Monthly Archives: April 2014


New Chess Videos for April 28 – May 2

Monday, April 28 IM Valeri Lilov London System by Blackburne (strategy, middlegame)
Joseph Blackburne (also nicknamed “The Black Death”) was a leading 19th century chess player who became legendary for his wide-open and highly tactical style of play. His openings were often new and hard to prepare against. In one of these games, Blackburne found his next prey by using the London System as white!

Tuesday, April 29 GM Eugene Perelshteyn A Common Trap in the Accelerated Dragon (opening traps, tactics)
White plays an unusual combination of Be2 and Qd2 against the Accelerated Dragon and gets duly punished by a clever knight recapture in the center. White loses a pawn for some initiative, but with clever …Qh3! idea Black stops the h-pawn run and eventually converts the extra pawn. Try to find the spectacular Middlegame tactic that was missed by both sides!

Wednesday, April 30 FM Dennis Monokroussos Queen’s Gambit & Friends, Part 8: A New Gambit in the Slav (opening)
19th century favorites like the King’s Gambit and the Evans Gambit aren’t very popular nowadays, but new gambits have sprung up to take their place, even in the quietest of openings. Our show this week illustrates this with an almost brand-new pawn sac in the Slav that offers Black compensation and play across the entire board.

Thursday, May 1  GM Leonid Kritz A Terrific Blunder from an Ex-World Champion (opening, strategy)

Friday, May 2  IM Bill Paschall Candidates 2014:  Grudge Match (opening, middlegame)


New DVD of the week Aggressive Pawn Chains by GM Eugene Perelshteyn

Aggressive Pawn Chains

by GM Eugene Perelshteyn

 Recommended for Beginner – Intermediate Players

Presented by International Grandmaster Eugene Perelshtyen for ChessLecture.com

In this DVD Eugene stresses “It is the pawns that define our middle game, attacking potential and control of empty squares”. Gain his insight and strategically winning tips. Instructive tips about keeping the tension in a position, both in theory and in practice. More

ECO: B23

Content: 53 Minutes of chess theory and discussion, with example games, over a series of 3 lectures.

Members of ChessLecture.com rated this series a 4.8 out of 5

Fans on ChessLecture.com said: I now understand how these pawn chains create a powerful attack by seizing a space advantage when your pieces will have superior maneuvering possibilities. Excellent!!! video, keep up the series Eugene!!


New DVD of the Week – A Tribute to Smyslov

A Tribute to Smyslov

By the Masters of ChessLecture.com

Recommended for Intermediate- Advanced Players

Vasily Smyslov was a Soviet and Russian grandmaster, and was World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958. He redefined chess post WW2. He was a candidate for the World Chess on eight occasions. Smyslov twice tied for first at the Soviet Championship (1949, 1955), and his total of 17 Chess Olympiad medals won is an all-time record. In five European Team Championships, Smyslov won ten gold medals. He is known for his fantastic endgames, very dynamic sense over the board and intuitive sense of harmony. Modern champions that follow his style are Carlsen and Kramnik. Here the masters of ChessLecture review his brilliance and style in a series of stunning games. Read more

• Grandmaster Jesse Kraai

• Grandmaster Eugene Perelshtyen

• FIDE Master Dennis Monokroussos

• International Master David Vigorito

Content: 1.7 hours in a series of 4 lectures.

Members of ChessLecture.com rated this series a 4.45 out of 5

Fans on Chesslecture.com said: Very nice lecture. You won’t want to miss this one!


New Chess Videos for April 21 – 25

Monday, April 21 IM Valeri Lilov Exploiting a Space Advantage
The most common advantage in chess is the space advantage. Often many players get to a position where they have a lot of space and control of many squares, but they don’t know how to use them. In this lecture, IM Valeri Lilov provides a good direction on how to plan once you get that kind of advantage.

Tuesday April 22 IM Bill Paschall Candidates 2014: Aronian’s Lucky Bluff
Aronian fails to seriously challenge Mamadyrov’s Queen’s Gambit Ragozin with the backward looking Nd2. The game morphs into an innocuous looking exchange variation when suddenly Aronian plays f4 ?!? White creates an ugly looking backward pawn on e3, along black’s own half open file. Objectively unsound, the space gaining trick f5 by Aronian works as Mamadyarov misses the key move …Qg5 ! Aronian uncorks a devious, hidden queen trap and Mamadyarov loses, despite fighting down to the bitter end.

