Monday, February 26
IM Bill Paschall | Creating Imbalances to Win! Part 2 | Opening, Tactics
One of the best ways to intentionally create imbalance;in order to play for a win, is to delay castling or castle long. In the examples of this segment, we see two world class players intentionally scheming to make sure the enemy king’s are castled on opposite wings. In such situations, the play becomes sharper, and a small initiative can become decisive with one mistake by the opponent.
Tuesday, February 27
FM Dennis Monokroussos | Botvinnik’s Bishops | Endgame
Many of us are familiar with a couple of Steinitz’s old games as models illustrating the power of the two bishops. They are useful games, but against weak opposition. In this game we see that in an endgame with two bishops against a bishop and knight the bishop pair can be just as devastating even when the defender is a recent Candidate for the World Championship. Yuri Averbakh (still alive at the age of 95, as of this writing!) was a very strong player, and his position as he entered that ending was devoid of over weaknesses. And yet…it was probably losing by force, as the then World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik demonstrated with seeming ease. (In the notes I show that Averbakh could have resisted more strongly, but not to the point where he could have saved the game.) An instructive win by an all-time great.
Wednesday, February 28
IM David Vigorito | Easy Yet Instructive | Opening, Strategy
Sometimes a gross mismatch is more instructive than a tightly contested contest. In this game my opponent was clearly unfamiliar with the ideas of the opening. I use ‘small tactics’ to prevent any pawn breaks, which means no counterplay. The remainder of the game is just technique, which as is often the case, means more tactics.
Thursday, March 1
GM Leonid Kritz | Don’t Force the Tiger Show to His Teeth! | Strategy
Former World Champion Viswanathan Anand gives Women’s World Champion Hou Yifan a reminder why he has been nicknamed “The Tiger of Madras”. Hou played the opening as if she were playing against a regular GM, but this strategy always fails against people like Anand. A second-rate opening is punished right away – 7.Rb1 and Black does not know what to do. A great strategic game from Anand!
Friday, March 2
GM Eugene Perelshteyn | An Epic Battle in the Maroczy Bind | Opening, Strategy, Tactics
How do you play the Marcozy Bind where White’s knight is on c2? Remember the key ideas: c5 outpost, a5-a4 expansion but don’t forget to undermine the e4 pawn with f5! The game gets really complex with White allowing Black a dangerous attack. But just when it looked like Black is winning, the tables were turned! With both players in time pressure White finds a completely novel concept: Triangulation in the middlegame! Believe it or not!