Brother, Can You Paradigm?

Certain kinds of paradigmatic chess positions demand certain kinds of typical responses. In the Sicilian Defense, white almost always attacks on the kingside while black counterattacks on the opposite flank. At the SuperGM intercontinental tournament in Mexico and Spain, Veselin Topalov broke out of this basic paradigm in his encounter with Vassily Ivanchuk. After initiating a pawn-storm on the kingside, he suddenly started attacking on the queenside, black’s traditional field of operations. Taken by surprise, Ivanchuk was crushed. One of the basic paradigms of chess is that no paradigm survives for long.