Monday, June 25
IM Bill Paschall Top Flight Fights – Russian Team Champs 2018, Part 3 | Opening, Strategy
IM Paschall revists the White side of the Berlin Defense in this battle from the Russian team Championship 2018. The young GM Alekseenko continues to look very impressive , with a convincing victory. This game features play along the lines of the exchange Ruy Lopez. It’s simply a must see for anyone who wants to avoid the standard Berlin Defense endgame.
Tuesday, June 26
GM Eugene Perelshteyn Best Games from the US Champ 2018: Caruana Crushes the French! | Opening, Tactics
It’s not often you see a top 10 US Grandmaster destroyed in 23 moves…What went wrong for Lenderman in this game? Watch and try to understand how Caruana punishes Black for violating opening principles such as “Don’t bring your queen our early.”
Wednesday, June 27
FM Dennis Monokroussos A Trap in Triplicate | Opening Traps
In the recent Grand Chess Tour event in Leuven, Hikaru Nakamura got three opponents to fall for the exact same trap on the same day, and he won all three games. If you’re a fan of lines with an early b2-b3, or meet them with a King’s Indian setup, you’ll want to check this out for yourself!
Thursday, June 28
IM David Vigorito Shankland’s Power Finish at the US Champ 2018, Part 1 | Opening, Middlegame, Endgame
In this lecture we look at U.S. Champion Sam Shankland’s penultimate win against the veteran Alexander Onischuk. Sam had Black, but even with a half point lead over World Championship contender Fabiano Caruana, he felt he may have to win this game to stay ahead. It turned out that he was right about this, and he rose to the occasion. Playing a somewhat new opening (for him), Sam gets a solid but double-edged middlegame and slowly outplays his opponent, eventually reaching a textbook good knight vs. bad bishop endgame.
Friday, June 29
GM Leonid Kritz Theoretical Battle in a Quiet French | Tactics
This game was played in a very interesting line of the French Defense in which White sacrifices a pawn, but gets enough compensation for that. This whole variation is particularly important because it is to some degree forced, and if Black finds a way to equalize here then the whole French Defense may become playable again (which it is not right now, based on recent results). However, it seems like Black is
pretty far from finding an acceptable position in these lines – Nepo demonstrated a solid way of getting advantage and got the well-deserved point.