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The bishop sacrifice on h7 (or h2), also known as the Greek gift sacrifice, is one of the most thematic sacrifices in all of chess. Timeo danaos et dona fere...
The bishop sacrifice on h7 (or h2), also known as the Greek gift sacrifice, is one of the most thematic sacrifices in all of chess.
Timeo danaos et dona ferentes, Aeneid (II, 49)
(Beware of Greeks bearing gifts)
A backward pawn is a grave positional disadvantage, and it could easily mean victory for the side attacking it. The most important lesson to learn when it co...
A backward pawn is a grave positional disadvantage, and it could easily mean victory for the side attacking it. The most important lesson to learn when it comes to chess middlegame play is how to create and exploit weaknessed. The backward pawn is a perfect example of that. There are two types of weaknesses; static and dynamic ones. Dynamic weaknesses (such as tactical opportunities) go away and should be exploited momentarily, otherwise you will have missed your chance. Static weaknesses, on the other hand, stay put and you can go about exploiting them slowly, without having to rush. Backward pawns are static weaknesses and the best approach to either winning them or using them is to slowly maneuver, take time and be patient. There are five key steps to consider: 1. Does your opponent have counter play? The most important thing to consider while going after a positional weakness is whether your opponent can harm you in the meantime. Firstly, make sure you have prevented your opponent from gaining a dangerous initiative. 2. Fix the weakness first. Static weaknesses need to be fixed, and only then attacked. Make the pawn immobile, and prepare your troops for the attack. 3. Use the weak square in front of the pawn! The outpost in front of the backward pawn is a huge positional weakness. Having a knight on it would greatly damage your opponent’s position. 4. Force a second weakness. This is a concept which can be applied to chess in general. It is said that one requires two weaknesses to win the game. If you are playing against a backward pawn, a good idea might be to fix it and go about creating a second weakness, thus forcing your opponent to lose focus and fight on two fronts. 5. Attack with all your pieces. When you have a backward pawn, and are forced to defend the position, the best was to play is aggressively. In case of static positional weaknesses which would be fatal in an endgame, trading pieces is off bounds, and piece activity is your number one priority. The backward pawn most often arises from the Sicilian Defense when black plays e5, expanding in the center and leaving himself with the weak and backward d6 pawn. And, as you know, the Sicilian is a very aggressive opening, and a perfect example of what initiative in exchange for positional weaknesses means. Players with black accept the d6 weakness in order to be able to attack with as many pieces as possible as soon as possible.
The 150 Attack is a very aggressive setup you can use to battle the Pirc. For an introduction to the Pirc, watch this video on the basics, plans and variatio...
The 150 Attack is a very aggressive setup you can use to battle the Pirc.
The attack was named after the English rating system (in which 150 is around 1800) to mock the opening. It was meant to say that only 1800 players would be as naive as to expect a quick mate with a setup like this.
The setup is Be3 and Qd2, similar to what you can play against dragon sicilians and the King’s Indian. White goes for a straightforward kingside onslaught with 0-0-0, Be3, Qd2, f3, g4, h4, h5! His play is easy and it puts black under tremendous pressure. The most important thing about the 150 Attack is that it avoids the main setup black would like to achieve in the Pirc Defense.
Black can’t play Bg7, 0-0 easily because there is always a threat of Bh6, trading off black’s main kingside defender and significantly improving the attacking prospects for white. There are other ways for white to play, but the best, most aggressive and most effective way is indeed to go for queenside castling and attacking as soon as possible. Black tries to parry this idea by delaying the development of his bishop to g7 (thus making Bh6 a weak move), and by playing c6, b5 and expanding on the queenside, preparing to attack white’s king if it ever seeks refuge there. The engines prefer white in almost all lines of the 150 Attack, perhaps even too much, and they seem biased towards white’s extra space and better piece activity.
The bottom line is that the opening is much easier to play for white than it is for black, hence making white much less likely to blunder. It’s always easier to attack than to defend. Black has to deal with two things; he has to develop and break open the center in the normal Pirc hyper-modern fashion, but he also has to be constantly cautious of white’s kingside pawn advance which could be devastating in a matter of moves. A great way to battle the Pirc!
Knowing how and where to maneuver your pieces is one of the essential chess middlegame skills you have to develop! For more information on Creating strategic...
This video deals with how to maneuver your pieces into their ideal squares and knowing which piece is the most essential and urgent to improve.
Knights are specific pieces, and they, unlike all the other pieces, require solid outposts. They need a safe spot on the board to anchor at, from which they will then be able to terrorize the opponent’s position. A night on the edge of the board is bad, and improving your knights often involves bringing them closer to the center.
Bishops and rooks require space. They need scope and the more squares they control the more effective they become. A bishop trapped behind it’s own pawns or a rook stuck behind a pawn are bad pieces. It’s generally considered that if you have a bishop of one color, you want to have your pawns on the other color complex. Therefore, a bishop can be made good in advance!
If you get stuck with a bad or entombed bishop, though, you will have to maneuver it to better pastures.
The most important thing is to spot your weakness. Having a bad piece is a serious downside in your position and games are often decided only because of that. The first thing you have to do is to look around the board and assess each piece.
Once you list them in order of how effective they are, try to resolve the issue of the worst ones. If you find a knight that is stuck on the rim, visualize a route to bring it to a central outpost (if there isn’t one, you will have to create it first!). If you have a bishop stuck in your own pawn chain, either find a pawn break which will free it, or find a useful diagonal you could maneuver it to.
