Monday, January 8 IM Valeri Lilov Early Weaknesses (strategy, middlegame)
Exploiting a weakness has always been a challenging part for many chess players. While it’s not too hard to spot a weakness (pawn, king, etc.). Many players don’t know the correct approach to exploiting it, especially in the early stages. Tune in to IM Lilov’s lecture to learn more!
Tuesday, January 9 IM Bill Paschall Fighting Chess at the Russian Superfinal 2017, Part 2 (opening)
Fast rising star Danil Dubov plays a creative Geller Gambit type idea against the Chebanenko variation of the Slav. Volkov seems prepared, but the game spirals out of control with a great piece sacrifice , giving white a practical initiative in the middlegame. Volkov doesn’t find a good way to give the material back and goes down swinging with a failed queen sacrifice. Exciting fighting chess on display at the Russian Superfinal !
Wednesday, January 10 FM Dennis Monokroussos A Miniature in the Orthodox Queen’s Gambit (strategy)
Vera Menchik was by far the strongest female player of her day, and she defeated many of the top male players of her time, inducting them into the so-called Vera Menchik Club. (The player who sardonically invented that title for people who lost to Menchik wound up being the charter member of the Club.) Gideon Stahlberg avoided membership, going 4-0 against Menchik in their encounters. This win was an attractive one with theoretical significance; it’s possible for a decent player today to fall into the same trap Menchik did. (In fact, multiple players fell for it back then as well!) It’s surprising that white’s attacking prospects are as great as they turned out to be, and that’s part of what makes the game instructive as well as attractive.
Thursday, January 11 GM Nadya Kosintseva Patience and Non-Forcing Moves (tactics)
A chess player cannot calculate all the moves in every position, so at some point he has to make a choice what moves should be computed and what continuations can be excluded from a list of candidate moves as non-promising. In such a situation, many players used to take into consideration only the most aggressive moves that force the opponent to respond in a certain way. Indeed, a lot of chess combinations represent a series of forcing moves that end up in a winning position. But in fact, chess is much more that just calculating checks, captures and other moves with a threat. What’s more, if a player looks only at forcing moves he can evaluate the position in a wrong way and as a result miss interesting resources for himself as well as for his opponent. In this lecture, I will show you four instructive examples of how the ability to take into consideration quiet, non-forcing moves in the process of calculation can change the outcome of the game and make one’s attack more powerful.
Friday, January 12 GM Bryan Smith Carlsen in the Open, Part 3 (tactics)
In part three of our series on Magnus Carlsen’s participation in the Isle of Man Open, we see his deceptively simple win against GM Julio Granda Zuniga.