Wednesday April 23 FM Dennis Monokroussos Queen’s Gambit & Friends, Part 7: A Common Trap in the Slav
Our subject this time isn’t a great historical game or some cutting-edge theory, but rather a simple but important trap that is surprisingly prolific at the amateur level. After 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 Black would love to play 4…Bf5, but as we’ll see it isn’t safe to do so. Be sure to avoid it, and know how to exploit it!

Thursday, April 24 GM Leonid Kritz Sicilian Paulsen 2…. e6-a6-Bc5-Ba7
A very modern variation where black shows good results in recent times. There are many ways white can play against it. I think, however, that the idea with putting knight on d2 is pretty interesting and can be played at any level. Certainly, it is impossible to claim a feasible opening advantage, but it looks like it is easier to play this kind of position with white.

Friday, April 25 IM David Vigorito Understanding a Typical Pawn Structure in the Sicilian
In this game I face a very young and talented your player who quickly reels off 14 moves of theory. The position is not tactical however, and it is an understanding of the typical middlegame that allows Black to get the upper hand.


New DVD An Opening Repertoire for the Attacking Player lectures 5 – 9 By IM Valeri Lilov

An Opening Repertoire for the Attacking Player lectures 5 – 9

By IM Valeri Lilov

Recommended for Intermediate Players  More Info

In part 2 of the series IM Valeri Lilov examines a sharp repertoire for both black and white. A complete system you can employ in your own games! Valeri’s take on theory is both aggressive and based on sound strategic principle.  He examines White e 4 and one good line of play for all of Black’s possible responses with the Budapest Gambit. Also, how White can respond to the Budapest Gambit and how to respond to deviations on most of the various openings including with the Grand Prix attack.

Content: 1.45 hours of instruction and analysis in a series of 5 lectures.

Members of ChessLecture.com rated this series a 4.5 out of 5

Fans on Chesslecture.com said: Very instructive tips on how you play some interesting sidelines! I found it very entertaining and informative. Another 5 – nice job!

IM Valeri Lilov is a young chess talent from Bulgaria. In 2000 in Moscow, Russia, he became the European Individual School Chess Champion U10 with the record result of 6,5 out of 7. In 2005, he made a record in the history of Bulgarian chess by achieving 32 consecutive wins from national championships, which included two magnificent victories in simuls against the top Bulgarian grandmasters, Veselin Topalov and Kiril Georgiev. In 2008, he achieved his highest FIDE rating and in 2013, the title of International master. Valeri has been an internet chess coach for 7 years.

Five lectures professionally mastered by the publisher/ New in Box and just released!

 


New Chess Videos for April 14 – 18

Monday, April 14   IM Valeri Lilov – Attacking a Weakness by Steinitz (strategy, middlegame) Exploiting a weakness has always been problematic for many chess players. While it’s not too challenging to spot a weakness (pawn, king, etc.), many players don’t know the correct approach to exploiting it.. The first world champion Wilhelm Steinitz was the one who first discovered the best way to exploit weaknesses in a positional manner.

Tuesday, April 15   GM Eugene Perelshteyn – Building up Positional Pluses to Outplay a Strong GM (middlegame, strategy) In this GM vs GM battle White builds up small positional pluses to get an open file. Domination on the open file results in winning a pawn, but things are not so simple as White still needs to demonstrate good technique to convert. Watch out for instructive king play in the endgame!

Wednesday, April 16  FM Dennis Monokroussos – Queen’s Gambit and Friends, Part 6: Handling the Minority Attack (opening, tactics) In our last video we saw how effective the minority attack could be. Could be – but isn’t always. Here we see Predrag Nikolic attempt to use it against Vladimir Kramnik, but the seemingly small differences between the position they reach when White went for the b2-b4 advance and what we saw in the Ruban-Panchenko game made all the difference in the world. In that game, Black suffered and lost a long game; this time, White was crushed pretty quickly. Master the differences and you can play either side of this plan!

Thursday, April 17   IM Bill Paschall – Aronian Gets Tactical (opening, tactics) Aronian goes back to the 90’s with the Modern Exchange variation against Svidler’s Grunfeld. Black goes into the pawn grab variation with Qxa2 but forgets that f7 can become weak ! We see a classic Bxf7 sacrifice after Svidler is baited into moving his f8 rook. The game could perhaps be salvaged by a computer but technically very difficult and Svidler succumbs.