The best way to practice improving your pieces is to analyze games and imagine the pieces on their ideal squares. Often you will be given marvelous ideas by the players, and you will learn patterns for moving your pieces around the board like a grandmaster!
Wesley So has managed to outplay and outwit the field in the first portion of Your Next Move! He started the Grand Chess Tour the best way imaginable, scoring 7/9 and going into the blitz portion 1.5 points ahead of the competition. On day 3 he drew two games and defeated Hikaru Nakamura, which means he played 4 draws and won 5 games so far.
A great chess YouTuber fighting in a tactical Catalan!
Wesley So chose a fairly uncommon way to fight Magnus Carlsen; the exchange Slav (taking on d5 immediately). Since it’s a highly theoretical line nonetheless, they played 10 moves of theory, but Wesley went for an aggressive temporary pawn sacrifice straight out of the opening and got a slightly better position. His pieces were superior and his king safer, but nothing was over yet. At that point Magnus played a very bad move which made the position losing. He underdeveloped his bishop, locked his rook out of the game and gave Wesley So a free hand in the center. So got a monster bishop on d6, put his pieces on optimal squares, eventually won a pawn and then the game.
Sergey and Maxime played a very theoretical line in the Gruenfeld. The variation with b6 is almost unknown on lower levels, but on super grandmaster level it’s well known and heavily analyzed. After reaching the end of the line, Karjakin had a slightly superior position, but nothing that could’ve been exploited any time soon. Maxime decided to risk and went for an f5-f4-f3 push, which almost worked. They reached a critical position in which Sergey could’ve won the exchange and given MVL a better position. He waited instead, positioned his queen perfectly, and made the same idea wuch more powerful.
The Burn Variation is a great way for white to challenge the Classical French Defense, but it gives both sides enough attacking prospects and different middle game ideas. Learn the basics of the French Defense, common variations & ideas for both sides in this introductory video: https://youtu.be/pig559oP5OM
In this game, after a seemingly boring Lasker Defense in the Queen’s Gambit Declined, Wesley So went for a hyper aggressive continuation with g4. He didn’t castle or develop, he decided to attack Nakamura early on. The position was unique and interesting, and Wesley won a pawn temporarily, but, unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for a conversion. At move 22 they reached a dead position and found a three-fold repetition soon after.
Magnus faced Levon Aronian in round 3 of the Altibox Norway tournament. The elite portion of the event brought less excitement than expected so far, with only two decisive games in the first 3 rounds. The game Magnus won against Caruana in round 1 and this game. The prelude to the World Championship match is looking rather one-sided at the moment, but Caruana has shown that he is capable of performing above Magnus’s capabilities as well. We will have to wait until November.
The World Championship Match between Magnus Carlsen, the current world champion and the challenger, Fabiano Caruana, is less that half a year away. The fact that they are about to battle for the highest honor and prize in chess makes every single one of their games much more significant. Altibox Norway is even more special since it’s Magnus’s home turf, and disappointing here would be crushing for morale. Round 1 was played yesterday and this game was the most awaited one, despite the setup being ten of the world’s strongest chess players. This is the only game that didn’t end in a draw!
This game should be memorized by every 1.e4 player as a model attack with which you should fight the Modern and the Pirc defenses. Fischer almost always played the Austrian attack against these types of setups and he improved it significantly. The theory evolved, and his attacking ideas became standard. This game is different, though. He created a plan of attack in which he pushed the f pawn, an advance which is generally bad against the Pirc since it weakens too many squares and gives black an easier time in the center, but in this particular position it made perfect sense and it gave Fischer tremendous attacking force.
Wesley So’s great positional victory over one of the strongest players in history, Boris Gelfand, who was at his peak strength at the time. Gelfand is one of the strongest Sicilian players ever, and Wesley decided to go for the closed Old Sicilian. They played a very theoretical variation in which black is conceding the d5 square and white is re maneuvering his knight from f3 to f1, in order to be able to play Ne3 and increase the pressure on d5. A very instructive game for any e4 player, as well as anyone who wishes to improve their positional understanding of Sicilian structures and problems concerning the d5 break and square.
Wesley So started the 2011 World Cup well. He defeated Ding Liren to advance to round two, but he was defeated by Sergey Karjakin and got eliminated (the World Cup is an unforgiving event, and you don’t get to make a single mistake). This game was played in round 1 and Wesley faced Ding Liren’s King’s Indian Defense. He went for the Sämisch, with the move f3, a variation that gives white extraordinary central control and forces black to seek counter play as soon as possible in order to equalize. The engines give the position as almost winning for white, but they always do if one side has more space.
This is one of Bobby Fischer’s most famous games. It was played against Robert Byrne, one of two Byrne brothers whom Fischer had beaten in perhaps two of his most famous games. It was played in Fischer’s most memorable US Championship too. He won in clear first with 11 wins! Not a single draw! After that Championship a special “Fischer prize” got introduced that would go to anyone who manages to win all 11 games (no one managed so far).
Our board 1, Leon Livaic, managed to defeat the great Vassily Ivanchuk! He was kind enough to do me the honor of analyzing the game on video. Not much I could say about the game could compare to Leon’s thoughts, but I must say I was on the edge of my seat while watching and I actually became too nervous and didn’t want to watch anymore at one point.