Hi there.
In this lecture, I want to talk about the amplification concepts.
So that's a very interesting concept.
You might think, Well, that's only for sounds, that amplify sounds with an amp or something.
Yeah, but in chess, we're often amplifying things, especially online pieces can be arranged in line
to amplify.
So especially if you've checked my Nimzowitsch Larsen course where the first move is B free and Bishop
b2.
There are various ways of amplifying a B2 bishop on a diagonal.
You can imagine a B2 bishop on a diagonal.
So for example, you can try and get rid of the opposing bishop.
If there's an opposing bishop, you can try and weaken the dark squares in advance.
You can try and put a batch rate amplifier like a queen, either behind or in front, depending on the
position.
You can get rid of pawns in the way so you can sacrifice to weaken the opponent's king, which will
further celebrate the amplification strategy sometimes.
So amplification is a great concept I personally finds which is useful on the chessboard.
And here I will get to this example towards the end of this.
I just want to make a few more points.
We'll get to this example here.
So the few the other points I want to make.
So batteries, when you arrange your line pieces like doubling rooks, it's often a good idea to do
that to get more and more pressure.
Sometimes you might be tempted just to win a pawn and release the pressure, but sometimes there's bigger
gains to be made from increasing and increasing the pressure, amplifying it, and especially if it's
related to squares around the opponent's king.
So I've given an example here.
You can look up, if you want, in the course or not.
Backing down from tactical downsides, you might think, well, it's not convincing right now.
That is a weakened diagonal.
It might need more pressure to be built up.
And in general, the idea of intensifying pressure or intensifying scrutiny and not being content with
accepting the opponent's liabilities are not exploitable.
If you're kind of determined, sometimes you can realize, for example, an unprotected piece is a clear
liability.
But what if it was protected by one or two pieces?
But if you're kind of very tactically relentless, you might find ways to discover it's actually a piece
is not protected enough.
So that's a classic downside unprotected piece in his opponent's position.
So when we don't back down, we see that there is an issue.
It just needs to be kind of amplified.
We become more dangerous tacticians.
We do actually punish the opponent for their liabilities, tactical liabilities, their tactical downsides
in their position.
We've got to be relentlessly resourceful on that.
And the same with pinning.
Quite often people are not ruthless enough with pens, and I've coined the phrase like celebrating the
pen, because sometimes they just like win material immediately, whilst if they intensified the pin
by celebrating a bit more, it could have ended up as a false mate.
So yeah, we're talking about the difference of amplification between winning a little battle and winning
the war.
We're more interested in winning the war as a philosophy of this course game ending downsides, game
ending, not just little battle winning game ending downsides.
But we've got to be relentless.
We've got to take the tactical liabilities of the opponent's position and see how much we can amplify
them, see how much we can intensify, ramp up the pressure until the opponent is conceding more than
potentially material.
You know, they have to their king is being mated, ideally.
So there's always sometimes a delayed gratification angle to this that you're quick to celebrate a pin
by just too quick, sometimes by just taking material when you could have actually built up the pressure.
Now here we've got a great example of amplification, a classic example.
So let me show you this and the against Nimzowitsch.
So Alekhine played Rook C2 here, Nimzowitsch played 28.
So there's a nasty pen and it's kind of celebration of ten Rook, AC one eight, Queen F3 and one is
black doing blacks in a kind of very difficult spot, very passive.
Without too much counterplay you might think, Well, what's this about?
It's about constructing Alekhine's gun.
So this alekhine's gun construction is where the queen is at the base of the two rooks.
So the pressure's been really amplified, ramped up, and now even more with Bishop A4, which represents
the of B5 to win material on C7.
So we have B5 giving black time to try and arrange a defence.
It's a desperate move, giving up a pawn, but tries to arrange the defence of C7.
So the bishop goes back now threatening B5, you can see doubling or tripling of resources and it could
be a bishop and a queen here or queen in the bishop.
You know, classic thing, cancer amplification amplification here again with the B5 threat.
So.
KING The eight but Black's tied down so much now that just a quiet move and it shows that Black's in
a kind of zugzwang.
So this is a delayed gratification move rather than B5 because.
B5 okay, night before Black's in a position to collect staff and still White's better, but with the
delayed gratification y can do better than this position.
White just waits because the king is going to have to go back.
Isn't that something's going to have to release the protection of C6.
So if King E Black resigned, his -- resigned.
He had enough of this of King E eight, then B5 with much greater effect.
You can see delayed gratification in chess is the act of playing what is a juicy resource, a juicy
exploitation, but making it juicier through making the conditions even better for the implementation.
So you're creating even better circumstances for things sometimes.
So it's sometimes good to delay.
And in fact, one super modern super grandmaster, which is a master of delayed gratification, great
delayed gratification space live on Aronian.
Sometimes he takes time to recollect a pawn under the most favorable circumstances possible.
So this idea also of delayed gratification is important.
It has a relationship with this notion of amplification.
So here it's absolutely destructive that the King's gone away as example.
We're just absolutely crushing C7.
So Rook, take C7.
So it's a crushing to be a King's crusher or to be crushing generally the opponent's tactically tactical
liabilities, amplification, delayed gratification, get the best possible circumstances for executing
a certain threat that is possible.
Sometimes it might not seem optimal, but yeah, we're searching those much better circumstances.
Yeah.
So.
Okay.
So I hope that this is inspirational just for this general concept of amplification, which for me was
a beautiful concept which made doing the 1b3 course even better than Nimzowitsch Larsen Of course I've
got where you get many, many examples of, you know, the lone piece, the bishop being amplified on
the diagonal, even just for that angle.
Even if you don't want to play the opening just for the angle amplification, there's a rich set of
examples in that particular course, but you get lots of amplification examples in this course.
So yes, tactical downsides of the opponent's position.
If someone was asking you abstractly about a certain position, would you exploit it immediately?
You might answer, Well, it depends.
Could I ramp up the pressure?
Could I make better circumstances for exploiting, say, a pin or a pin pace or weakness instead of
just winning a pawn?
Could I ramp up the pressure and see, do I win a lot more than the pawn?
Because maybe you've got more pieces arising there and you get more gains to be made.
So think about this concept a little bit amplification and delayed gratification, because sometimes
the the frets is is more important than the execution, as Nimzowitsch would say.
Yeah, the front is often more important, more kind of dangerous than the implementation of the France.
Okay to that effect.
Anyway, Nimzowitsch said something to that effect.
Okay.
I hope you get inspired by this kind of example and look out for it.
This kind of attacking build up and also means also the team effort side effect that the whole team's
been brought together through the exploitation of a tactical downside within the opponent's possession.
Okay.
That's so much.