Hi there.
In this introduction lecture, I want to talk to you about central control and attacking chess.
So the center of the board is very important.
We usually think about the four key central squares because, for example, if a nine mathematically
is on a corner, it can only influence two squares.
It can only influence, for example, these two squares here.
Well, if a knight is in the center, then it can occupy.
It can control rather a lot of squares.
We don't need to literally occupy the four central squares with pawns.
We can just influence them.
You can see that this bishop is influencing that square.
This one, that square, this rook, that square.
And we've been influencing D6 as well.
And there's also the notion of the extended center.
So mathematically, it's great if our pieces in general are in the center and we don't need to literally
occupy the center, we're pawns.
And also there's a kind of extended center concept where we can extend the center a bit like this.
So, for example, these central squares.
So, for example, a night if we have a night here, it's still in a kind of it's in the extended center
square.
A night on F4 would be hitting quite a few squares.
If you imagine mathematically, the mathematics of a night on F4 would still have quite a few squares.
It's not that restricted.
It's still a pretty active piece.
And also quite often the night on F4 or F5 is is good for king attacks because it can often help the
queen.
So you can see that's not a bad square for for example with a knights or that square with the knight
the bishops, when they're pointing to the center, when they're like this.
I mean, that's a very good scope here.
This this diagonal for that bishop and this diagonal for that bishop.
So you can see the central control here in this position.
So this is from a famous game, Karpov Kasparov, one of my favorite Garry Kasparov games, and I'll
show you that soon, but let's just have some points about the center to make as well.
A few more points.
Basically, you can see that central pieces.
They are more flexible to react in general, and it could be to the opponent's plans or to help your
own king attack.
So is it taking place?
We do value flexibility.
We should value the accumulation of advantages.
We should value the center.
The center is like in a real battle.
It's like the hill having the high ground.
You can see a lot more.
You can see what's coming.
So it's good to have the high ground.
There's even an expression that, you know, having them, the moral high ground, there's expressions
based on the notion of the center in other kind of domains like battle in general.
So we need to respect the central influence and we need to respect accumulation of advantages.
And both mathematically, you know, if you look at games with post mortem analysis, you'll see your
accumulation of advantages or not from certain grants.
For example, if you play only chess, you'll see that these are the accumulation of advantages, is
very is very measurable with modern science.
So you see how advantages were changed, shifted from one to the other, but also central control has
a maths to it and that's it's just vividly demonstrated with a night on on the corner example, because
nights are particular pieces which really do benefit from being in the center.
If a bishop's on the corner, it's still got a few squares.
You know, if a bishop hit, you can imagine a few squares that's going across.
But the knights in particular like to be centralized.
That's why.
Yeah, this example I like to show you soon.
So basically central influence is the key thing, not literal occupation, necessarily central influence.
And think about not just the classic four central squares, but the extended center as well, so we
can extend the center in this direction, in this direction like this.
So you get an extended center where pieces generally might be quite good.
And basically we're not we don't really want to be off balance.
We want to have that notion of stability.
So like attacking moves in karate, we need stability balance and the center helps our pieces have balanced,
not too committed.
So they can't react to changing circumstances on the board.
So it's a notion of flexibility.
So here is an interesting high level game example.
Let me show you this without further ado.
Karpov makes mistake Queen D two.
You can see already there's a problem line on a free.
It's not really in the center.
Karpov could have played Knight C for here instead of Queen D two and for example Knight de phrase The
impressive Knight's from Black D6 Bishop takes D6 93 and it would have been worth Karpov doing that
because you can see that the knight in the center is very, very useful there.
It's participating in things and it's helping attack.
He swears it's hitting the bishop at the moment.
So this kind of possession, why would even have arguably a small edge?
So Karpov perhaps uncharacteristically plays this Queen D2, which is a mistake.
It allows now B5 you can see that Knight's not very central and things get worse.
I mean, kind of dramatically worse for these Knight's and knight's all creatures which really enjoy
central control in particular.
So Rook 81 we have Knight the friend and people describe this knight.
Raymond King described this as an octopus.
Knight You can see in that central square, it's not the classic central square, but it's in the extended
sense.
And you can see it still has a powerful influence.
It's looking at F2 in conjunction with this bishop.
It still has a very, very powerful influence on the possession.
And so it's part of the extended sense of notion, if we remember the extended center.
So we've got the sense and we've got the extended center, it's one of the extended center squares.
So yes, it's a very, very interesting square to have an eye on.
D3 We have AB one, so this knight is not looking too good.
H six You can see very detailed analysis of the game in the course.
So this is just to get an example from a central perspective.
So B4 Knight A4 you can see this knight is also a knight on the rim is dim as they say.
There's an expression in chess for that knight on the rim is dim.
Generally speaking, sometimes it's useful to put a knight on the roof.
It really depends on the position.
Of course, in chess things depend on the position.
But Bishop D6, we have Bishop Geoffrey Rooks, the eight and you can see the knight in the center is
controlling key squares.
It's stopping the use of the rooks on either C1 or E1.
It's doing a good job there on D3.
So imagine, you know, one of the greatest.
Attacking players of all time actually kind of prepared this position.
And he's basically maximizing the notion of central influence, not central occupation, but central
influence and seeing the big contrast of the knights here.
You know, blacks knights are more towards the center.
So G5 is played here.
This is a great positional move, which means things like King G seven and G4 might be threatening to
dislodge the Bishop away from that central control.
Bishop takes these six Queen takes these 6g3, giving them Bishop G2 to run to in the case of King G
seven and G4 Knight D seven you can see this lovely expression in bets for chess.
There was a lovely expression which I remembered ever since, like mass centralization.
