Hi there.
In this lecture, I want to talk about certain Alexander Alekhine quotations.
So Alexander Alekhine is actually the first kind of layer of example games in this course.
He seems to be an inspiration for Garry Kasparov, who has talked about looking at a lot of alekhine
games in his youth and drawing inspiration.
So we really want some of that to spice up our own attacking chess.
So Alekhine believed combinations are kind of they are a kind of soul of chess, like pawns in the soul
of chess.
That's a quote from Philidor.
It's like an essential priority to try and get into your chess combinations.
And it seems like Alekhine's style of play was born out of the combination.
It's like that was his main attraction.
Everything else became a necessary evil to kind of get the beautiful combination in the end.
But as he says in another quotation, he had to work long and hard to eradicate the dangerous delusion
that in a bad position, I could always only, always conjure up some unexpected combination to escalate
me from difficulties.
So I learned the hard way that he had to respect the accumulation of advantages modeled by Steinitz.
Chess is a kind of fundamentally a scientific game.
There is a balance of advantage and you do need certain advantages to make combination very complementary
play successful attacks successful.
It needs to be based usually on ingredients that you have and the opponent doesn't have.
So you might have a disadvantage in material, but you might have more pieces around the opponent's
king.
So basically that's not really a bad position.
Then you've got to look at what you've got, which is kind of advantageous that could be qualified to
make the combination successful.
But anyway, he also kind of said about positional sacrifices that they're more difficult and more praiseworthy
because they can't be based on an exact evidence and exact what he calls calculation of tactical possibilities.
He talks about the retreat of a minor piece to the back row where it cuts the lines of communication
between the rooks is is permissible only in exceptional cases.
It talks about time pressure.
A short time is because it can't be made as an excuse in like a lawbreaker was drunk at the time he
committed the crime.
So it's going to be quite often attacks are going to make the opponents consume large amounts of time.
There is a desirable benefit if the opponent is short of time and it's more likely for them, given
their human, to make mistakes when they have less time.
So chess, first of all, teaches you to be objective.
So that does for me relate to this idea that he had this great passion for combinations, but he had
to be objective, you know, how to actually objectively get good positions and the combinations objectively
should work.
So objectivity, like a scientific perspective to attacking chess.
He kind of liked to play on both sides of the board as one of his favorite strategies.
So we see some example games where he has done that successfully.
He talks about this is like Mikhail Tal has got a reputation for playing for complexity.
He talks about this.
Playing for complications is an extreme measure that the player should only adopt when he cannot find
a clear and logical plan.
He will say, Sorry about that.
He's here.
So.
So yes, this is a branch could be seen as Mikhail.
Tal is also another fantastic attacking player.
But because you could argue because Alekhine is more rooted in correct chess, he might actually be
more easy to emulate.
For for attacking chess principles, concepts, ingredients then make hotel because complexity of table
games is often so mind blowing.
It's very difficult to even analyze, make hotel games to see all the resources for both sides.
So there isn't a kind of extreme desire to create complexity like my hotel later on.
So basically for me, here's is a good first layer layer as in attacking layers of players to study
and to really get to grips with his game examples, to see what's going on objectively and to follow
his his kind of reasoning here, basically, you know, to make sure to be objective in analysis as
well, not just be driven by the result of the game, like who won.
We need to objectively know the chances for both sides.
So, you know, next time we can play a little bit more accurately and our game scales up and up to
stronger and stronger opponents.
Objectivity is the way forward, in my view, for that.
He believes that true, that true beauty of chess is more than enough to satisfy all possible demands.
So yeah, he talks about this also in relation to spending many hours each day in a lifetime is not
enough for chess, etc..
So.
So chess is a beautiful game and he treats the combination as like one of the major things he strives
for.
And that's that's his reputation that his whole game is, is born out of compensatory play.
And actually, statistically, if you look at your puzzle books, you know, generally from classic
games, Alekhine will feature highly because he had so many brilliant winning combinations.
So there is that.
But we need to see the routes he took to get those positions in the first place.
How do we get those attacking positions in the first place for those combinations?
And this should make your jigsaw of skills, you know, checkmate your tactical skills like pinning
deflections and all that.
The forcing moves, all the tools of tactics.
That is an essential what how do we actually get those positions so we can demonstrate our tactical
ability.
So that's the interest of this course.
And I hope you found these quotations kind of inspirational.
So we're talking about the love of combinations.
And for me, you know, quite often if I'm looking at, say, blank games, quite often they're a bit
drier for me.
They're not as juicy as Alekhine games.
Even though Capablanca may have lost far fewer games than Alekhine, Alekhine actually had an absolutely
brilliant tournament track record.
He actually had more tournament victories overall in his career and he had, you know, he's absolutely
brilliant attacking game, so he's kind of juicier and more exciting.
And so the reason for that is, you know, if you like combinations and tactics, you know, alekhine's
more of a role model for more positional player such as Capablanca.
But we can learn from all the world champions.
It's good to get influences from all the world champions because in the game you might need to use,
you know, a range of styles depending on the situation that you're confronted with.
So okay, but I hope you found this interesting, this set of quotations, and I hope you really enjoy
the Alekhine game examples in the course.
By the way, this this is an example of an alekhine combination.
So he got this great position.
You know, he maneuvered a nine to C4.
This was an influential game I was reading from one of my my chess books once, but it's a classic from
World Championship Match round 21 in 1927.
Capablanca Alekhine World Championship Match Alekhine plays a combination from here.
Can you see what's black plays which just ends the game?
If I give you five sentence pause video.
Yeah.
So nine sites E three it actually hits the opponents queen and once had it here basically.
Yeah this is absolutely a winning position if for example rook takes the fall we have Queen 64.
So this is even stronger technically than taking the queen, and we can end up just being an exchange
up here.
That's an absolutely winning position.
Or we could.
Actually on Route 64 we could play.
Queen Banks be free.
I mean, it's all kind of it's still a winning position.
If takes if he was played, we'd just taken the queen.
So, yes, there isn't too much really to explore here, actually.
So, yeah, it's just a winning position.
If if Queen tanks, D5 rotates, and now F takes that Bishop takes a free check and women winning the
rap on D one.
But this game is analyzed in detail in the course.
But really we're interested in how how did Alekhine get to this position?
So the ingredient here, you know, he did establish a nice night earlier in the game and you'll see
this analyzed in detail.
It's one to briefly show you that in this match, you know, he had to play really objectively against
Capablanca and get an advantage in the position.
He did manage to get a positional advantage that see full square.
You'll see that in the detail of the analysis.
This was even a slight inaccuracy.
Actually, 94 might have even been better.
But yeah, he gets this dominating position with Knight on C4 and that leads to the combination.
So, you know, the attacking ingredients is like super accurate play to exploit a positional hole in
the opponent's position.
And it leads to, you know, this position is just very, very strong for black white it's pretty passive
here and been driven back.
A forcing move here is very, very powerful and dominating authority on the default his position he
basically outplayed Capablanca that is an ingredient needed his positioning outplayed the opponent.
And here, you know opponents being pushed back and the target being created on D4 for this elimination
tactic combination matrix E three.
But yeah, it's very, very precise play on the lead up.
It's not speculative.
There isn't a desire to create great complexity.
It's kind of logical sound principles of positional play, backing up successful attacking combinations.
So yes, so I'm a big fan of Alexander Alekhine and it paves the way for understanding of later generations
of attacking players such as Garry Kasparov.
Okay, so I hope you enjoyed this example.
Pretty much.