with this special type of positional bind as does Tal with his brand of complex tactical attacks.
