New Chess Videos for January 28 – February 1
Monday, January 28
IM Bill Paschall – The Best of Bronstein, Part 9 | Opening, Strategy
World Champion Tigran Petrosian was a solid, intuitive positional player. Perhaps he could be outplayed tactically, but rarely put himself in a position with wild complications. In this battle, Bronstein again shows his “universal” style to outplay the great Petrosian strategically in the middlegame, then force him into a desperate sacrifice which falls short.
Tuesday, January 29
FM Dennis Monokroussos – What Makes Great Players Great | Opening, Tactics
It’s true that grandmasters know more about chess than non-grandmasters, and the top grandmasters know more than “ordinary” grandmasters. But that’s only part of the story. It’s also true that the best players are the best players because they are much better at figuring out what to do than the rest of us when there’s no standard answer about what to do. That’s what happened in today’s game between Chinese super-GM Yu Yangyi and talented Peruvian IM Deivy Anthoni Vera Siguenas. Vera Siguenas played an unusual opening, perhaps hoping to catch Yu out of his comfort zone, but it turned out that the stronger player negotiated the unusual position far better than his opponent. He first obtained a serious plus on the queenside, and when Black tried to “catch up” on the queenside Yu finished with a blistering mating attack.
Wednesday, January 30
GM Leonid Kritz – Do Not Fear Your Opponent’s Rating! | Tactics, Endgame
This game is a very instructive lesson from the psychological point of view. White was obviously thinking only about how to make a draw, and missed many promising ways to play for the win. Eventually, he went too far in his desire to equalize – from a better position! – and got into a difficult endgame. The moral is simple – play chess and don’t bother about your opponent’s rating! (And when you hold the advantage, don’t give it away even if you only want half of a point.)
Thursday, January 31
GM Nadya Kosintseva – Facing the Trompowsky and London Systems as Black | Strategy
In this lecture I am going to show you what to do against Trompowsky and London systems – two popular side lines that white uses to deviate from well-known theoretical positions. In both cases white starts with 1.d4 whereas black immediately brings the knight to f6. Then, if white moves the dark-squared bishop to f4 we call it the London System. In the Trompowsky system the same bishop goes to g5 to attack the f6-knight. These openings can be pretty tricky, especially if black does not know how to react on them. The variations that I am going to show you from the black’s point of view are not the main lines, but still solid and, what’s also good, do not require a lot of memorization on your side.
Friday, February 1
GM Robert Hungaski – A Strategic Repertoire Against the Sicilian: Facing Minor Black Alternatives After 2…d6 | Strategy
And so we arrive at the last video in this series covering the move 5.f3 when black has played 2…d6; in the following videos, we will discuss systems against other 2nd moves by black. Here I will be discussing some of black’s minor, yet quite interesting, alternatives. These are the lines that arise after the move 5…Nc6 6.c4. Black’s two options at this fork in the road.
At one time white suffered against the prospect of a Scheveningen pawn structure (this is how Bobby Fischer effectively met the 5.f3 Sicilian on more than one occasion) after the move 6…e6, after which black intends to play for a quick …d5.
Less common, but not without logic, is the move 6…Qb6, tending to inhibit the development of white’s queenside (the c1-bishop in particular). Yet with accurate play white should be able to overcome this and in fact I propose an interesting new idea for white that aims to refute 6…Qb6 altogether.