Monday, September 10
IM Bill Paschall – Mamadyarov Dominates in Biel 2018, Part 2 | Opening, Endgame
Mamadyarov shows his versatile abilities in this round seven victory against the talented David Navara from Biel 2018. Mamadyarov plays a quiet system and actually lures Navara into attacking and overextending himself. In the aftermath of his over-extension, Navara loses a pawn. Finally Mamadyarov shows great endgame skill and understanding of transferral of advantages by giving the pawn back to reach a better ending with equal material but superior structure and king centralization. Overall, a great win and a good illustration of Mamadyarov’s skill set.
Tuesday, September 11
FM Dennis Monokroussos – Another Approach to the Openings | Opening, Strategy
Sergei Tiviakov’s opening repertoire isn’t what most players would call cutting-edge. But despite this, he has had fantastic results with the white pieces for decades, as he delves so deeply into his seemingly harmless systems that he can lay positional traps that even elite GMs fall into – and don’t realize that they are positional traps. This impressive and remarkably easy victory against Loek van Wely is a fine illustration of his repertoire in practice, and in the video I have much more to say about how we can learn from Tiviakov’s approach.
Wednesday, September 12
GM Eugene Perelshteyn – Instructive Way of Executing the Plan in Accelerated Dragon | Opening, Strategy, Tactics
How well do you know the different plans in the Accelerated Dragon? In this video GM Perelshteyn presents you all the key ideas: half-open c-file, knight transfer to c4, swinging with the tail. But knowing the ideas is not enough, you have to know when to play each one. Eugene’s opponent is clever and managed to prepare for all the ideas with cunning tricks. Yet, the only open file was lost by White and the invasion happened instantly!
Thursday, September 13
GM Nadya Kosintseva – Play the Taimanov Sicilian (2…e6), Part 2 | Strategy, Tactics
In this lecture we continue learning the Taimanov Variation of the Sicilian Defense. We will go over the sharpest lines of the variation to see what happens if White castles on the queenside. To prepare long castling, White can choose between Qf3 and Qd2 moves. We begin with Qf3 lines since this move order has become pretty popular now. Then we continue on to the Qd2 variations followed by an early f3. The most important thing to understand when you play this position for black: don’t hesitate to attack! Go forward, create threats! Even if your opponent just attacked one of your pieces, it does not mean that you have to retreat. Be active, don’t waste time on slow moves and you should be fine.
Friday, September 14
IM Valeri Lilov – Middlegame Imbalances | Middlegame
The concept of imbalances has always been a tough one when it comes to middlegame. In this video, IM Lilov introduces some important principles one should know in order to find and create imbalances!