Monday, March 5
IM Valeri Lilov Outweigh the Bigger Piece! | Strategy, Middlegame
Is it true that each piece has the same value through the whole game? Or perhaps the value changes with the role it plays within one’s plan and possibilities. How do we know when to consider a piece more important or less so? IM Lilov brings his input on this in this video!
Tuesday, March 6
IM Bill Paschall Interesting Struggles from Aeroflot 2018, Part 1 | Opening, Strategy
This game illustrates some key subtleties in the main line Spanish. White plays too routinely , misplacing his pieces and losing coordination. Matlakov shows a very deep understanding of the position , highlighted by his play in the late opening between move 16 and 22. Particularly, Black’s ideas of the breaks with c6 and f5 are very critical. This game teaches us how important it is to truly understand a position, rather than just memorizing moves.
Wednesday, March 7
FM Dennis Monokroussos Be Careful What You Wish For… | Strategy
The opening started unusually, but came to take on some characteristics of the Dutch and the Queen’s Indian. One of White’s typical ideas against such a setup is to play d4-d5 and fight for some key light squares, and along those lines White played 12.d5, 13.g4, and 15.Ng5, all aimed at conquering and occupying e6. It was a nice plan, but Hou Yifan found an even nicer reply. She got rid of that knight and all White’s control over the light squares, albeit at the cost of her queen for just two minor pieces and a pawn. The resulting position was about equal – her compensation was sufficient but not more than that – but her position was easier to play, as the rest of the game showed.
Thursday, March 8
GM Nadya Kosintseva Beware – the Pawn is Coming! | Tactics
In these two examples we encounter two ways demonstrating how pawns can weaken the position of the opposing king. In the first example the game proceeds in a non-standard way with g4, but what we see is that the attack of White becomes much stronger once he brings the pawns to help. In the second example, h5-h4, is a standard method. Often White has to decide whether to play h4 himself, or to let Black continue with h4 after he pushed h5, but in both cases the position of the king becomes weak and Alekhine produces a brilliant example of how to use this weakness.
Friday, March 9
GM Bryan Smith Winning the National Chess Congress, Part 2 | Strategy, Tactics
In Part 2 of this, Bryan Smith describes his round 5 victory in the National Chess Congress over Kassa Korley which put him a point ahead of the competition, followed by his round 6 draw with Alexei Dreev which clinched first place.