Monday, December 24
IM Bill Paschall – The Best of Bronstein, Part 4 | Middlegame, Strategy
In part four of the series Bronstein essays an unusual variation with White in the Falkbeer Counter Gambit. White gains a space advantage in the opening and displays his characteristic high level positional play! Bronstein displays again his universal strengths as both a master of strategic play and tactics.
Tuesday, December 25
FM Dennis Monokroussos – A ‘Minor’ Brilliancy in the Caro-Kann | Opening Traps
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa is the youngest GM in the world, and the second-youngest GM of all time, and clearly a player with a bright future ahead of him. He had a fine performance at the Isle of Man tournament in October of this year (2018), despite a last-round loss, and had the pleasure of winning a beautiful game in the antepenultimate round. It was half-opening trap, half-brilliancy, and a series of sacrifices led to a spectacular and impressive win. It was a minor brilliancy in two ways: it was a great win with sacrifices, and it was won by a 13-year-old. Yikes!
Wednesday, December 26
GM Eugene Perelshteyn – How Ulf Wins vs SuperGMs in the Quiet Queen’s Indian | Opening, Endgame
Boring chess…yes! Boring endgame…double yes!! This is how Ulf views the game of chess and plays this style vs everyone. Even top-level GMs don’t always match his witty endgame skills. Watch and learn how a famous Russian GM succumbs to Ulf’s endgame skills!
Thursday, December 27
GM Nadya Kosintseva – Systems for White in the Spanish Game: Part 8 – Facing Rare Defenses | Strategy
In this lecture we will cover rare lines that Black can occasionally use to avoid a long theoretical discussion in the main variations of the Spanish game. One popular side line is so called Jaenisch or Schliemann Gambit, which implies a pawn sacrifice by means of 3…f5. The idea behind it is to take the center with …d5 if White plays 4.exf5. However, the positions that arise after this sacrifice can be not so clear, since to win material White gives up the initiative. Instead, we will go over the less popular but still promising 4.d3 move that keeps the control over the center and makes it more challenging for Black to finish the development in a comfortable way.
Friday, December 28
GM Leonid Kritz – Carlsen – Caruana World Championsip, 2018, Game 8: The Key Psychological Moment | Tactics
This was probably the most important game of the WC match. For the first time, Caruana decided to go for an open Sicilian and was close to getting a serious advantage. However, small imprecision and Carlsen saved himself. After this game Carlsen definitely had enough time to prepare against the 9.a4 line and completely neutralized Caruana’s white color for the rest of the match.