New Chess Videos for October 16 – 20


Monday, October 16 IM Valeri Lilov The Power of Center (strategy, middlegame)
The center is the most important area of the board in chess. Controlling it means improving your piece effectiveness and speeding up while attacking. Learn how to do so in IM Lilov’s instructive video!

Tuesday, October 17 IM Bill Paschall The Rise of the Italian Game, Part 4 (opening, strategy)
In part 4 we see a top battle where White essays the topical a4 idea and Black reacts with a5….rather than the standard a6 rejoinder. Aronian plays very aggressively and riskily with 7…d5, forcing white to abandon his strong point on e4. White later gains the bishop pair, but Black’s mobile center provides him with compensation. The jury is not yet out on the topical variation featured in this recent game.

Wednesday, October 18 FM Dennis Monokroussos Crushing the Modern (tactics)
In this battle of teenagers, White takes on “Tiger’s” Modern and plays to crush it. Black could have survived, so the opening isn’t refuted, but he was under incredible pressure early on, and despite being a strong grandmaster he was helpless against White’s sacrificial deluge. White win a gorgeous game

Thursday, October 19 GM Leonid Kritz A Crazy Game by “Crazy” Super-GMs (tactics, endgame)
A very interesting game in which Aronian presented an outstanding idea to develop his rook via h4 by move number 10! Many tactical and non-standard variations here, but unfortunately Nepo steered into an unhappy endgame way too early.

Friday, October 20 IM David Vigorito A Simple Twist on Well Known Line in the King’s Indian (opening, middlegame)
In this game I face my old teammate from the US Chess League, Sam Shankland, now one of the top players in the US. We follow a game Carlsen-Radjabov, but Sam surprises me…by simply castling. I still managed to equalize the game, but then I gradually get outplayed in a somewhat sloppy game. Still, the game shows that if you trust your openings you can deal with surprises, even against top players.