WEBVTT 00:00.810 --> 00:01.620 Hi there. 00:02.070 --> 00:06.750 In this lecture, I'm going to talk about my own passion and drivers for attacking chess. 00:06.990 --> 00:13.800 Well, first of all, my nickname, King's Crusher, does kind of imply I like crushing kings, and 00:13.800 --> 00:15.450 I'm trying to play up to that nickname. 00:15.450 --> 00:16.920 So there's that influence. 00:17.760 --> 00:26.070 I don't want to kind of disappoint people following me on YouTube or Twitch, especially when I did 00:26.070 --> 00:27.660 lots and lots of live commentary games. 00:27.660 --> 00:30.330 I like them to be attacking and interesting and exciting. 00:30.330 --> 00:37.230 So there's a kind of bias there actually, not just to rack up points in a solid positional manner, 00:37.230 --> 00:39.340 but to try and make more spectacular games. 00:39.340 --> 00:48.360 There's a bias, I guess I have to admit to, to to being, you know, trying to play interesting chess. 00:48.580 --> 00:48.870 Yeah. 00:48.930 --> 00:51.810 So it's kind of art form, sharing it on social media. 00:52.140 --> 00:54.090 I've loved tactics and combinations. 00:54.090 --> 00:55.170 Even from an early age. 00:55.350 --> 01:00.810 I was able to do some beautiful tactics and stuff early on. 01:01.370 --> 01:07.440 I have been more excited than usual for attacking ingredients for king attacks and combinations, so 01:07.440 --> 01:08.580 crushing kings. 01:09.090 --> 01:17.850 So yes, that kind of game, the attacking game, I it just fills me with greater joy than looking at 01:17.850 --> 01:20.490 grinding games in general. 01:21.060 --> 01:30.030 And my favorite attacking players includes players like Morphy Alekhine Tell Bobby Fischer he could 01:30.030 --> 01:33.570 play great attacking chess as well as being a universal player. 01:33.600 --> 01:40.020 Kasparov, though heavily, I looked at Kasparov games and at one point I was just just even without 01:40.020 --> 01:44.250 annotations, I was playing through them and trying to get something from them. 01:45.420 --> 01:52.910 So Kasparov, though it's good to look at similar examples, though Kasparov himself was studying Alekhine 01:52.920 --> 01:58.380 It's good to actually go to the simpler examples first, and that's true of many other subjects and 01:58.380 --> 01:58.800 domains. 01:58.800 --> 02:05.010 It's good to make sure you reinforce your basic understanding foundation before trying to look at more 02:05.010 --> 02:05.640 advanced stuff. 02:05.640 --> 02:09.420 Otherwise you're setting yourself up for potential disappointment. 02:09.420 --> 02:14.070 You'll get barriers, and if you had done the groundwork more thoroughly, you know you wouldn't have 02:14.070 --> 02:17.580 so many bottlenecks later in understanding more advanced stuff. 02:17.580 --> 02:25.170 So the general idea of this course, yeah, to to really focus on Alexander Alekhine is a foundation 02:25.170 --> 02:27.150 layer that's really important. 02:27.150 --> 02:34.800 So it's it's nice to have the more modern plans as favorite players, but because of the advances of 02:34.800 --> 02:42.180 engines and databases, the modern game is potentially a lot more complex to follow, especially between 02:42.780 --> 02:49.200 super grandmasters which are not making mistakes our opponents generally make, especially on online 02:49.200 --> 02:51.510 casual chess at Lords Masters. 02:51.510 --> 02:58.290 I have the I had the experience of seeing the likes of sure of motivation on demo boards destroying 02:59.310 --> 02:59.880 opponents. 02:59.880 --> 03:04.860 And it's just fun to see these demolition jobs against opponent King sometimes. 03:05.520 --> 03:12.090 So, yes, I think chess is in itself a process of finding yourself in a way. 03:12.570 --> 03:21.750 So if I find I'm a huge Alexander Alekhine fan, it is a search for one's own interests within the interest 03:21.750 --> 03:24.710 of chess and also Kasparov fan. 03:24.720 --> 03:32.970 But Kasparov was so dominant with his peers and such a dominant world chess champion, winning very, 03:32.970 --> 03:33.960 very strong tournaments. 