Monday, March 23 IM David Vigorito Needle in a Haystack (openings)
Tuesday, March 24 IM Bill Paschall Mohr Flohr! Part 4 (middlegame, tactics)
We see a classic battle with the great Emanuel Lasker. Black captures dubiously white’s outposted knight on e5 in a typical hanging pawn middlegame. Flohr gains the initative with 2 raking bishops and breaks through with an ingenius exchange sacrifice, which in turn gives him a monstrous passed pawn. Lasker is unable to generate any serious counterplay. A masterful win against one of the greatest chess players of all time.
Wednesday, March 25 FM Dennis Monokroussos One Diagonal Per Bishop (tactics)
When one plays both …e6 and …g6, there’s a serious danger that very weak dark squares will result. If the bishop develops along the path cleared by the e-pawn, then h6 and g7 are likely to be weak; if it is fianchettoed instead then d6 could be a problem, and in both cases Black can have trouble with the f6 square. Those difficulties were convincingly demonstrated in the game Bitensky-Ciobanu from the 2015 European championship, as you will see. Black wound up with dark squared problems all over the place, and eventually fell prey to a beautiful kingside attack that highlighted all the weak dark squares in her camp. White’s attacking play was instructive, but one shouldn’t forget about the preconditions that made it possible – that’s very instructive too, even if only as a model of what we should avoid.
Thursday, March 26 GM Eugene Perelshteyn A Surprise Weapon in the Accelerated Dragon: Invite White to Castle Long! (openings)
Learn a cool weapon to steer the game in the regular Dragon on your own terms with 8…Nd7! An original idea by the creative genius Bent Larsen. The knight transfer allows a fight for the critical c4 square. This old idea is completely overlooked in modern theory and you can easily surprise your opponents! Also, get a master class on a positional exchange sacrifice in the best traditions of Petrosian.
Friday, March 27 GM Bryan Smith Rubinstein’s Great Endgames, Part 7 (endgame)
In this game, Akiba Rubinstein shows unusual and deep strategic maneuvering in exploiting the two bishops in an endgame resulting from the Exchange Variation of the Spanish Game.”