Chess Lectures

Monday, April 23
GM Eugene Perelshteyn Carlsen Plays 1.h3 and Wins! | Strategy, Endgame
Magnus Carlsen is playing for Norway Gnomes in the Pro Chess League and experiments with 1.h3! Guess what happened? He won rather easily of course. But the key to his victory is not first move, but superior understanding of chess. He teaches us a few lessons about weak pawns, outposts and protected passers. This simple and elegant victory reminds us of Capablanca!

Tuesday, April 24
IM Bill Paschall Bombastic Battles in Batumi, Part 1 | Opening
The 2018 European Individual Championship contains dozens of strong grandmasters. In this series IM Paschall goes over the most striking games from this strong event in Batumi Georgia. Part 1 features the legendary Vassily Ivanchuk, always a crowd favorite because of his original fighting style. In this game, however, Ivanchuk uncharacteristically misplays the opening and is bested by his young counterpart. A major upset which knocks Ivanchuk off the top boards.

Wednesday, April 25
FM Dennis Monokroussos The Young Kramnik, Part 2 | Opening, Tactics
We continue our look back at the chess of the young Vladimir Kramnik, back when his response to 1.e4 was 1…c5! His opponent was another great player in his younger years, Vassily Ivanchuk, and they contested the then very popular Rauzer Variation of the Classical Sicilian. Back in the days when chess engines for personal computers were still very weak (by professional standards), Kramnik prepared a nice idea that more or less buried one of White’s plans in that opening. Sacrificing an exchange and forfeiting castling rights for long-term attacking chances (and no, it wasn’t a …Rxc3 sac – White’s queenside pawns remained intact), Kramnik’s judgment proved correct, and his dynamic handling of the game led to an impressive finale. He almost makes it look easy, but that’s a sign of his talent and ability and not a reflection of the actual level of difficulty.

Thursday, April 26
IM David Vigorito Endgame Breakthrough | Strategy, Endgame
A quiet Catalan gives White the usual slight edge which carries right into the endgame. My opponent misses a standard breakthrough, but then I make a practical mistake and miss a resource from my opponent. Despite the engine’s happy evaluation, life is made more difficult for a human player (me!).

Friday, April 27
GM Bryan Smith Meeting the Advance French | Strategy
In this video, GM Bryan Smith shows a concrete and aggressive way to counter the Advance French.

Monday, April 16
IM Valeri Lilov Development vs. Positional Advantage | Strategy, Opening
When it comes down to evaluating development against positional advantage, most chess players find it hard to realize which one is more important. The answer is simple: Development always matters more in the opening. How do we prove that? Check IM Lilov’s video on this!

Tuesday, April 17
IM Bill Paschall Kramnik’s Strong Opening in 2018 Candidates | Strategy, Endgame
Kramnik leads in the first 3 rounds of the Candidates. The close game against Grischuk illustrates how difficult it is to deal with such an opponent who can create winning chances without taking any risks. In his round one victory, Vlad was helped a great deal by Grischuk’s perennial time pressure. Nonetheless, the game is a great example of Kramnik’s current style and ability to win with ultra-safe play and excellent endgame technique.

Wednesday, April 18
FM Dennis Monokroussos The Young Kramnik, Part 1 | Opening, Tactics
Vladimir Kramnik is having an awful 2018 Candidates tournament, so it’s worth taking a step back from the news to remember the kind of chess he was – and is – capable of. Case in point: his powerful attacking win over Nigel Short during the latter’s peak years. While Kramnik was known as an extremely solid positional player during his world championship years, the young Kramnik was a very aggressive player, often sacrificing material and playing for the attack. Short was a Queen’s Gambit specialist, and two years ago had played game after game against Garry Kasparov, probably the greatest attacking player in chess history. Neither his opening experience nor his experience with Kasparov helped: Kramnik bowled him over.

Thursday, April 19
GM Nadya Kosintseva Kramnik Attacks on the Wing | Strategy, Tactics
Today we will see two great examples from the former world champion Vladimir Kramnik. In both games he combines a deep strategic understanding of the position, creativity in finding new, promising ideas, and brilliance of calculation technique. These qualities allowed him to create outstanding games against such strong opponents as Ivanchuk and Aronian, games that are both instructive and at the same time fascinating to watch.

