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This week we have lectures on strategy, openings and tactics. All of these lectures are intermediate. We thank FM Dennis Monokroussos, IM Bill Paschall and LM Dana Mackenzie for summaries of their lectures this week.
Monday Dec 16 IM Valeri Lilov Opposite Castled Kings (Intermediate Strategy)
Tuesday Dec 17 FM Dennis Monokroussos Weirdness Works? No! (Intermediate Strategy)
Rules of thumb in chess aren’t laws, but they have their status for a reason. Developing towards the flank, keeping one’s king in the middle of the board and ignoring the center are rules that one violates at one’s peril, as Swedish GM Nils Grandelius discovered to his sorrow in this impressive game. His young, then untitled opponent (now he’s closing in on the GM title) played very energetically and crushed the higher-rated Grandelius, mating him in just 21 moves.
Wednesday Dec 18 IM David Vigorito Centralization (Intermediate Strategy)
Thursday Dec 19 IM Bill Paschall Classic Sicilian Exchange Sacrifice (Intermediate Openings)
Kasparov shows his understanding of the English Attack variation for Black in the Najdorf. Black completes development, castles just in time to connect his forces and shatters his opponents king position and pawn structure with the absolutely classic shot 13….Rxc3. White never is able to gain any attack before black’s threats take control of the board. An elegant and ironic game for Kasparov in his finest opening.
Friday Dec 20 LM Dana Mackenzie Help! A Knight Ate My Position! (Intermediate Tactics)
Follow the bouncing knight as Dana’s knight either plays or threatens one fork after another. Useful for beginners as training for visualizing forks. For intermediate players, a good example of how to beat an opponent who is rushing his moves.
As a service aimed at helping our subscribers improve your understanding of chess, as well as your enjoyment, I would like to make a few remarks about the way we label each lecture as being “beginner,” “intermediate,” or “advanced.”
In reality, there are things to be learned from every lecture, for every level of player, regardless of the main level for which the lecture is primarily aimed.
GM Yasser Seirawan first put an explanation of this into words for me, in the mid-1980s, as he spent several years creating his “Pro Chess Video Chess Mentor” video series for an experienced publisher of training videos. In every lecture, there are points of information which viewers are “ready to learn”, while some points can be taken for granted (such as when an advanced player pays no attention to the fact that in the Scotch Game, of course the number of attacks and defenses are equal when White plays 3.d4), and other points may be so “advanced” that we are not ready to really focus on them yet – but if we come back and watch the same video after improving further, we can feel like we are hearing this advanced comment for the very first time, because now we are “ready” to hear it.
This week we have lectures on strategy, openings and tactics. All of these lectures are intermediate – but in keeping with the above, please note that Friday’s description mentions information aimed at beginners, too. Whether such things are mentioned or not, though, they are almost always there.