Monday, April 20
IM Bill Paschall – Botvinnik: Exploiting Space Advantages, Part 2
Botvinnik is rightly considered the greatest master of strategy by many top players. The former World Champion was extremely systematic and much can be learned from his approach. In this example, playing Black, Botvinnik is able to employ the “Maroczy Bind”, by using his e and c pawns at e5 and c5 to restrict the opponent. White must fight against the Black center with pawn breaks or try to simplify by trading pieces, but in this example, he was unsuccessful. The game is a model for exploiting a space advantage from Botvinnik’s perspective.
Tuesday, April 21
GM Eugene Perelshteyn – Combining Two Openings into White: Nimzo and Catalan!
It’s not often that you get a Catalan Opening out of the Nimzo, yet this is exactly what GM Eugene Perelshteyn does in this game vs a strong GM Zviad Izoria. Black avoids complications and quickly returns the pawn to open up his bad c8 bishop. It seems like White did everything wrong: gave himself an isolated queen pawn (IQP), got his queen out early, and opened up the enemy bishop. Yet, Eugene shows you that looks could be deceiving! A deep dive into the position shows that it is Black who’s in trouble and needs to find accurate moves to stay in the game. An exciting battle ensues from which White comes out victorious!
Wednesday, April 22
FM Dennis Monokroussos – A Tactical Slugfest in the English | Tactics
Most of us think of the English as a more “positional” opening, but this wild battle between David Anton and Alexander Grischuk shows that it can become very tactical, very quickly. This game was sharp and had the players on their own while it was still the opening, and while Grischuk is one of the world’s best – and best-prepared – players, Anton massacred him in a miniature. Have a look at this beautiful, theoretically significant game.
Thursday, April 23
GM Leonid Kritz – Black Fights for the Center! | Strategy
This is a perfect example of a fight for center squares, in this case specifically it is the square e5. Typical pawn structure for this line, Black gets the square e5 by playing g5, but White has chances to organize dangerous play on the king side. However, everything goes sideways and eventually Black gets a dream position – queens are exchanged, all dark squares in the position of White are weakened, and White has zero counterplay.
Friday, April 24
GM Robert Hungaski – An Unusual Ragozin from Opening to Ending | Opening, Middlegame, Endgame
In this video I will examine a top-level game from one of the most recent events that took place before COVID-19 put the breaks on pretty much everything. It’s not just an interesting revival of a somewhat forgotten line of the Ragozin, but it’s also a great example of a successful execution of an opening idea that carried over to the middlegame and eventually the endgame.