Daily Archives: July 1, 2018

Monday, July 2
IM Bill Paschall Top Flight Fights – Russian Team Champs 2018, Part 4 | Opening, Middlegame
Young Russian talent GM Fedoseev takes a page out of Magnus Carlsen’s playbook. In this encounter with GM Najer; himself a tough customer , Fedoseev borrows a new idea based on an early queen capture with White on d4 in the Sicilian. The game is further evidence that against well prepared players it may be best to simply “take them out of book” . Fedoseev displays creative attacking and defensive skills in this thrilling back and forth slug fest.

Tuesday, July 3
IM David Vigorito Shankland’s Power Finish at the US Champ 2018, Part 2 | Opening, Middlegame
In the last round of the U.S. Championship, only a win would do, and Sam again rises to the occasion. Playing the aptly named Awonder Liang, Sam is (only slightly) taken aback by the Caro-Kann. Sam picks a solid line, which runs into a shocking move in the opening! I myself played the Caro Kann many times, but I had never seen this idea. It turns out that Sam did know the idea, and had a surprise of his own! So Black was the one who was caught, and he reached a dismal positional. Sam played quickly and confidently, and now rather famously, scored one of the biggest upsets in U.S. Championship history.

Wednesday, July 4
FM Dennis Monokroussos Buy that Newspaper! | Strategy
In what may have been one of the single most important chess games of the cold war era, and what probably was the most important game of Lev Polugaevsky’s notable chess life, the game, match, and probably a trip to the world chess championship was determined by one player (or someone on his team) buying a newspaper and the other player (or his team) not doing so. The full story is just a click away…

Thursday, July 5
GM Nadya Kosintseva Choosing to Double Your Pawns | Tactics
Many of you may have heard before that doubled pawns are not always bad pawns but during the games it might still be challenging to evaluate them correctly. What’s more, many of you may have a prejudice regarding doubled pawns and even if in theory you understand that sometimes these pawns can be beneficial compared to regular pawns, in practice you may instinctively neglect some interesting opportunities just because they are involve accepting doubled pawns. In this lecture, I will show you two interesting examples of non-obvious practical decisions when one side let another side to worsen his pawns as a way to fight for the initiative.

Friday, July 6
GM Bryan Smith Coffeehouse Chess, Part 12 | Strategy
In the latest installment of “Coffeehouse Chess”, Bryan Smith shows one of his own games – a wild and adventurous battle from the Karpos Open in Skopje, Macedonia.

Monday, June 25
IM Bill Paschall Top Flight Fights – Russian Team Champs 2018, Part 3 | Opening, Strategy
IM Paschall revists the White side of the Berlin Defense in this battle from the Russian team Championship 2018. The young GM Alekseenko continues to look very impressive , with a convincing victory. This game features play along the lines of the exchange Ruy Lopez. It’s simply a must see for anyone who wants to avoid the standard Berlin Defense endgame.

Tuesday, June 26
GM Eugene Perelshteyn Best Games from the US Champ 2018: Caruana Crushes the French! | Opening, Tactics
It’s not often you see a top 10 US Grandmaster destroyed in 23 moves…What went wrong for Lenderman in this game? Watch and try to understand how Caruana punishes Black for violating opening principles such as “Don’t bring your queen our early.”

Wednesday, June 27
FM Dennis Monokroussos A Trap in Triplicate | Opening Traps
In the recent Grand Chess Tour event in Leuven, Hikaru Nakamura got three opponents to fall for the exact same trap on the same day, and he won all three games. If you’re a fan of lines with an early b2-b3, or meet them with a King’s Indian setup, you’ll want to check this out for yourself!

Thursday, June 28
IM David Vigorito Shankland’s Power Finish at the US Champ 2018, Part 1 | Opening, Middlegame, Endgame
In this lecture we look at U.S. Champion Sam Shankland’s penultimate win against the veteran Alexander Onischuk. Sam had Black, but even with a half point lead over World Championship contender Fabiano Caruana, he felt he may have to win this game to stay ahead. It turned out that he was right about this, and he rose to the occasion. Playing a somewhat new opening (for him), Sam gets a solid but double-edged middlegame and slowly outplays his opponent, eventually reaching a textbook good knight vs. bad bishop endgame.

Friday, June 29
GM Leonid Kritz Theoretical Battle in a Quiet French | Tactics
This game was played in a very interesting line of the French Defense in which White sacrifices a pawn, but gets enough compensation for that. This whole variation is particularly important because it is to some degree forced, and if Black finds a way to equalize here then the whole French Defense may become playable again (which it is not right now, based on recent results). However, it seems like Black is
pretty far from finding an acceptable position in these lines – Nepo demonstrated a solid way of getting advantage and got the well-deserved point.