Friday, April 20
GM Bryan Smith An Exciting Attack in the Reversed Dragon | Opening
A new and creative alternative setup for White in the reversed Dragon produces this extraordinary game.

Monday, April 9
IM Valeri Lilov Connect Opening to Middlegame | Opening, Middlegame
Connecting the opening to middlegame is something that occurs in every game we play. Yet, it is not the thing we tend to utilize in order to improve finalizing our opening and utilize a more efficient structure in the middlegame. In this video, IM Lilov provides the rules behind a successful completion of your opening.

Tuesday, April 10
IM Bill Paschall Bundesliga Berlin Battle! | Opening, Strategy
The Berlin Defense is one of Black’s most solid answers to 1.e4 and the Ruy Lopez. Strong players must be deeply prepared in the Spanish and 4.d3 is the recommended way to avoid the abysmal Berlin endgame. Nisipeanu is a world class 2700 and his preparation is very deep. In this game Bacrot employs a novel defense on move 9, but White quickly responds with a positional piece sacrifice leading to great complications.

Wednesday, April 11
FM Dennis Monokroussos Attack Like a Caveman | Tactics
If you like to attack from the earliest moves, the Jobava-Prie Attack may be just the thing for you. In this all-GM game, well-known theoretician Victor Mihalevski is flattened by Olexander Bortnyk in impressive style. Bortnyk sac’d a rook early on, and in return obtained not only serious kingside attacking chances, but a positional grip in the center and on the queenside as well. Go and do likewise.

Thursday, April 12
IM David Vigorito Beating the 2.c3 Sicilian | Opening, Endgame
In a team event, one of my mates expressed to me that he was having trouble with the 2.c3 Sicilian. I had him watch my old videos right here on Chesslecture.com! I believe they are still quite relevant, so go dig them up. In the tournament I ended up facing 2.c3 myself, so I was determined to show him that Black can play for a win, even in a quiet line. The result was a rook endgame win, but the game was still practically a miniature.

Friday, April 13
GM Eugene Perelshteyn Attack Like the Great Mikhail Tal! | Tactics, Middlegame
What makes a beautiful attack? Sacrifices? King hunt? Unusual tactics? In this game GM Perelshteyn has it all! However, just like some of the attacks by Tal, the engine finds refutation…. But it doesn’t mean that the attack is bad since it was almost impossible to find all the defensive moves in time pressure. Remember that it’s always easier to attack than to defend in chess! If you are human of course…

Monday, April 2
IM Bill Paschall – Disdain or Material Gain? | Opening, Strategy
Grandmaster Areshchenko uses a new idea in the trendy and critical Advance variation with 4.Nf3 against the Caro-Kann. Facing Mamedyarov’s favorite 6…Bb4, White turns the position into something like a Slav Defense. White passes on the chance to win an exchange and gives a master class on the power of the two bishops playing on both sides of the board. Black struggled to coordinate and develop due to his inability to castle.

Tuesday, April 3
FM Dennis Monokroussos – Semi-Bluff Attacking | Tactics
Alexander Morozevich has been one of the most creative super-GMs over the past two decades, and in this win over former FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov that creativity is on full display. Ideas with g4 have been around for a long time, and in this game Morozevich found a fresh setting for the idea. Was it sound? Not really, but it was dangerous enough to try it once, even against a great opponent. All it took was one natural, subtle error, and Morozevich’s attack went from speculative and unsound to overwhelming – thanks to his continued creative play. If Morozevich prepared the idea at home, he might have rejected it based on the engine’s evaluation. But it’s important to think practically: sometimes it’s right to roll the dice in a single game, trusting that if the path to safety requires a lot of unobvious only-moves, it’s unlikely that the opponent will figure it all out at the board.

Wednesday, April 4
GM Nadya Kosintseva – When is a Sacrifice Justified?
This video discusses three examples that provide good background on when a decision to sacrifice material is well justified. The first example demonstrates how a sacrifice can be used when the opponent’s king is weak. Two other examples show more of a positional sacrifice type from ex-world champions Petrosian and Karpov, players known for their outstanding strategic understanding. It is important to understand, that often material is sacrificed with the goal to get some long-term compensation, either in form of strategic aspects or direct tactical opportunities.

