Anand’s crisis

A disturbing pattern has emerged in the games of world champion Viswanathan Anand. As White in the Ruy Lopez he has begun to disregard in serial fashion the precept that ownership of the bishop pair, against two opposing knights or knight and bishop, tends to confer a major advantage. Not only do the bishops act together as a scything weapon, they also permit the player in possession to decide if and when to trade for an opposing minor piece. The power of the bishops has been known since the days of Steinitz. It was Dr Tarrasch, I believe, the great Praeceptor Germaniae, who opined that the player with the bishop pair holds the future in his hands, while even Tarrasch’s great rival Nimzowitsch, a knight man if ever there was one, included a section on the bishop pair in his famous book My System.