And it's good to be interested in such things mass centralization or contrasting centralization levels.
It's good to be interested as an attacking player.
If you have positions like this as a prelude to your attacks, that's absolutely wonderful because you've
respected positional play, you've respected the accumulation of advantages, you've respected central
influence, and it's the numbers back there up to two there.
If the knight in the corner, just remember the simple examples help reinforce the concept of central
influence.
The numbers are huge here for that Knight.
It's on full pelt.
It's, you know, eight squares, basically.
So.
So Oxford's knight still for those squares.
So that's a really great knight.
Let's count the squares.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
So, you know, we're talking two versus eight, four Central nights.
And look at the opponent's lines here.
So a three is played a five, eight, six, eight.
So this night's kind of stranded on B1.
So is this one.
They're both stranded.
Queen two What a ridiculous looking move.
So a variation shows the power of the centralization.
If it's easier to react to circumstances for a weakening move, it's easier to react to weakening moves
if we have pieces which could exploit that.
So Queen D four check here, for example, and here G four and why it's really getting run out of moves
here.
So for example D six,
F six and where is won't going now might be two.
It becomes a hopeless position kind of zugzwang here in this variation.
If Queen a2 nine e4 and you can see that without going out of the way, just centralizing, they have
influence on F2, which has influence on the king.
Just naturally they naturally attack the opponent's king because of their amazing central control.
And F2 check is fractions here.
It's win material.
So if one has to do something desperate like this, then compromises to the king.
And, you know, black is absolutely crushing it here because there's this big threat now of bishop.
So, again, through the sense of just through the opponents.
KING So if de seven, that's pretty desperate, this is going to happen.
You can see how it's a total melt down of the opponent's king through the central influence contrast
in that variation.
So Queen A2 was played in the game.
Bishop G6 d6 G4 And then we have Queen D two, King G seven protecting H6, and now F4 is played here.
There's not much to do here.
So in this main line of the game, if King H one Rook KDA, for example, this position is going to
be very, very strong.
You can see the Knights in particular, such a big contrast here and we can start getting our close
in the opponent's king So Knight going to E1, for example, taking out G2 again will be weakening the
light squares.
The absence of the King Catto bishop, in effect, is going to be it's absolutely devastating this position.
What is White doing?
So, yeah, I mean, there are so many crushing variations.
So every in the game Queen takes d6, f takes G4, Queen d4, Czech King H one and now yes in centralising
this knight to that key F4 square.
So in terms of pawns occupying it wouldn't be that significant as a knight because a knight on E4 is
quite a monster in this particular position.
Quite a lot of squares in sports, especially F2.
So annoying.
Going to E4 is pretty nice in general.
So 94 here.
So big frats are emerging.
We have Queen takes to E3 Knight have to check Rook takes after him and Kasparov wins the queen and
he spectacularly now aims at the back row weaknesses.
So Queenie Free rook takes D3 he plays actually rook c one here trying to exploit the back row weaknesses
now offering the Queen Knight B2 is played.
If rook takes F3, then rook takes the one check.
This position is great for black.
Black's getting lots of material there back.
So Knight B2 is tried and we have Queen F2 with the great idea of Rook E one.
So white's completely tied up 90 to rook tanks.
D one check knight 61 rookie, one check and White has to resign her if if one for example Rook st someone
bishop takes queen size of one is checkmate.
So this game example shows to me quite vividly this notion of mass centralization, especially Knight's
really enjoy the sense of the long range pieces do have squares.
Even if they're put in a corner, they're not totally like useless.
And that's also, you know, a thing.
Catto Bishop is a classic tool from the hyper modern era, hyped up know Catto bishops are not bad just
on G7, so they're kind of away from the central classic centre.
But I think Catto Bishop, for example, on G seven or B seven or G2, you know, they still have influence
around the centre.
It's knights in particular which are the creatures which really benefit from the centre in this game
for me is like a vivid demonstration of relative Knight's placements.
Knight influence around key central squares or the extended centre and how that can really impact King
safely, just naturally, very naturally as a perk.
And if we build our attacking game on naturally good positional play, we have great flexibility for
attacking all other stuff, defending it against the opponent's attacks.
Just generally flexibility is to be valued, so the maths of it is important to consider for various
pieces.
You know, central the central influence implications just, just work out the maths of knights, bishops
and other pieces.
You know, Rook in the sense has flexibility, but rooks often like to have juicy targets.
So it really depends on the position.
This is a guiding principle of central influence, but some players consider, oh, it's central occupation.
No, the hyper moderns also had that major thing that you could sometimes swap out your pawn sensor
for piece control.
They successfully demonstrated the ideas.
So Nimzowitsch, for example, in my system had variations in the French defense where he played the
advance variation and he had example games where he wasn't.
They're interested in, in maintaining the center with pawns.
You know, sometimes he'd, for example, swap out data, C-5 and experiment experiment with these ideas
and then taking control of these squares later.
So literal occupation in the center with pawns.
You can see that mathematically, the pawns show they control like some squares, but it's piece pressure
in particular, which is, which is great to have.
So, you know, these variations are kind of given an open mind where you don't literally have to maintain
the pawn chain as an example in the French defense.
So I hope you get the idea that we're respecting positional chess principles in this course.
And you'll see in the attacking game examples.
Quite often the master attacker has got certain advantages to play with, has got great central control.
Does also consider the extended attacking center quite often nights on five or F4 help attacks, especially
with the Queen's help.
So yes, we need to respect the center.
That's our attacking friends quite often.
So the general principle there is central influence, basically, not central occupation.
Central influence.
Okay.
Have you enjoyed this?
Got a few points reinforced has so much.