Monday, November 4
IM Bill Paschall – Practical Play: The Queen and Knight Combine | Middlegame, Strategy
In general the bishop is a more powerful piece than the knight. Howard Staunton, in his American Chess Player’s Handbook, went as far as to assign the bishop a value of three and one half pawns and the knight only three! The truth is, however, that their relative value depends on various factors in the position. In the following example, former world champion Boris Spassky is on his heels against the very dangerous young Alexander Beliavsky. White manages eventually only to gain the “advantage” of bishop vs knight, but the Queens remain on the board. Spassky shows the amazing ability of the combination of queen and knight to coordinate perfectly – first for defense, and then for attack!
Tuesday, November 5
FM Dennis Monokroussos – A New Idea in the Rossolimo Sicilian | Strategy
If you watched the Caruana-Carlsen match, you saw Carlsen meet the Rossolimo Sicilian with various plans aimed at getting the b8 knight to d4 (…Nd7-f8-e6-d4, for instance). This has been a standard plan for a very long time, and has been seen in countless games. I don’t think it’s going to disappear any time soon, but in a recent game from the World Cup Nijat Abasov found a very interesting alternative for the knight, and with it he achieved a very easy draw against his considerably higher-rated opponent. This is a theoretically important game, both in its specifics but also for the interesting concept, so if you play either side of the 3…g6 Rossolimo you’ll want to check it out.
Wednesday, November 6
GM Eugene Perelshteyn – Play Reversed Fianchetto KID for a Win! | Opening, Strategy, Endgame
It’s fun to play Reversed Openings! In this game, GM Perelshteyn decides to play with no preparation and simply follows his ideas from the KID Fianchetto’s variation. Molner tries to neutralize White by going into the endgame, but with every move he makes tiny concessions. First it’s the bishop pair, then a pawn structure weakness, and eventually he’s a pawn down with no compensation. The rest is a nice technique with a beautiful tactic at the end!
Thursday, November 7
GM Leonid Kritz – Don’t Be Too Materialistic | Tactics
A very clean example of how being greedy in chess can be punished. White sacrificed a pawn for initiative, and Black – instead of giving it back and trying to equalize in an endgame – tried to keep it and got into a very passive position. Eventually, White increased pressure so much that Black had almost nothing to move and quickly fell apart.
Friday, November 8
GM Nadya Kosintseva – Play the Sozin Attack vs the Najdorf Sicilian, Part 4 | Strategy
Sicilian Sozin b5-Bb7: In this lecture we will cover the line where Black brings the light-squared bishop to the long diagonal right after 7…b5. One visible drawback of this variation – it weakens the e6-square that White can use, considering sacrificing a minor piece there. In addition to this popular sacrifice White can do Nd5 or a4 followed by Nd5 after he brings the rook to the e-file. We will see what can White do to increase his pressure on the black king depending on the move orders.