In between flights I managed to make another video for my Youtube channel. This time I talk about Black’s possible reactions and defences against White’s minority attack in the Carlsbad structure.
And also why I didn’t walk around Milan this time.
Hope you enjoy it and find it interesting and useful.
We analysed this game last week, yet only now I have the time to publish it! I was busy playing the Spanish league, but that requires a separate post.
In the game David lost because he didn’t quite grasp the importance of being active and seeking dynamics when the opponent has a long-term advantage. This showed clearly in the game on more than one occassion.
With mixed feelings I am announcing the launch of my Youtube channel. Why the mixed feelings? Well, as I explain in my first ever video, I don’t like the video format so much. I prefer to read as then I can quickly scan and see if the material is useful or not. With the video format I feel compelled to see it all through, in case I miss something useful that may come at the end. Which means I am basically risking looking a useless video and wasting time.
Bearing that in mind, the idea with my channel is to keep it short and sweet. I explain an idea, concept, a plan, or anything really, and that’s it. Useful for the viewer and easy to grasp and apply. At least that’s my idea at this stage.
For now, just one video is up. You can check it out here. And I would appreciate comments and feedback how to make the videos better. I still don’t have a clue of all the fine points of video making, nor do I have an idea how often I’ll be filming myself, but it’s a beginning so let’s see.
The first video is about a typical reaction Black should implement when White jumps Ne5 in a position that can arise from the Queen’s Gambit Declined, the Queen’s Indian or the Zukertort System. Plus I explain a couple of plans Black can retort to if White postpones the jump. For more, please see the video.
I spent the last week in Spain at the Spanish U16 championship and I watched many games between young and talented players. They play well, follow theory and still have a lot to learn. My student Angel Luis Cubas Cabrera had a tough tournament – he played well, but so did his opponents! He entered the last round undefeated and a win would have brought him a shared 4th place. Alas, he faltered and lost… But today he had a fantastic tournament in the rapid and finished shared 2nd, half a point behind the winner. He is only 15, one year younger than most of the others, so all this looks pretty promising.
While watching the games my subconscious was working and somehow I was reminded of an episode from my tournament in Reykjavik in 2015. In the second part of the tournament I wasn’t playing well and to make things worse I got two Blacks in the last 2 rounds. Still, a last round win would have made it a decent showing.
I was paired against Ni Shiqun. At that time she still didn’t have the success of reaching the quarter-final of this year’s Women World Championship, but it was obvious she was good.
During my preparation I noticed that my young opponent, born in 1997, played some boring lines in the Scotch against 1…e5 and the non-critical 3 c4 against the Sicilian, after 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6. Since I was determined “to play for a win” I decided to go for the Sicilian.
I had several ideas in mind against 3 c4 and eventually I settled for the sharp line after 3…Nc6 4 Be2 g5!? In fact, I was convinced this was so good I even started thinking I refuted the whole 3 c4 line! If, for example, White plays 4 Nc3 instead of 4 Be2 then 4…Nge7 is very good, intending …Nd4 and …Nec6, and if White pushes 5 d4 now, then after exchanging twice on d4 and playing 7…Nc6 Black has excellent play on the dark squares.
The last round was a morning game, so I couldn’t prepare as deeply as I wanted – many of the lines were checked to a point where the position was good for Black, even though I sensed they needed deeper analysis. There was one factor, however, that I failed to take into account and that factor was the character of the position.
I noticed that my opponent was an excellent calculator (as most young players are) and my own calculations weren’t to my usual standard during the tournament. And the positions arising after 4…g5 were sharp and required calculation, no matter in which favour they objectively were.
By now you can probably sense how the game developed. Thanks to my good preparation I obtained a better position as early as move 9, but the position required serious calculations and by move 16 I was lost! Here’s the complete game:
You can now imagine my regret of not playing the boring Scotch… At the closing ceremony I had a chance to chat with Artur Jussupow and I described to him my last round game, with my line of thought during the preparation and my decision to “play for a win” and choosing the Sicilian.
Artur has seen everything in chess, so he knew what I was talking about. He told me that first and foremost, you must take your own state into account. Evaluate precisely how you feel, how your head is working, how confident you are. Everything else should come from there – the opening choice, the strategy for the game. The opponent’s preferences and how to use them come later, sometimes they are even irrelevant – it’s always better to play what makes you feel comfortable than trying to take advantage of an opponent’s shortcoming.
My game with Ni Shiqun is an excellent example – I did take advantage of her poor opening, but I nevertheless lost the game because she was more comfortable in the ensuing position even though objectively it was a better position for me!
This was a valuable lesson for me at the time. Nowadays I try to listen to my inner state more intently and I try to teach my students to do the same. Once it becomes a habit, it will raise the level of self-awareness and the good results will follow.
A good positional win by David, in spite of some inaccuracies. And an interesting way to treat the Moscow Variation by playing 4 a4 and then basically transposing to a reversed English Opening. Could be useful even for me!
I was very pleasantly surprised when I discovered that Chessable started a cooperation with New in Chess and the first product of this cooperation was a book that I recommend to all my students.
