Monday, June 29
IM Bill Paschall – Selected Games from the Carlsen Invitational 2020 – Part 5 | Middlegame, Tactics
The final installment of this series features Caruana in a must win situation as Black against Nakamura. White plays the ever solid 1.Nf3 and Black goes for the Wade Defense. Caruana essentially transposes the game into a Classical King’s Indian where normally Nakamura would prefer playing with Black. In a fast paced game, being comfortable with the type of position, and maintaining king safety, can be more important than other considerations and this game is no exception!
Tuesday, June 30
GM Eugene Perelshteyn – The Bogo-Indian as a Superior Version of King’s Indian! | Opening, Strategy
It’s not often that you see one opening morph into another, yet this is exactly what happens when you play the Bogo! Notice how the Bogo is similar to the KID. You have the same dark square strategy but without the passive g7 bishop. In this game, GM Perelshteyn shows you all the key ideas you need to play this structure and never look bad.
Wednesday, July 1
FM Dennis Monokroussos – On the Horns of a Dilemma: Ding Channels Alekhine | Strategy
The pawn structure arising in this game after 11.exf4 is reminiscent of a famous 1923 game between Alekhine and Rubinstein, where the former showed the attacking merits of the structure with the “horns”: an isolated d-pawn on d4 and the newly doubled pawn on f4. Ding Liren’s win over Aronian may not have been quite the brilliancy Alekhine’s was, but he also faced more resistance. Regardless, it was a fine game with remarkably creative and energetic play, both instructive and aesthetically pleasing.
Thursday, July 2
GM Leonid Kritz – Zigzags in the Hedgehog | Tactics
This game is primarely interesting because of many non-standard decisions both players made in a quite well-known pawn structure. At some point in the middlegame it looked like White should get the point very soon, but eventually Black managed to equalize. However, the last couple of moves before the time control twisted the game in White’s favor again.
Friday, July 3
GM Nadya Kosintseva – Play the Caro-Kann Defense – Part 1: Facing 2.c4 | Openings, Strategy
In this lecture, I will begin a series of recordings about the Caro-Kann Defense from the black point of view. The Caro-Kann used to be one of the most solid openings for Black in response to White’s first move e2-e4 and can be considered as an attempt to improve the Scandinavian Defense and the French defense. In all these openings Black wants to strike at the center with d5. But doing so on the first move (1..d5 in the Scandinavian Defense) will lead to moving the black queen out too early after 2.exd5 Qxd5, while playing the French defense (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5) can make the black light-squared bishop bad. As such, by playing the Caro-Kann Defense, Black can avoid these problems and get a solid position, avoiding weaknesses.
We will begin with the move 2.c4 for White, with the idea to aim at the d5 square and be prepared to take two times on d5 when Black pushes the d-pawn forward. The positions that arise in this variation are characterized by a structure with a white isolated pawn in the middle of the board which, on one hand, gives him some control over the center but, on the other hand, is weaker than other pawns and can be easier attacked by the black pieces.