Thursday, April 5
GM Eugene Perelshteyn – Best of the PROChess League 2018: Awonder On the War Path with 4/4 vs Montreal | Tactics, Opening, Strategy
How do you play against the Modern if you love to attack? Awonder shows you how to win with direct attack! Push your h-pawn, castle queenside, sacrifice a piece and checkmate!

Friday, April 6
GM Bryan Smith – The Battle of the Long Diagonals | Strategy
Whose apparently dangerous pressure on the long diagonal will turn out to be more relevant? In this instructive and exciting game, Black wages a fierce battle to tear open the long diagonal leading to the white king.

Monday, March 26 IM Valeri Lilov
Fighting for Opening Advantage | Strategy, Openings
The key rule of the opening is to always fight for initiative. Making it real basically depends on two things: the opponent’s misbalance and our ability to exploit it. Learning how to fight for opening advantage requires us to see the differences between a good and bad development, and what really makes a good pawn structure a superior one. Check out IM Lilov’s video to learn more!

Tuesday, March 27 IM Bill Paschall
A Risky Defense But Black Falls Short | Openings, Strategy
This game is a clash of legendary figures from the super strong Gibraltar Masters Open. Surprisingly, these two players have not faced each other often, but the game is interesting. Both sides play the opening well and the result is a clash in a rare variation of the Closed English. Short is an experienced Closed Sicilian expert and Aronian one of the leading English Opening experts in the world. Short, however, choose a risky setup based on f5 and e4. Aronian repeats an idea he used successfully against Ivanchuk in 2017 and again is victorious against Nigel Short. Black achieved an interesting and imbalanced position, but misplayed at one point and desperately sacrificed a piece.

Wednesday, March 28 FM Dennis Monokroussos
Breyer: A Man Ahead of His Time | Opening, Middlegame
Gyula Breyer was one of the great Hypermodern players of the early 20th century, one of the leaders of a group who challenged the conventional idea that correct play entailed a direct fight for the center, especially by occupying it. The Hypermoderns introduced fianchetto systems into mainstream play, and took a generally unconventional approach to opening and middlegame play. Today’s game isn’t particularly hypermodern in the sense of fianchettoed bishops compensating for a lack of central occupation; in fact, it’s Breyer who played for a space advantage. But what was fascinating and unusual about the game was Breyer’s aggressive play with 12.g4 and 13.h4. That kind of play is a commonplace today at higher levels (though still not among club players), but Breyer was doing this 100 years ago! Have a look.

Thursday, March 29 GM Eugene Perelshteyn
How to Win Using the ‘Philidor’s Ring’ Concept | Openings, Middlegame
Have you heard of the Philidor’s ring? No, it’s not a magic ring from the Lord of the Rings. But it is a very important strategic concept that once mastered will bring you many victories! Watch and learn how White establish a dominant knight on e5 supported by the pawns d4 and f4 and then goes on to do the same on the queenside using the rook! Very instructive concept!

Friday, March 30 GM Bryan Smith
An Upset in the Aeroflot | Tactics
The sixth round of the Aeroflot Open saw the top seed, Vladimir Fedoseev, knocked off by the comparatively unknown IM (albeit with a GM-level rating) Amin Tabatabaei. In this video we will see that wild and dramatic game.

Monday, March 29
IM Valeri Lilov The Problem of Weaknesses | Strategy
Chess requires that we look for weaknesses in our opponent’s camp while we try to prevent having one. A weakness is simply a flaw in any position that one can exploit. These can vary from anything as an open line to poor piece placement and vulnerable squares. Depending on what stage we are in, the position will set different weaknesses for our opponent. Let IM Lilov teach you more about them!