GM Jesus de la Villa wrote a masterpiece with his 100 Endgames You Must Know. The book consists of the most basic core of endgame knowledge any player, from beginner to GM, must know. When an opening finishes the middlegame begins; when the middlegame finishes the endgame begins; when the endgame finishes, the game ends. One can hope to rectify the mistakes of the opening and the middlegame, but the mistakes of the endgame are usually the last ones. Simply put, the endgames must be played well.
“But they are boring, aren’t they?” I have always wondered why people thought like this. To my mind, these people have failed to grasp the beauty of the harmony that the few pieces left are capable of creating.
The 100 endgames are a must, as the title says. They are the basis upon which a player will build all his subsequent knowledge. And in order for that subdequent knowledge to be useful, the basis must be solid.
The combination of Chessable’s learning method and the 100 Endgames is a match made in heaven. You need to remember those endgames, learn them almost by heart. De la Villa wants you to learn the principles so he spends quite a few words in explaining them. Based on these principles you should find it easier to produce the moves and eventually remember them. Add to this concept Chessable’s powerful learning method and you have a winner – thorough textual explanations and a scientific method to memorise the moves effectively.
I have also used the 100 Endgames for my own improvement. It is a handy book for a quick overview of the basics once you know them. I would say that this blend of endgame knowledge presented in an easy-to-learn way is a must for players who want quickly to improve not only their endgame skills, but also their overall playing ability. Go ahead and study the book – you won’t regret it and you will see the results from this work fast. What more can one ask?
This time David lost.
He was winning though and it wasn’t very complicated. But as it usually happens in chess, when you miss the first opportunity, the second one is already more difficult. If you then miss the second opportunity, provided there is a third one, it will be more difficult than the second one. So it pays to be precise.
Quite a controversial idea probably, but I really believe it is true. This text is from my newsletter, to which you can subscribe using the yellow form on the right. The next newsletter is due on Saturday.
Lasker’s Psychology
I will start immediately with the shocker – there wasn’t any.
As many books have often repeated, I’ll paraphrase here, Lasker played the opening in a dubious manner in order to lure the opponent into unfamiliar territory and then outplay them. Nothing can be further from the truth.
No strong player plays the opening dubiously on purpose. The fact that Lasker often ended up in dubious positions after the opening doesn’t mean that he intended it. As I have already written about this, and I advise you to read the part on Vukovic’s books for better understanding, I will just say that like anybody else he preferred to have a good position after the opening.
If there was any psychology in Lasker’s play, it was almost entirely his own. He didn’t care about the opponent so much. He was primarily concerned with his own safety.
Don’t let this confuse you. Popular literature leads you to believe that Lasker was the risk-taker, the gambler, the great fighter. Yes, he could be all these things once the game was under way, but before the game he was very cautious and often insecure. I would like to discuss two very famous games of his to demonstrate my point. In both he used the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez.
The first one is the first game of the match with Tarrasch in 1908. Here’s the game without comments.
We know that Tarrasch was a fierce critic of Lasker and often publicly stated that he wasn’t a worthy World Champion. They finally met in a match in 1908. It is not widely known, but before the first game Lasker was nervous and this showed in his comment to his brother. I don’t recall the exact words, but he said something along the lines, if I play the Exchange Variation, how can I possibly lose?
Note that he was primarily seeking a safe haven, he wanted to avoid losing in the first place!
The fact that he won shows that once the game started Lasker was just playing chess, trying to find the best moves. If an opportunity presented itself he would grab it and win the game, even if before it he was content with a draw. The game with Tarrasch was around equal most of the time, but Tarrasch erred and Lasker took his chance.
The second game is even more famous. In St. Petersburg in 1914 Capablanca was having a dream tournament. He was leading comfortably and playing excellent chess. He won the preliminary tournament with 8/10, a full point and a half ahead of Lasker and Tarrasch. These points counted toward the final standings and in the final he continued to play well. So what chances did Lasker have when they met in Round 7 in the final? He was trailing by a full point and he was playing a dangerous young opponent against whom he suffered for 100 moves in Round 2 of the final and who was openly intent on claiming his title.
Losing that game would have been a disaster for Lasker in the eyes of the public. Not winning the tournament and coming second behind the Cuban genius, much less so. How does then Lasker approach the game? No experiments, keep it safe and play the trusted Exchange Variation!
Just like in the game with Tarrasch, once the game started and he was safe out of the opening, knowing that he cannot possibly lose from that position, he started playing chess. And he outplayed Capablanca, who was probably somewhat confused: he became more relaxed after the innocuous opening choice but also concerned about what Lasker was trying to achieve.
These two games were the most striking examples I found of Lasker’s psychology. I was very surprised that even Kasparov, in his Predecessors book, fell for this myth of “Lasker the Psychologist” who played the Exchange Variation in the Ruy Lopez for a win.
“Lasker was a great man,” Capablanca said on more that one occasion. And great men are often misunderstood.
A crushing victory for David this time.
It is instructive to note that he followed the opening principles while his opponent violated them. The result – White was winning by move 20!
Our cooperation with David continues and we had the second session. This time my pretty face also features on the screen!
While there were many instructive moments, I think the concept of “candidate plans” is an interesting one. We usually talk of “candidate moves” but the habit of considering your opponent’s plans is also a very important one.
As usual, all feedback is welcome!