03:33.960 --> 03:40.320 But as I say, the complexity level is just much higher than if you want to learn about attacking chess, 03:40.320 --> 03:50.520 go a step lower to alekhine before the engine era, before opponents was, you know, super good. 03:50.520 --> 03:55.860 So you can see some instructive mistakes, a contrast between alekhine and opponents that actually make 03:55.860 --> 03:57.840 some mistakes which are punishable. 03:58.500 --> 04:05.310 And I've got a great example to show you towards the end of this of what I mean. 04:06.810 --> 04:09.390 Online tournaments have a bias nowadays. 04:09.390 --> 04:11.760 You don't just wait for all the games in around the finish. 04:11.760 --> 04:15.810 It's not necessarily Swiss format, it's these kind of weakening arenas. 04:15.810 --> 04:18.210 So you want to like win quickly and to win quickly. 04:18.210 --> 04:22.170 It's good to make if you checkmate, the opponent hasn't got any other moves. 04:22.170 --> 04:23.070 It's the end of the game. 04:23.070 --> 04:24.270 Checkmate ends the game. 04:24.270 --> 04:27.420 So that's great for the bias for all we can eat tournaments. 04:27.420 --> 04:32.310 And I've won so many of those, you know, through attacking chess to win quickly. 04:32.820 --> 04:36.690 There were certain key one day games. 04:36.690 --> 04:38.250 I had this game with Gary Quillin. 04:38.250 --> 04:46.590 He he crushed me but he did say about attack potential king safety is a major, major element. 04:46.710 --> 04:51.600 And sometimes that aspect is amplified to me, even as the king's crusher. 04:51.600 --> 04:54.180 I need to reinforce that myself. 04:54.390 --> 04:55.650 The King safety. 04:56.280 --> 04:59.430 That's what really can win a lot of games you can trade off. 04:59.850 --> 05:04.770 We can try it off construction as long as you make the opponents king, then you've won the game. 05:04.770 --> 05:09.780 So always bear in mind that's a kind of golden principle, which my estimate is also emphasized. 05:10.050 --> 05:11.520 Champ, mate, end of the game. 05:11.760 --> 05:13.890 So, okay, one more thing. 05:13.890 --> 05:21.240 I did have also my YouTube playlist for The King's Gambit is one of the more popular. 05:21.270 --> 05:25.800 I was wondering why, but it's kind of obvious is kind of the romantic era of chess. 05:25.800 --> 05:30.450 So people on YouTube appreciate romantic era chess style. 05:30.450 --> 05:37.470 Attacking dashing chess style is something which is appealing to the masses in general. 05:38.190 --> 05:45.240 Okay, so without further ado, let's have a look at this 1985 game I saw once in a book. 05:45.240 --> 05:51.000 And after, you know, I was wondering about 1985, instead of routinely costing this kind of possession, 05:51.600 --> 05:58.170 Vasily Rostov had been self-indulgent in the opening and had reached this position. 05:58.170 --> 06:01.860 So would you routinely console or do something else? 06:02.160 --> 06:09.990 And I've used similar G five stuff to really wipe out so many opponents online ever since. 06:09.990 --> 06:10.920 And this was years ago. 06:10.920 --> 06:17.040 I saw this game just from a book, you know, glimmer of this alekhine game from a book Attractive Alekhine 06:17.040 --> 06:17.550 game. 06:18.900 --> 06:21.750 So it wasn't a super long, no less than 30 moves. 06:21.750 --> 06:26.310 But the first move here, can you guess 400 points? 06:26.310 --> 06:28.050 Yeah, I think you might have had clues. 06:28.050 --> 06:28.470 Night. 06:28.470 --> 06:29.430 Gee, five. 06:29.430 --> 06:32.070 So why is this so dangerous? 06:32.070 --> 06:35.880 Well, we see Bishop E seven and now Queen G4. 06:38.010 --> 06:39.720 Now here, things get interesting. 06:39.930 --> 06:46.080 If I guess what an accordion plays here, which even engines like it's a super duper, absolutely super 06:46.080 --> 06:51.300 duper move to really punish the opponent's lack of development and the Kingston Center and things like 06:51.300 --> 06:54.180 that super advanced move. 06:55.110 --> 06:56.850 So it's 9/10 H seven. 