Tuesday, March 20
IM Bill Paschall Interesting Struggles from Aeroflot 2018, Part 3 | Opening, Strategy
Grandmaster Vladislav Kovalev won the 2018 Aeroflot Open clear first place with seven out of nine. In this lecture we analyze his most interesting win against the super solid Rasmus Svane. Kovalev is a strategic player with great technique who favors quiet strategic lines over complications. This game features the oft underestimated exchange variation of the Caro-Kann. This quiet line contains some poison, and equalizing for Black is not such an easy task

Wednesday, March 21
FM Dennis Monokroussos The Inverse of a Good Rule of Thumb May Be Another Good Rule of Thumb | Strategy
Most of us know the principle that an attack on the flank is often best met by a counterattack in the center. In this game, then-world champion Tigran Petrosian shows that the opposite is sometimes true as well. While David Bronstein is preparing a central break, Petrosian hastens to open lines on the queenside. As we’ll see, the file he opens gives him counterplay, so that while Bronstein is messing around in the center Petrosian is able to outflank him and strike with his own attack, capped off by one of his trademark exchange sacrifices.

Thursday, March 22
GM Nadya Kosintseva The Importance of Active Defense! | Tactics
Sometimes during a game, you find that you don’t like your position. You have an important decision to make: to play defensively, or to defend actively. Everyone likes to attack when their opponent has no counterplay, but when your opponent refuses to sit and defend passively, it can cause discomfort and mistakes. So, defend actively when you can!

Friday, March 23
GM Bryan Smith A Very Sharp Spanish | Strategy, Tactics
In this tense last-round battle, GM Bryan Smith takes on the world record holder for blindfold chess, Timur Gareyev.

Monday, March 12
IM David Vigorito Play Your Openings! | openings, middlegame
My opponent in this game seems like a common ‘customer’, but he is a master who is quite capable in the opening, so our games are usually instructive. I almost hesitate to play a complicated line that I had studied a year before, but the best way to remember your lines is to play them. The amusing middlegame features double isolated pawns for White, and triple isolated pawns for Black. The resulting position was fun to play, and testing these lines over the board helps one’s confidence and ability.

Tuesday, March 13
IM Bill Paschall Interesting Struggles from Aeroflot 2018, Part 2 | Openings, Middlegame
Facing a young and talented opponent, Grandmaster Korobov offers to leave theory with the obscure 4.Bd2 against the Grunfeld. The game however, transposes back to a popular system featuring very sharp play and often times opposite side castling. Black weakens his kingside with the dubious 12…h6 , a theoretical lemon. Korobov pulls off a very nice and classic Grunfeld exchange sacrifice and takes control. The only question as to the safety of the white king is answered by the correct result of this entertaining game.

Wednesday, March 14
FM Dennis Monokroussos A Model Catalan | Strategy, Tactics
Sometimes the greats make it look easy. (Alas, it’s not.) Facing the strong Russian GM Dmitrij Jakovenko, Levon Aronian essayed the super-solid line of the Open Catalan with 8.a4, a handy line for White when he wants to play without taking any risks at all. (Black can play sharper lines on the preceding moves, though, so don’t assume the Catalan automatically guarantees a quiet life.) White’s play was very logical and direct, and without making any obvious errors Jakovenko quickly found himself in a worse, maybe even lost ending after missing a very subtle equalizer on move 25. See for yourself, and if you play either side of the Open Catalan this is a game you should know.

Thursday, March 15
GM Leonid Kritz Carlsen’s Master Class: How to Play Against the IQP | Strategy, Endgame
An textbook example by Carlsen of how to play against an isolated pawn. First, he completely eliminates any counterplay from Black, then gets space and favorable pawn structure, and finally opens the position to get a much better endgame. And all of that happens in a blitz game – really impressive!

Friday, March 16
GM Eugene Perelshteyn Best of the PROChess League 2018: Shabalov’s Instructive Exchange Sacrifice | Strategy
How do you play against a lower player? GM Shabalov shows you the way! The recipe is easy: surprise him in the opening, undermine the center, and of course sacrifice the exchange! Watch and learn how easy it is!

Monday, March 5
IM Valeri Lilov Outweigh the Bigger Piece! | Strategy, Middlegame
Is it true that each piece has the same value through the whole game? Or perhaps the value changes with the role it plays within one’s plan and possibilities. How do we know when to consider a piece more important or less so? IM Lilov brings his input on this in this video!

