Monday August 5 IM Bill Paschall – Great Matchups: Tal vs Botvinnik World Championship Match Part 2 | Middlegame, Strategy
The upstart challenger compounds his lead with a decisive victory in game 6. Botvinnik plays too routinely in the opening to gain a serious advantage and then fails to take advantage of risks his opponent takes
in playing for the win. Tal sacrifices a piece unsoundly, but both sides err in the complications and finally Tal emerges with a winning endgame. Botvinnik is simply not calculating deeply and accurately enough. Clearly there is a strong intimidation factor for anyone facing the fearsome Mikhail Tal!
Tuesday, August 6 GM Eugene Perelshteyn – Taming the Grand Prix Attack with Bc4 as Black | Opening, Strategy
The Classical Grand Prix Attack is known for the bishop going to c4 and immediate f4-f5 push. This looks scary and taking the f-pawn gives White a powerful attack. However, as GM Perelshteyn reminds us “chess is not checkers”, you don’t have to take the free pawn. Instead with rapid development, Black solves all his opening problems. But ever an nterprising attacking player, Sunil keeps offering material. Again, Black picks and chooses which material to take, only then to give up the exchange at the right moment. Faced with a difficult endgame, White loses on time.
Wednesday August 7 GM Leonid Kritz – How Not to Play the Caro-Kann | Tactics
Whatever you can do wrong in the opening – Black did it perfectly in this game and converted a rock-solid opening into a bunch of holes and weaknesses. Usually, after 20 moves in the Caro-Kann, White has a symbolic 0.25 edge and is very happy about it, but in this case, he gets a 1.5 pawns advantage. The reason is that Black played too optimistically – 7….c5 was a little early, and 15….g5 was suicidal. The game lasted so long only because of mistakes that Smirin made when converting his advantage, but overall it’s a great example how to punish people who want to play actively and select Caro-Kann for this purpose.
Thursday, August 8 GM Nadya Kosintseva – Meeting 1.d4 with …d6 followed by …e5 – Part 1 | Strategy
In this series of two lectures I want to introduce to you a system that arises after 1.d4 d6, from Black’s point of view. On one hand, Black is going to transpose to pawn formations similar to the King’s Indian Defense when he later plays g6 followed by Bg7. On the other hand, he does not hurry to move the king side knight out since his intention is to play e7-e5 before he castles and so the knight can have a choice, going either to f6 or e7 squares. In today’s lecture we will cover 2.c4 e5 as well as 2.Nf3 g6 lines to compare the positions with classical King’s Indian set-ups.
Friday, August 9 FM Dennis Monokroussos – Something New, Interesting, and (Maybe) Unsound in the Dragon | Tactics
Arthur Pijpers’ 10…Qd7 wasn’t a novelty, but it was a breath of fresh air; a very rare move in a well-known position. There does seem to be a narrow path leading to a white advantage, but it’s not easy to stay on it to the very end. Annika Froewis played very well at first, but a single mistake – a very natural one – led to her speedy demise. Dragon players may want to include this in their repertoires, while anti-Dragon players who go for 9.0-0-0 and 10.Kb1 need to be ready for this.