Friday, April 18   GM Bryan Smith (middlegame, strategy)  – The Best of Lone Pine 1979, Part 4 In the fourth part of his series on the 1979 Lone Pine tournament, GM Bryan Smith looks at an important encounter from the seventh round, Larsen – Lein. In this game Bent Larsen manages to carry out a sparkling but rather unclear attack against Anatoly Lein’s Dragon.


New Chess Videos for April 7 – April 11

Monday, April 7  IM Valeri Lilov Structural Weaknesses (Middlegame, Strategy)
We all know what weaknesses are. The weak pieces and squares are well known to all. How about the structural weaknesses though? These types of weaknesses are crucial for many games, yet many people don’t know how to exploit them. Learn more about them from this lecture.

Tuesday, April 8 IM Bill Paschall The Redundant Queen (Middlegame, Tactics)
Dubov expands classically in the center with e5 against Jobava’s Benoni Defense. Black’s pieces gain sufficent activity and his bishop pair compensate for white’s central pawn advantage. At the key moment Dubov fails to stop black’s advancing queenside pawn, instead promoting his own second queen! Unfortunately , Dubov’s extra queen cannot prevent a multitude of black threats and he must resign with 2 queen’s on the board in the middlegame ! A truly amazing party.

Wednesday, April 9 FM Dennis Monokroussos Queen’s Gambit and Friends, Part 5: Winning With the Minority Attack  (Opening, Strategy)
We’ve been looking at the Carlsbad Structure (the structure characteristic of the Exchange Variation of the Queen’s Gambit) the past couple of shows, but in those shows we looked at plans where White pushes the pawns in the center or on the kingside. In this video we have a look at the classic minority attack plan, and see it work to near perfection. It’s a very solid and sturdy approach, and in many circumstances it allows its user to play very comfortably: either you win or the opponent achieves a draw after some suffering.

Thursday, April 10 GM Bryan Smith The Best of Lone Pine 1979, Part 3  (Opening)
In the third part of GM Bryan Smith’s series on the Lone Pine, 1979 tournament, we see a short, tactical game in which GM Sahovic takes advantage of his opponent’s rather ambitious and unnatural play.

Friday, April 11  LM Dana Mackenzie  Terrific Teens, Episode 1: A Future World Champion? (Middlegame, Tactics)
In January 2014 I had the opportunity to play in a tournament in which the world’s youngest grandmaster, Wei Yi of China, played and tied for first. In this complex game,Wei plays an ambitious and relatively untried pawn sacrifice in the Pirc against John Bryant. Bryant defends quite well and it is not clear that Wei achieves full compensation. But then he doubles the stakes, sacrificing a second pawn. As is often the case, accepting that pawn was Bryant’s downfall.


New DVD King’s Indian Against the Four Pawns Attack

King’s Indian Against the Four Pawns Attack

by GM Eugene Perelshteyn

Recommended for Intermediate Players

Two lectures presented by International Grandmaster Eugene Perelshteyn, in which he covers how Black can counter White, after White builds up a large pawn center and gains a spatial advantage.  Black develops quickly, then works to undermine White’s center with a Pawn attack. Black must strike quickly to try and open the position before White can consolidate the space advantage that his center has gained him …[more information]

ECO: E76

Content: 44 Minutes of chess theory and discussion, with example games, over a series of 2 lectures.

Members of ChessLecture.com rated this series a 4.03 out of 5

Fans on ChessLecture.com said: GM Perelshteyn’s lecture was excellent as always.

GM Eugene Perelshtyen earned his third GM norm after sharing first place in the 2006 Foxwoods Open, giving him the official GM title. He won the Samford Chess Fellowship in 2002, an award that amounts to $64,000, which is awarded to the top American player under 25 years old. Eugene also led the University of Maryland, Baltimore County to several Pan American championships from 1998-2002. Eugene also won the highly prestigious US Junior Championship in 2000. Eugene recently co-authored the books Chess Openings for Black, Explained and Chess Openings for White, Explained.

 


LM Dana Mackenzie

Our lecturer LM Dana Mackenzie was featured recently in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. You know Mackenzie as a brilliant chess master and educator, he is also an amazing award-winning math journalist.  He’s written two books, most recently The Universe in Zero Words: The Story of Mathematics as Told Through Equations and before that, The Big Splat, or How Our Moon Came to Be. In addition, he is also a freelance writer for Scientific American and similar publications.  Dana is also an active blogger, you can read his chess blog here at Dana Blogs Chess.  You’ll have to read the article to learn about how he spends his downtime – read it here: dana-mackenzie-santa-cruz-county-stories-chess-champion.