With the extra free time I’ve had since my bike accident, I’ve been reading alot. Recently, I also started studying a little Russian, so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone by working through russian chess books with a dictionary. This book, which i picked up on ebay dirt cheap, is a collection of positions from adjourned games, and the adjournment analysis. It’s written by Dvoretsky, and as you would expect, is therefore rather scientific. Flipping through this old book, I can’t help but think that it’s a bit sad that the silicon monsters have robbed us of the adjournment. In any case, the following two positions are interesting positions where one side must find a difficult plan to hold the draw.

In the following position, it’s white’s turn to move. Black has pressure, but white can hold with a combination of threatening to become active on the queen-side with the rook and proper king play on the kingside.

Here we have a similar situation, where white has an edge but it is not enough to win as long as black keeps his cool and coordinates his piece and king properly.