Monthly Archives: August 2015

New Chess Videos for August 17 – August 21

 in Chess Lectures / Lecturers by
Monday, August 17  IM Valeri Lilov Zukertort’s Immortal  (middlegame)
Johannes Zukertort was a leading chess master of the 20th century. He was the “world number two” for most of the 1870s and 1880s behind Wilhelm Steinitz. This game is called Zukertort’s Immortal game. Zukertort sacrifices his Queen but Blackburne cannot accept, Zukertort sacrifices a rook which Blackburne declines, soon Zukertort forces Blackburne to take the rook and resign 3 moves later. Steinitz described this as “one of the most brilliant games on record.
 
Tuesday, August 18  IM Bill Paschall  Classic Karpov, Part 5 (endgame, tactics)
Karpov again finds himself in a Queen’s Gambit type of position where he is comfortable with both colors. This time, with black, he exploits Kortchnoi’s move order to equalize through simplification. Kortchnoi refuses a chance to steer the game to drawish simplification and finds himself in an IQP position without sufficient attacking chances. White ends up with a weak queen pawn and slowly he also finds himself with an exposed king. The technique by Karpov in the heavy piece endgame is noteworthy.
 
Wednesday, August 19  FM  Dennis Monokroussos Grandmaster vs. Amateur: A Modern Fairy Tale (tactics) 
When grandmasters face amateurs in open tournaments, the odds are that the GM will win, of course, though sometimes the amateur will get a draw or even the occasional win, at least when it’s a pretty strong amateur. Generally that will take the weaker player having a great game or a blunder from the GM. But in the normal course of things the grandmaster’s superior knowledge, understanding and skill will determine the issue. The weaker player will misjudge something, lose ground, and after a few such misjudgments the game ends in the pro’s favor. That sort of death-by-misjudgment occurs in this game, too, but amazingly it’s the GM who makes all the bad decisions. White takes far too many liberties, perhaps hoping that his opponent will play scared and make concessions, but it doesn’t happen. Mr. Daniel Grimm played with energy and courage, and simply crushed his grandmaster opponent. You might say it was like a Grimm fairy tale, with a happy ending for the victor and a grim finish for the loser.
 
Thursday, August 20  GM Eugene Perelshteyn  Learning From Mistakes: Student Game Analysis
(tactics, strategy) 
What can we learn from two 1600’s playing out the Closed English?  Well…thanks to their instructive mistakes… a lot!  These include: strategy, tactics, prophylactic thinking.  Enjoy and take notice as it’s best to learn from someone else’s mistakes rather than your own!
 
Friday, August 21  GM Bryan Smith  A Repertoire for White in the Ruy Lopez: Part 4 (opening)
In this video, GM Bryan Smith shows how to take on the sharp and aggressive Schliemann Variation.
—————————— —————————— —————————— —————————— ————————–
ChessLecture.com, LLC Copyright 2015, All rights reserved.

New Chess Videos for August 3 – 7

 in Chess Lectures by

Monday, August 3 GM Leonid Kritz Dare to Take the Pawns! (tactics)
A very strong game by the unofficial Woman World Champion that she could have won if she dared to take the white pawns that were hanging all the time. Hou outplayed her opponent after the opening, got a terrific position with her knight on e4, and was absolutely able to hope for more than just a draw. Unfortunately, she was too careful and did not want to take what she could, so Nisipeanu got his chances on the king side and quickly used them to force a draw.

Tuesday, August 4 IM Bill Paschall Classic Karpov, Part 3 (strategy, middlegame)
Karpov plays from another situation where he is comfortable with both black and white in the Queen’s Gambit Declined. As white , Karpov chooses a quiet variation with 6. Bxf6 and things get interesting when a position with an isolated queen’s pawn arises. White wins using classic and simple principles. We see the value of the open file, the 7th rank and the exploitation of undefended points and pieces in the enemy position. Black is forced into a desperate queen sacrifice, but his attempt at counterplay with an advanced passed pawn is too slow against Karpov’s accurate technique.

Wednesday, August 5, FM Dennis Monokroussos Who Needs Bishops? (openings)
There are various opening lines that involve a player giving up one or both bishops for the opponent’s knights, but Michael Adams’ concept in his game with Veselin Topalov from Dortmund 1996 was unusual and especially deep. First, he did it in a position where he apparently left a weakened fianchetto position and in a position where White’s bishops really didn’t look bad at all. But Adams’ idea was very deep and not just a general instance of handling knights vs. bishops. To say more would ruin the surprise, so please watch the video!

Thursday, August 6, GM Eugene Perelshteyn Calculate Like a GM! Part 1 (tactics, middlegame)
Learn how to calculate like a GM! The key concepts to remember: identify a few candidate moves, start with the most forcing one, pause and look for opponent’s candidate moves. Disciplined thinking is very important!

Friday, August 7, GM Bryan Smith A Repertoire for White in the Ruy Lopez: Part 2 (openings, tactics)
In the second part of his series on the Spanish, GM Bryan Smith shows a good response to the Steinitz Variation in the context of his game against Darmen Sadvakasov.