06:56.850 --> 06:58.530 So this is what I mean by contrast. 06:58.780 --> 07:03.000 You know, modern grandmasters generally won't have this sort of position, but how do you actually 07:03.000 --> 07:06.480 punish this kind of lack of development? 07:06.600 --> 07:12.750 So we have rotates H seven and the point is Bishop takes H seven main takes and the point here, Queen 07:12.750 --> 07:13.410 takes G7. 07:13.410 --> 07:17.610 What we have got is this outside passport asset. 07:17.610 --> 07:19.740 But you might think, well, hold on, hold on. 07:19.890 --> 07:24.270 You know, Black's controlling the H for square, surely. 07:24.300 --> 07:25.800 Do we still play H for. 07:26.520 --> 07:27.420 Yes we do. 07:27.450 --> 07:28.240 Alekhine did. 07:28.260 --> 07:31.140 The thing is, he's going to now hijack the dark squares. 07:31.140 --> 07:36.560 There is a downside, fundamentally a fundamental downside of Black's position, the dark where he's 07:36.570 --> 07:41.940 kind of vulnerable because we have pawns on light squares and we have this beautiful move. 07:41.940 --> 07:43.410 Now can you see what it is? 07:43.440 --> 07:46.290 It's kind of amplifying the dot square weaknesses. 07:47.070 --> 07:49.830 And this Bishop How do we amplify this Bishop? 07:51.690 --> 07:52.020 Yeah. 07:52.020 --> 07:54.420 We want a bishop with our counterpart exchange sack. 07:54.450 --> 07:56.340 Take out the defensive Bishop. 07:56.340 --> 07:59.670 And now this bishop has got free reign over these dark squares. 07:59.700 --> 08:00.810 It's a beautiful concept. 08:00.810 --> 08:07.890 And as idea of a key idea of Queen F6 to mate on the dance squares, we have Queen H one checking the 08:07.890 --> 08:08.550 two. 08:09.150 --> 08:10.650 And now Queen takes G2. 08:10.650 --> 08:13.020 Because if Queen takes a one, just Queen f6. 08:13.020 --> 08:14.130 How does Black defend? 08:14.490 --> 08:18.510 So this is a classic, you know, material versus king safety tradeoff. 08:19.380 --> 08:19.990 Yeah, blacks. 08:19.990 --> 08:20.880 Black's going to get mated. 08:20.880 --> 08:23.070 So we have black trying. 08:23.070 --> 08:28.520 Queen takes G2, Queen F six which which protects F two in France. 08:28.530 --> 08:34.740 And these mate France so black is forced to counter-attack the queen and it only kind of delays the 08:34.740 --> 08:35.220 inevitable. 08:35.220 --> 08:48.720 Now at 497 we have rook 197 one is winning her fight my e free bishop scanning knight g for the knights 08:48.720 --> 08:56.640 having fun on the f start square Rook st pinning the f eight Knight Knights e.g. six Let's have six 08:56.640 --> 09:01.080 checking the eight And now a beautiful finish here to the game. 09:01.080 --> 09:04.890 Guess what the Queen plays here, which is a good investment. 09:08.430 --> 09:09.360 400 points. 09:10.200 --> 09:10.740 Yeah. 09:10.890 --> 09:12.180 Queen 66. 09:12.450 --> 09:14.550 So he's getting a lot of material for the Queen now. 09:15.810 --> 09:18.130 Black resigned if F tanks, rook tanks, F eight. 09:18.130 --> 09:18.770 Check. 09:19.470 --> 09:22.020 King C seven Rook takes a whole rook up. 09:22.410 --> 09:26.030 So anyway, the point is this game. 09:26.040 --> 09:29.940 Yeah, really was inspirational for me. 09:30.450 --> 09:32.910 And I did go hunting for this game. 09:33.330 --> 09:41.040 If you get really serious, just says you might consider getting your own online, you know, local 09:41.040 --> 09:43.880 database like chessbase and you can actually search for maneuvers. 09:43.890 --> 09:50.550 I did actually search for Knight G5 as a maneuver, and I was really happy to find this game for you 09:50.550 --> 09:53.100 because this this really was an inspirational game. 09:53.190 --> 10:01.650 There's quite a few key inspirational games of Alekhine, which I didn't really think at the time to 10:01.650 --> 10:05.010 present so much of Alekhine on YouTube as Garry Kasparov. 10:05.280 --> 10:08.610 But yeah, now I think that's a big mistake. 