Monday, March 23
IM Bill Paschall – Sacrifice! For the Initiative! Part 1 | Strategy, Tactics
Rudolph Spielmann was a renowned and feared attacking player who published the first great treatise on the subject of sacrifice in chess. This game illustrates the rewards possible for a brave player, willing to sacrifice material long term for the initiative. As Mikhail Tal later became most famous for, this type of disruptive sacrifice is very difficult to defend against. White, obviously stunned, is unable to castle and has difficulty coordinating his forces. Although perhaps “unsound” according to a modern computer program, such sacrifices as in this game pose too much difficulty for a human defender and must be judged “correct” according to practical considerations, especially with limited time to find responses in over-the-board play.
Tuesday, March 24
GM Eugene Perelshteyn – Positional Pawn Sacrifice in the Nimzo-Indian | Opening, Strategy
Black plays a solid Nimzo-Indian, doubling White’s pawns but surrendering the bishop pair. How does White fight for the initiative? With a positional pawn sacrifice, of course! Watch how White blasts through the center and opens up his bishops for a deadly attack!
Wednesday, March 25
FM Dennis Monokroussos – Even Former Candidates Can Be Zombies! | Opening
Johan Hjartarson was a World Championship Candidate a generation ago, and is still a good solid GM to this day. He’s experienced and strong – and yet, like all of us he’s capable of making moves in the opening that are natural, automatic, and mistaken. That’s what happened in this game against David Navara, a top player of the present time, and he is punished in impressive style. It’s an instructive game, and as Hjartarson’s error is one that has been played before, and is very likely to be played again, it’s a theoretically useful game to study, too.
Thursday, March 26
GM Leonid Kritz – Instructive Tactics and Strategies in Another Slowly Starting Spanish Game | Tactics, Strategy
Top Grandmasters appear to be slowly regaining a willingness to play the Spanish (Ruy Lopez), after a long period of preferring the Italian Game. They are less worried about the Berlin and the Marshall nowadays, but we are seeing more games in which White plays an early d3, and slowly builds. An instructive battle rich in both tactics and strategy follows.
Friday, March 27
GM Nadya Kosintseva – Facing the Queen’s Indian Defense | Strategy
In this lecture, I will speak to you how to continue for White after the following moves: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6. Compared to the King’s Indian Defense, where Black moves the dark-squared bishop to the long a1-h8 diagonal, in the Queen’s Indian Black does the similar thing but with his light-squared bishop: it goes to the long h1-a8 diagonal in order to establish better control over the middle of the board. After white’s 4.Nc3 black has a choice – whether to play 4…Bb4 or let White play the preventive 5.a3 that stops it. In both cases, White should play actively to occupy the center as soon as possible – otherwise Black can bring more pieces to take over the middle of the board.