I wanted to have a little fun with you, so I wanted to
share a game
in this masterclass, that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the
pawn structure, but it does somewhat, and the effectiveness of the pieces.
So, I wanted to have a fun, fun game. And
from my chess career, I got a game that I wanted to share.
I am black and I have a philosophy in the opening.
It is very, very simple. There's three principles for any opening,
any defense. Don't make it complicated. In fact, quite the opposite.
You'll come to understand that I really appreciate the KISS principle.
And what is the KISS principle? Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Keep it simple, don't over complicate your life,
don't confuse yourself. So the three principles that you need to understand
for any opening or any defense is very simple. You want your fair
share
of control of the center. That's it. You want... The second principle,
you want to develop your pieces to effective squares. Third principle,
you want a safe king. If you can achieve those three things in
any opening or any defense, pat yourself on the back, you're doing good.
You want your fair share of the center, imagining that your opponent is
fighting for his fair share of the center. You want effective squares for
your pieces, and you want a safe king. Take a look at this
game.
In the days that this game was played, I loved the Pirc Defence, still do
as well. And the Pirc, early in the Pirc, you're not really fighting
for your fair share of the center, you're fighting for effective piece development.
So these are all standard moves, and I'm just about,
I'm just one step away from getting a safe king.
And once I've achieved that, I'm then going to play the move e5, and
I've got my fair share of the center,
effective development, safe king,
I'm doing good. When my opponent throws
a monkey wrench into my plans with the move g4, I was like,
I was taken aback by this move. Because the desirable and intended
castles could easily
fall victim to a pretty
scorching attack. Just, you can imagine that the pawn is gonna go here.
My opponent will capture on g6, and zip, zap, kabam. I could get
checkmated on the open 'h' file. By the way, I wanted to mention
that my opponent, Vlatko Kovacevic, was famous for having beaten, defeated
Bobby Fischer. And that wasn't unknown to me
that he had done that. So I was very, let's say,
respectful, of my opponents prowess. And he was going to kill me.
Okay. So, c7 c6, I'm taking a very
flexible approach to
my opponent's
aggressive play. And in my mind's eye I'm thinking, "Well, maybe I'll grab
some space on the queen's side with the move b5 b4,
kick my opponent's knight from c3, an effective square,
and maybe drive my opponent's knight backwards." Also, I started thinking
that I shouldn't commit my king early. My opponent has played g4,
let him continue with his plan, which he did.
And guess what? Now, I am definitely not castling. Well, okay,
b5, h5. Now here I was slightly concerned that my opponent actually might
play the move h5 h6, and I wanted to keep the second principle,
I wanna keep effective
squares for my pieces, so I played rook g8. So that in case
my opponent played h6, my bishop would step back
and I'd maintain the control of the long diagonal. My opponent captured
h2 h3. Now, notice that what my opponent has done is not bad.
For those of us who
like this concept of space, space control, the rook on h1 suddenly
controls four squares in my camp. The rook is more
powerful than it had been at the very start of the game.
Knight f3, b4, knight back, a5. Okay, so the way I play chess
and the way I think about the pieces and the strategy
in the pawn skeleton, well, as you know, I've just kicked this knight back
to what I call the barracks.
So at the start of the game, all of our pieces and pawns are
in the barracks and they're waiting to be deployed.
And I kicked my opponent's piece
backwards and he's lost time. I... My pawn on b4 now controls more
space and I look at my opponent's light squared bishop,
the bishop on e2 and I compare it to my bishop on c8 and
I say that bishop on e2 is better than my bishop on c8.
I should be looking for an opportunity to play bishop a6. I'm
trading off a bishop that controls two of my squares and my bishop
doesn't control any of my opponent's squares.
My opponent played the move a4, because he didn't want to see
a line of play where I would play c5 potentially opening up
this diagonal and play a4, potentially
a3. C5. Once again, I want to play
for control of the center, and the move c5, I look and I
say, "This pawn on d4 attacks two of my squares,
let me get rid of it for the pawn on c6."
My opponent played d5. Knight b6. C4. So, effectively
stopping my plan of playing bishop on c8
to a6 to
attack the
c4 pawn. King d7. Explain to me as best you can,
why did I play the move king on e8
to d7? What on earth was I thinking when I played the
move king d7? "Was it a mouse slip?"
Not bad,
to play rook h8
to connect your queen and rook, to run your king to
c7. The queen side is locked up. It will be safe.
