Monday, May 20
IM Bill Paschall – Great Matchups: Smyslov vs Botvinnik, Part 1 | Opening, Strategy
Many great games were played in this classic rivalry of two World Champions. The first part of our series highlights a good example of Smyslov using an “outside the box” strategy to complicate the game against Botvinnik the scientist. White’s use of the anti-positional break 11.b4 is very atypical in the King’s Indian and White is able to create imbalance. Botvinnik seems to show little sense of danger as the threats against his king mount. Also interesting is the exchange of the Black “bad bishop” on e3. Although this exchange is typically good for Black, in this position it was one of the defenders of the king.
Tuesday, May 21
FM Dennis Monokroussos – A Difficult Rook and 3 Pawns vs. Rook and 2 Pawns Ending, Episode 1 | Endgame, Tactics
Endings with a rook and three pawns against a rook and two pawns tend to be routine when all the pawns are on the same side. The stronger side will play it out as a matter of doing his or her competitive duty, but the draw is expected and the ending tends to be forgettable. Not so in the endgame that arose in the game we’ll look at here, between Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and David Navara from the 2019 Gashimov Memorial. The pawn structure was unusual, and this led to a surprising amount of complexity. There were (at least!) five errors that changed the proper result of the game, and this in a contest between two of the world’s absolute best players! If they had something to learn from this ending, so do we, so join me and have a look.
Wednesday, May 22
GM Leonid Kritz – Pawns Don’t Move Backwards, Part 2 | Strategy, Tactics
Similar to the game Mamedov – A. Muzychuk, here Black also plays a5 prematurely and weakens the square b5, which then becomes detrimental. As so often, Karjakin gets into a lost position, and is lucky that Giri does not score immediately. Later, the game gets into a nice strategic-tactical battle and eventually Black outplays his opponent.
Thursday, May 23
GM Nadya Kosintseva – Facing the Maroczy Bind in the Accelerated Dragon, Part 2 | Strategy
“White Keeps His Bishops.” In this lecture, we continue learning the Accelerated move order of the Dragon Variation with 5.c4. As in the Part 1, we assume that Black has a chance to exchange at least one pair of the knights and then offer a trade of the dark-squared bishops. However, in this lecture White prefers to keep the dark-squared bishops on the board which makes the position more concrete. To create counter play Black, at some point, plays the untypical (for the Dragon system) e6-move, which weakens the d6-pawn. Usually, it can be risky from a strategic point of view, but Black proves dynamically that his counter play on the king side compensates some drawbacks of the pawn configuration.
Friday, May 24
GM Robert Hungaski – A Classical Repertoire vs 1.e4: Facing the Scotch Game, Part 4 | Endgame, Tactics
You asked for it! While playing through some of my previous publications and patting myself on the back, I noticed some recurring topics came up in the comments section.
Viewers noted that in many of their games white avoided the main lines and instead chose the move 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 d6 4.d4 exd4 5.Qxd4!? This is in fact a very popular sideline that should not be underestimated. Its popularity is due to its practical value since white’s play is quite straight-forward and incisive. Moreover, as was noted in the comments section, it was Viktor Bologan’s recommendation in a series he did a while back on a repertoire for white in the Ruy Lopez.
However, I have worked through Bologan’s recommendations and found several interesting improvements for black. The most noteworthy of these ideas involves castling queenside, often sacrificing the g7-pawn. I like black’s compensation in such cases and hope you will too!