Monday, August 12
IM Bill Paschall – Great Matchups: Tal vs Botvinnik World Championship Match 1960, Part 3 | Middlegame, Opening
Botvinnik trailed in the match by three games going into game eight! The back and forth struggle in this game is typical for this match, with Botvinnik relying on principles and Tal muddying the waters with risky gambles! Botvinnik seemed unsure and intimidated by Tal’s tricky style. Time pressure undoubtedly played a key role as White goes from winning to losing back to winning again in the final ten moves of this game. IM Paschall does his best to make sense of the complications arising in this pivotal game which allowed Botvinnik to stay alive in the match!
Tuesday, August 13
GM Eugene Perelshteyn – How To Create a Deadly Attack with the Bishop’s Opening | Opening
Bishop’s Opening is not very popular at the top, yet at the club level this could be a deadly weapon! Don’t miss an instructive attack by White that involves a double bishop sacrifice. Sidestep the Petroff and have fun along the way!
Wednesday, August 14
FM Dennis Monokroussos – The “Quiet” 7.Nf3 in the Byrne Attack | Middlegame, Opening
For those who prefer to play more positionally against the Najdorf, the 6.Be3 e5 7.Nf3 line is a good choice. Even elite GMs occasionally go badly wrong, making what might seem to be imperceptible errors. That’s what happened to Jeffery Xiong here. The newest U.S. 2700 faced a new wrinkle from Le Quang Liem, and his natural reply turned a slightly worse position into one that was almost lost. A further error proved fatal, and White won with surprising ease. This line is even harder for Black to cope with at the club level, as White’s plans are conceptually simpler than Black’s ways of dealing with them. Be prepared!
Thursday, August 15
GM Nadya Kosintseva – Meeting 1.d4 with …d6 followed by …e5 – Part 2 | Strategy
Today we will consider another principal continuation for White to meet Black’s unusual move order: 2.e4. On one hand, this move is very logical from a strategic point of view – White can bring another pawn to the middle of the board from the very beginning of the game. On the other hand, some players do not play both d4 and e4 on the first move and so can be concerned about transposition to 1.e4-lines. From the black point of view, it’s important to understand the specifics of the pawn formation and potential ways to attack the center that White occupies. Black seems to be a little bit passive from the beginning, since he does not bring any pawns to the center. However, this set-up allows him to avoid a theoretical discussion and so leads to less forcing play with its own specific ideas.
Friday, August 16
GM Robert Hungaski – Opening Strategy: Establishing a ‘Sheltered Knight’ | Strategy
When we want a safe yet active place to put our bishop, one approach immediately comes to mind: the fianchetto. However, what happens when we ask ourselves the same question regarding the knight? The answer is not so easy, since the considerations we must take into account for knights are very different than those for bishops (so please don’t fianchetto your knights!).
Perhaps the most obvious difference is that knights must be physically close to the center, given their short range. Therefore, it is useful to be familiar with some structures that are conducive to this end. In this lecture I will examine one structure in particular (of course there are several others. In fact, I relied on one in particular for my series on a white repertoire against the Sicilian). This is the b2-c3-d4 (or b7-c6-d5) pawn chain, which creates an ideal post for the knight on d3/d6. Thus, we will review how to reach this structure along with the possible maneuvers that help get our knight to the desired square.