New Chess Videos for February 25 – March 1
Monday, February 25
IM Bill Paschall – Crushing the Caro-Kann, Part 3 | Opening, Strategy
The Caro-Kann is one of the most solid and reliable defenses for Black against 1.e4. The most aggressive choice for White is the Advance variation, a favorite system for top players, in the last twenty years becoming essentially the most critical test. In this battle, a top exponent of the Caro-Kann quickly goes wrong and white crashes through both strategically and with a brilliant tactical flourish.
Tuesday, February 26
FM Dennis Monokroussos – Smyslov’s Favorite Game | Endgame, Tactics
Vasily Smyslov (1921-2010) was one of the greatest players of the 20th century. He was the world champion (1957-1958), a participant in four world championship title events, eight Candidates events, a two-time Soviet champion, a winner of 17 medals in Chess Olympiads, a top player for more than 40 years, and on top of that an important writer on the endgame and a study composer to boot. With a resume like that it would seem impossible for Smyslov to pick out his favorite game, and if he could it must be a game from his successful world championship match against Mikhail Botvinnik, right? Surprisingly, the answer is no. His favorite game was played when he was just 14, against a player who is otherwise essentially unknown to chess history. It isn’t his greatest game, but it has a very attractive finish and offers a charming snapshot of the boy who would be among the world’s elite in only five years or so.
Wednesday, February 27
GM Eugene Perelshteyn – How to Attack White’s Center in KID Fianchetto Variation |
Thursday, February 28
GM Nadya Kosintseva – A Tricky e6-Sicilian Line | Strategy
In this lecture, I am going to analyze a rare e6-Sicilian line that allows black to create strong pressure on the white’s center. Specifically, quickly moving the knight to f6 as well as the dark-squared bishop to b4, black attacks the e4-point – almost forcing white to push the central pawn to e5. It gives black the d5 square at his disposal, which he uses to increase his pressure on the e1-a5 diagonal. White, in his turn, should be vigorous enough to create counter threats on the king flank since black moved the pieces away from that side of the board. As a result, the position may become irrational already in the beginning of the game and require non-standard decisions from both sides. In this case, the objective evaluation of the position does not matter so much and the player who is better prepared for all these complications will have more chances to succeed.
Friday, March 1
IM Valeri Lilov – Files and Pieces | Strategy, Middlegame
Ever wondered what makes a plan successful? Well, obviously it all comes down to execution but what really makes the execution flow is the ability to position and regroup our pieces, as well as the open files which we get to acquire against our opponent.