10:08.610 --> 10:14.580 We've got to reassess our attacking chess if we've just been looking at the latest generation players, 10:14.580 --> 10:15.690 that's a big mistake. 10:15.690 --> 10:22.740 The classic Masters show us how to punish things and this has been a resource that I've used in so many 10:22.920 --> 10:24.090 countless wins. 10:24.090 --> 10:25.580 Basically my G5. 10:25.620 --> 10:29.580 There's all sorts of dangers with this kind of move. 10:29.580 --> 10:37.830 I mean, another common winning mechanism, if H6 we can play a move like Queen H five and if Queen 10:37.830 --> 10:42.450 is seven, guess how I've been winning games from this position as a sideline? 10:43.820 --> 10:44.660 Nine So you know. 10:44.700 --> 10:46.800 G five it's very dangerous when the king's in the center. 10:46.800 --> 10:49.110 Yeah, we're looking F seven saucepot four. 10:49.110 --> 10:54.030 So for 100 points, I've been winning games a lot in general with nine takes F seven. 10:54.300 --> 10:56.760 So Queen six there's Bishop G six. 10:58.200 --> 11:04.110 So yeah, instead of routinely castling, if we open ourselves up, we don't have to like Castle Robot. 11:04.110 --> 11:11.100 We look at the opponent's position and should we be punishing the opponent versus doing a standard castling? 11:11.100 --> 11:16.350 That's another thing about the attacking players when to balance things out. 11:16.350 --> 11:17.940 And we've got balance in a position. 11:17.940 --> 11:21.480 We've got a center which is not even under pressure with C five yet. 11:21.510 --> 11:25.590 So we've got a certain amount of stability with this center for this nine G5. 11:25.620 --> 11:31.350 It was just such an attractive game and inspirational for all sorts of wins based on the dangers of 11:31.350 --> 11:32.400 Knight G five. 11:33.060 --> 11:39.360 So this is just one example and this is not even, as I say, this is not even in many game collections. 11:39.360 --> 11:45.120 It's in a few, but it's not in as many as the other absolutely brilliant games we cover in this course. 11:45.570 --> 11:49.770 So okay, so I do have a passion and drive for attacking chess. 11:49.770 --> 11:54.990 But the key thing, and this applies to other subjects as well, most of the base examples, the simpler 11:54.990 --> 12:01.200 examples before going on to the more advanced, even if the advanced are apps, they brilliant and lucrative, 12:01.200 --> 12:06.390 they might be a bit more complex, which might inhibit your understanding. 12:06.390 --> 12:13.470 So it's good to get this clear clarification of attacking chess from the attacking masters, in my view. 12:13.470 --> 12:17.640 And of course earlier Paul Morphy to most of the the open game. 12:17.850 --> 12:25.500 And Anderson, you know, the masters of the open game for drastic punishment of even worse mistakes. 12:25.500 --> 12:26.930 But alekhine for me yeah. 12:26.970 --> 12:30.510 Is very, very instructive in the same vein as Paul Morphy. 12:31.140 --> 12:34.800 Okay, so I hope that's clear about my passion and drivers for attacking chess. 12:35.100 --> 12:40.800 So in a nutshell, I've loved this kind of style of play, attacking chess combinations, tactics. 12:40.800 --> 12:42.180 From a very early age. 12:42.180 --> 12:47.010 I've been inspired looking at the successes of attacking players, especially in Swiss tournaments, 12:47.010 --> 12:48.570 where they're even trying to win with black. 12:48.570 --> 12:50.460 They're playing very aggressively with the black pieces. 12:50.460 --> 12:53.550 They're not just playing solidly like a lot of super games nowadays. 12:53.550 --> 12:58.860 So, you know, I have a big influence from attacking players and I take it very, very seriously. 12:58.860 --> 13:03.840 I take the attacks very, very seriously, trying to understand and get, you know, the solid foundations 13:03.840 --> 13:07.230 needed to understand more advanced examples. 13:07.380 --> 13:12.300 So that's the spirit of this course and the drive and passion for attacking chess that I personally 13:12.300 --> 13:14.520 have and have experienced. 13:14.640 --> 13:16.950 Okay, Thanks very much.