Tuesday, March 6
IM Bill Paschall Interesting Struggles from Aeroflot 2018, Part 1 | Opening, Strategy
This game illustrates some key subtleties in the main line Spanish. White plays too routinely , misplacing his pieces and losing coordination. Matlakov shows a very deep understanding of the position , highlighted by his play in the late opening between move 16 and 22. Particularly, Black’s ideas of the breaks with c6 and f5 are very critical. This game teaches us how important it is to truly understand a position, rather than just memorizing moves.

Wednesday, March 7
FM Dennis Monokroussos Be Careful What You Wish For… | Strategy
The opening started unusually, but came to take on some characteristics of the Dutch and the Queen’s Indian. One of White’s typical ideas against such a setup is to play d4-d5 and fight for some key light squares, and along those lines White played 12.d5, 13.g4, and 15.Ng5, all aimed at conquering and occupying e6. It was a nice plan, but Hou Yifan found an even nicer reply. She got rid of that knight and all White’s control over the light squares, albeit at the cost of her queen for just two minor pieces and a pawn. The resulting position was about equal – her compensation was sufficient but not more than that – but her position was easier to play, as the rest of the game showed.

Thursday, March 8
GM Nadya Kosintseva Beware – the Pawn is Coming! | Tactics
In these two examples we encounter two ways demonstrating how pawns can weaken the position of the opposing king. In the first example the game proceeds in a non-standard way with g4, but what we see is that the attack of White becomes much stronger once he brings the pawns to help. In the second example, h5-h4, is a standard method. Often White has to decide whether to play h4 himself, or to let Black continue with h4 after he pushed h5, but in both cases the position of the king becomes weak and Alekhine produces a brilliant example of how to use this weakness.

Friday, March 9
GM Bryan Smith Winning the National Chess Congress, Part 2 | Strategy, Tactics
In Part 2 of this, Bryan Smith describes his round 5 victory in the National Chess Congress over Kassa Korley which put him a point ahead of the competition, followed by his round 6 draw with Alexei Dreev which clinched first place.

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!

February 19, 2018
Valeri Lilov Key to Pawn Structure | strategy, middlegame
Creating a better pawn structure is a tough job. In many games, the pawn structure for both players is generally equal. It takes a strong discipline and precise evaluation to engage a more beneficial pawn structure to make your development and tactics successful in the middlegame.

February 20, 2018
Bill Paschall Creating Imbalances to Win! Part 1 | opening, strategy
In this series, IM Paschall investigates the best ways to create imbalance in a chess game in order to play for a win. At the highest levels many chess games are drawn, and the decision to take calculated risks must be undertaken to beat an equal or stronger player. In part one we look at the idea of the minor exchange: the exchange of bishop for knight to imbalance the game and damage the opponents’ pawn structure.

February 21, 2018
Dennis Monokroussos An Overrated Beauty | strategy, tactics
A recent online poll of the best games of 2017 put this game at #3, narrowly missing second place. (The runaway winner was Jinshi Bai vs. Ding Liren – rightly! – which I’m happy to have covered in a recent show.) It is a nice game, but the poll overrates the game because Nikolic’s play and preparation were terrible. Nikolic is a great player who has been rated over 2600 since before dirt got invented, but in this game everything went wrong. It was a bad day at the office for him, but it’s to our benefit: we get to see a pretty game – actually two, because Wagner beat another GM with the same line and attacking idea the year before – and learn some valuable lessons about the opening.

February 22, 2018
Eugene Perelshteyn How to Play an English vs KID Setup | opening, strategy
How do you face a King’s Indian player and sidestep the theory? Watch and learn the easy line for White using all the ideas from Reversed Closed Sicilian. Black didn’t know how to stop White’s plan on the Q-side and got totally rolled over. The endgame technique is instructive as well! A must watch!

February 23, 2018
Bryan Smith Winning the National Chess Congress, Part 1 | openings, strategy, tactics
Bryan Smith won the U.S. National Chess Congress for the third time in 2018. In this two-part series he shows the critical games. In round 4, he faces one of his early heroes, whom he had never defeated previous to this event – GM Alexander Shabalov, a 3-time US champions and famed tactical player from Latvia, who had studied with Mikhail Tal.