Monday, November 11
IM Valeri Lilov – Win with the London System | Openings
Playing 1.d4 as white can be quite tough, knowing the many different responses black may play. There is a solution though. The London System is often regarded as a universal opening weapon for white. Pick it up and you will have no challenge in handling the opening at any time!
Tuesday, November 11
IM Bill Paschall – A Vintage Battle in the Sicilian | Tactics, Middlegame, Endgame
The following game is a classic attacking battle in the sharp Sicilian Defense. White sacrifices a rook to flush out the Black king and then regains enough material to retain serious willing chances, despite the Black king’s immediate escape. The video takes the perspective of the veteran GM Vlastimil Jansa, playing Black, who frankly was very lucky to survive this encounter! Instructive points include the exchange of Queens and the resulting endgame.
Wednesday, November 11
FM Dennis Monokroussos – Smashing the Pawn Roller Variation of the Queen’s Gambit Exchange | Tactics
I’ve shown a few games over the years where White has steamrolled Black with his center pawns in the Exchange Variation of the Queen’s Gambit Declined. White puts the knight on e2 and plays f3, aiming for an eventual e4, then e5, f4, f5 – and destruction. It’s a potent plan, but as we’ll see today there are no guarantees in life. IM Kassa Korley obliterates Alexander Moiseenko with a spectacular sacrificial idea – one which, amazingly, he was able to put into practice not just once but twice! Take heart, those of you who play the QGD with Black. Help is here. And even if you don’t care about either side of the variation, it’s a glorious game worth seeing.
Thursday, November 11
GM Nadya Kosintseva – Play the Sozin Attack vs the Najdorf Sicilian, Part 5 | Strategy
In this lecture we start learning the line where Black deviates from direct attack of the e4-pawn but rather moves the dark-squared bishop out to prepare castling. So after black’s 8…Be7, White proceeds with 9.Qf3 with the intention to transfer the queen to the king side and also keeping in mind the potential threats on the long h1-a8 diagonal. At this moment Black usually moves the queen either to b6 or c7 squares to make Bb7 work in the case of white’s e5. We will start with 9…Qb6 followed by 10.Be3 Qb7 which allows Black to put more pressure on the e4-pawn but keep the light squared bishop on the h3-c8 diagonal to defend the e6-point.
Friday, November 11
GM Robert Hungaski – Queen’s Gambit Accepted: A Simple System for Black, Update #1 | Openings
In the summer of 2010 I said enough is enough! I was fed up with my terrible score against 1.d4 and decided it was time to address the problem. I realized that sharp theoretical lines were getting me nowhere. Instead of playing the openings that the world’s elite showcased on a daily basis, or the lines recommended in all of the most prominent opening books, I needed something that would play to my strengths without requiring a huge time commitment (at the time I was in my junior year of college), even if this meant getting a slightly worse position.
That was when my love affair with the Queen’s Gambit Accepted began and I have been playing it ever since. Since then I have lost very few games, and in all of them it was usually something I did wrong, rather than a problem with the opening itself. That was until earlier this year, when I encountered the first existential challenge to this ever-reliable opening. So here is the first of two new lectures to extend my series from one year ago, to address this new challenge!