It’s simply that the strength of novelties varies. Some are for one game only, or give you a minimal advantage. The strong point of the 17. Rb3 novelty was that it’s purely human. The idea is to switch the rook to c7. The computer goes after all the pawns, but White just plays for complete domination. I didn’t touch my opponent’s pawns at all – he was still left with an extra one at the end. The idea is that after Rb3-c3-c7 the position turns out to be absolutely lost. Of course, that was very pleasant. It’s not every day you manage to find such a strong novelty, as with the advent of computers almost any position can be held nowadays. The computer finds a way. But this novelty is one of those that really are powerful. And, of course, it had an influence on how I played after that. I felt more self-confident. If you can beat Ivanchuk without, let’s say, needing to apply any particular effort… after Rc7 I remembered the line right up to 19. Bd7. And the rest is very simple.
Surov mentions that in the past good novelties would be talked about for a long time afterwards, while nowadays they’re almost immediately forgotten:
Of course, it’s not the way it was before. I think that’s linked to the fact that previously it was difficult to find novelties. Now when someone finds a novelty everyone thinks it must have been found with a computer. That’s the easiest way, it’s true. But, as a rule, all the best novelties in my life have been found without a computer. The computer helps in calculation, but in terms of ideas, of course, it’s not an assistant to man. Sometimes it just doesn’t understand. But, of course, computers are getting stronger all the time. I can’t rule out that one fine day computers will also be strong in terms of ideas, and not only in calculation. But it strikes me that we’ve still got a long way to go before that.
