Monday, March 30
IM Bill Paschall – Sacrifice! For the Initiative! Part 2 | Opening, Middlegame, Strategy
In part two of this series we continue the pursuit of the initative with a very classic pawn sacrifice devised by Efim Geller. Geller builds upon the ideas of all time greats like Alekhine to devise a dangerous pawn sacrifice for the initiative against the usually solid Slav Defense to the Queen’s Gambit. If Black wants to play the Slav he has no choice but to accept Geller’s Gambit, but peril awaits! The positions in this line are not typical of what Black players want to see and the initiative passes to White!
Tuesday, March 30
GM Eugene Perelshteyn – How to Punish White For Passive Play in the Opening! | Opening, Strategy, Tactics
In this game, a club player decides to sidestep opening theory as White. He plays two odd-looking moves in the opening that at first don’t seem that bad. Yet, together these moves prove fatal as White gets completely locked on the queenside! This game illustrates that opening theory matters!
Wednesday, April 1
FM Dennis Monokroussos – Coffeehouse Chess at its Best | Strategy
Charousek was late in learning how to play (16) and early in passing from this world (26), but during his brief career he was remarkably successful. His most notable achievement was a win over world champion Emanuel Lasker (covered elsewhere on this site), and his lovely combination in this game is his calling card. Poor Wollner never knew what hit him! Watch, enjoy, and match wits with the players. Can you defend better than Wollner, and find Charousek’s sparkling finish?
Thursday, April 2
GM Nadya Kosintseva – Play g3 Against the King’s Indian Defense | Strategy
In this lecture, I will introduce to you how to play against the King’s Indian Defense from White’s point of view in order to avoid typical attacks on the white king and at the same time maintain the pressure in the middle of the board. The scheme that I consider offers to develop the light-squared bishop to the long diagonal after White plays g3. As a result, the bishop starts pressing on the b7-point and makes it harder for Black to develop the queen side. We will focus on Black’s plans with e7-e5 right after he moves the queen side knight out. For this knight there are two options: Nc6 and Nbd7. Depending on Black’s choice, White then either closes up the center and goes to attack on the queen side or maintains the pressure in the middle for a while to limit Black’s pieces.
Friday, April 3
GM Robert Hungaski – Two Knights Defense: The Fried Liver Attack in Action | Strategy
In this video we will take a break from the study of opening theory in order to examine two recent games I played in the Fried Liver at the 2020 Florianopolis Open. Studying opening theory is important, but one must also see how theory measures up to practice. In these two games, the players handling the black pieces quickly went astray and found themselves in trouble.