Lock position, king is safe behind the pawn chains.
Absolutely, you guys are... You're nailing it. The
dad bod shuffle. That's...
King walks away. Precisely, okay. Once again, in the opening, we're trying
to get our fair share of the center,
effective
squares for our pieces, safe king. In my mind's eye, this queen side
structure a5,
b4, c5, d6 is locked up. White structure
imagining also b3, d5, c4, a4, the queen side's all closed.
Knight b8 to d2. I can challenge for the 'h' file with the
move rook h8. I want to recapture on h8 with the queen and
then I could infiltrate the 'h' file,
rook g1, king c7.
So, I've achieved safety for my king. Rook b1. What do we understand
about this move, rook b1? Well, my opponent
was a little bit worried that I might play the move bishop d7, as
well as queen
e8. So in order to defend this pawn on a4,
he wants to play the move b3, hence he evacuates this diagonal.
Now, from the pawn structure, it was very, very easy for me
to concoct
what I think is a very, very obvious plan.
What's the most important file in the position?
What's the most important file in the position?
The 'h' file. Certainly. And why is the 'h' file the most important
file? Because it's open. The 'h' file is open. You wanna control the
open file with a rook or a major piece.
What's the most important diagonal
in the position? Again, we're looking at from the black point of view.
You guys wanna play
at the black position. What's the most important diagonal in the position?
A1, h8, diagonal. Bingo, bongo! Brilliant. That's exactly right. The h8
a1 diagonal. Now, why is my watch keep falling off? Hate that.
Right in the middle of an important chess lesson too.
Okay, so,
the most important file is the 'h' file. The most important diagonal is
the long diagonal, h8 a1. Now that we know that,
what would be the best square
for the black queen?
In a position where the 'h' file is the best file
and the
diagonal, the long diagonal is the best diagonal, what's the best square
for my queen? H8, it's that simple, h8. Congratulations to all of you
who got that answer right.
This move becomes obvious, once you see, once you understand
that the h file and the long diagonal is what's happening,
then the move rook h3, followed by queen h8. My pieces
are taking up effective squares. The queen is very effective on h8, the
rook on h3 is in white's camp. I can go rook h1, I
can go over.
Both sides have problems with their pieces. Look at my lousy pieces on
a8, and b8, and c8. Those pieces have to come out of their
barracks, they have to become effective. Just as white's queen on d1 is
no great shakes, the bishop on c1 is not that great.
The knight on d2, well, it's okay, it's not winning any
prizes.
I've accomplished something with my rook and with my queen on h8, but
I'm not proud of my knight on b8.
So strategically, I start thinking that the knight on f3, white's knight
on f3, is better
than my knight on
b8. That I should play knight to d7, knight e5, and trade off
my passive knight for my opponent's active
knight.
My Grandmaster opponent is sitting there on the other side of the board
saying "Yuck,
my bishop on c1 is doing no good. I've gotta get... I've gotta
do something about that bishop, it's passive. Whereas the bishop on
g7 is active." Knight f1, knight d7, bishop f4, knight e5,
and for me,
we can understand
what just happened. White got rid of his passive bishop
on c1,
showing great understanding. I
got rid of my passive knight on b8,
showing great understanding, pat myself on the back for that one as well.
And
who got the better of the deal? Well, we're not 100%
sure. The one thing for sure is my queen on e5
is now really lording over the position, it's controlling a lot of space
and attacking a pawn, probably defending the pawn on
f3. Okay. Well, this one's pretty obvious too. Bishop to d7,
developing, preparing to bring this rook, I don't know, into the game like
something like so.
Queen c2 by my opponent. And here I must say
I was very proud with myself, I liked my position a lot
and yet at the same time
I wanted to play really a good
plan. I wanted to now enact a really good plan.
And it seemed to me that a very good plan would be to
play rook... Excuse me. Rook to A,
and rook here.
Maybe try to force the trade of the rooks,
and then play queen takes
g5. I thought that would be a really, really good plan.
But I really like the idea very much
of penetrating with my rook to the first rank.
Or, let me put it a different way,
when my rook was... With my rook on
h3 it's in a sense x raying the third rank.
But if it was on the first rank, ooh, then I would be
pinning up my opponent's pieces. And so for me,
this plan or this move I want to say,
was obvious and very good. Rook... Pardon me.
Queen d4 attacking the rook, rook g2, rook h1. Now I'm making my
piece, the rook, on h3, much more effective
by putting the knight on f1 in an absolute pin.
My rook on h3 was good, but could it be better?
And in my mind's eye, that rook on h3 that has gone to
h1 has improved a lot.
Rook f2.
Now, this was actually a very, very difficult
choice that I had,
and I like the decision I made. I thought that the queen is
very good on
d4. But I was somewhat afraid that in fact my queen,
which is so good on d4, my opponent cannot allow
that queen on d4 to remain on d4. That my opponent,
should I, for example, play a move like rook h... Pardon me, rook
a8 to h8, that my opponent should try his best
to
trade queens, okay?
So, I liked the power of my queen. I thought
that my queen is more effective than my opponent's queen. Why did I
think that? You tell me. Why do I think
my queen is better than my opponent's queen,
and how can I avoid trading queens?
You're deep in his space. I'm dominating his space. My centralized queen.
More space, absolutely greater space, more scope of space.
So
conversely, my opponent's queen controls none of my space,
so I would want to avoid trading queens, because my queen is more
effective. My queen... And this is where it's very, very important
definitions. My queen's an attacking piece.
My opponent's queen is a defensive piece. And always, and always,
and always, you'll hear chess Grandmasters, chess coaches telling their
students, avoid trading attacking pieces for defensive pieces.
I played the move queen h8 in order to avoid
queen b2.
Even though I've given up
a great centralized square. Don't forget I still control
a lot of my opponent's territory.
When exactly in this position as black I played the move queen h8, this
is important. And to my way of thinking, I attack eight
of my opponent's squares. I attack d4, c3,
b2, a1, but I also attack h4, h3, h2, h1. So I attack
eight squares of my opponent's. My opponent's queen attacks none of mine.
So I'm looking to retain queens.
F4, queen h4. Pretty much my opponent's last move was more or less
forced. I was gonna go queen g5 anyway, attacking the pawn, the pawn was
going to need defense. Thus far, I've played very well. I'm very,
very happy with my position. To my way of thinking, the rook on
a8 is not effective. I could bring the rook to h8 and boy,
do I have triple power on the h file. Very, very good.
But I would like to open up the position
for my Rook.
I played the move
f6. So I want to capture and then after any recapture,
now I've opened up the f file and I'm ready to play rook f8. So
my opponent stopped me from doing that. I re captured,
munch, munch, and now I have it in my mind that I want
to play rook to e8
and bishop to... Oops, f5. So let me play two bad moves for
my opponent for just a moment so you can see what I was
up to.
And this is what I was up to.
So, in this position, this rook pins the bishop,
this rook pins the knight, this queen pins the rook.
So talk about effective pieces, right?
Takes, takes.
So, that's my plan.
Rook over to e8, bishop to f5. Maybe
this bishop could even go to g4 and to h3. And if I
was to say that all my pieces were effective, that's not true.
My knight on B6 is actually not that effective, but it's not needed
for the moment. I would like... Maybe I would go bishop g4, knight d7, and
bring the knight into play. But right now, my major pieces are doing
enough of
a job
that I don't need my knight. E5, it's kind of a last hurrah.
Again, my king is perfectly safe. My opponent's king,
however, is not.
And this
is what I wanted to ask you before I let the cat out
of the bag, a little while ago. What would have happened if my
opponent had played bishop e2? Come on, you don't get
too many tries on this one.
Rook takes f1, there you go. Rook takes f1 would have been an
absolute killer,
as
again, all of my... All of white's pieces,
the knight on f1, the bishop on e2, the rook on f2, are
all pinned, and a combination like rook takes f1,
would be a scorching victory. And
I just wanted to say that this game, which I played like I
was 20 years old, was based on almost every single thing I have
told you thus far in the two lessons.
And the experience was, I was thinking in terms of space,
material,
putting my pieces on effective squares, and everything. And you kind of
see the fruition of my plan that was based on pawn structure,
and so on. Our third lesson, which is going to be coming up
very shortly, we hope, as soon as we hit that 3700 subscriber lesson,
is going to be about
another element, which we're gonna call time, or development. I hope you've
enjoyed these two masterclasses. Tell your friends where you're hanging
out, which is the Chessbrah Channel. Tell them what's going on,
that they should support the channel, support what we're trying to do,
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buying some swag, supporting our sponsors. And I'll see you tomorrow for
continuing coverage of the World Cup and
more masterclasses. Thank you so much for sharing your day,
bye.
