Hi there.
In this introduction lecture, I want to talk about the great attacking players and their routes.
So why is a route metaphor interesting to consider?
Well, if you want to get rid of weeds in your garden, let's assume you have a garden.
If you want to get rid of weeds, usually you need to get rid of their roots.
Otherwise they'll just get grow back.
So if you get rid of their roots and carefully dispose of the roots, hopefully, you know, they don't
grow back or they don't multiply as quickly, you get rid of the weeds by getting rid of the roots,
ideally in general.
And when we want to strengthen things, we want to improve the root system.
It provides all the essential nutrients, ingredients, all the supplies that are needed to encourage,
instill confidence in to provide examples.
When we talk about chess roots, we want to ask, well, which attacking players first.
They were very strong and consistently got good combinations and of course what we could say Kasparov,
He really dominated everyone when Kasparov was a world chess champion.
But what are Kasparov's roots?
You know, what is his root system?
So he mentions he alludes to Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Tsao and Bobby Fischer, and we focus on the
Alexander Alekhine part in this course heavily.
But you can check out my Tao and Fischer courses as well if you want more background influence.
But here in this course.
Yeah we are looking at.
You know, some salmon fishing games as well.
But a lot of Alexander Alekhine games.
I think we need to respect the examples and see the trade offs of what we're looking at of the examples.
If we go back to the Morphy era, yes, it's without computers, without the complexity and baggage
of opening very.
But Morphy was head and shoulders above most of his opponents.
He taught us the basic principles of the open game.
You know, a lot of Morphy's opponents had their pieces still on the back row and they were being checkmated.
They had very, very bad openings.
It was getting very, you know, gigantic advantages from the opening and using those elements to blast
the opponents for, for example, like foul authority dominating pieces.
And we see some examples of Morphy in this course.
But the era of Alekhine was interesting because he did have very, very dangerous pairs.
He wasn't head and shoulders above other people.
He had to, you know, work hard to improve his results and he managed to beat Capablanca.
He overcame Capablanca in a world championship match.
So the error was also not too much computer preparation.
So it's not like a deep, vast complexity.
When we look at Kasparov game, it could have been like home cooked to a large extent.
The absolutely brilliant moves, you wouldn't be able to recreate them in your own games because of
this impact of computers.
It could have been very detailed opening preparation.
So we've got to be a bit wary that when we want to learn from past masters, hopefully the examples
they have, the right trade offs we're looking for.
Yeah, we can master the open game from opera, you know, from from Morphy, for example.
The opera game is a great example.
We can master the open game, sure, But Alekhine also, you know, in a slightly later generation where
there's much more competitive pressure emerging, he was still able to have great attacking games.
And his examples for me are very, very interesting to consider as a basis for studying more complex
games of Kasparov.
So basically we need to respect the errors involved, the trade offs of those eras, you know, computer
preparation could actually be complicating are examples.
And sometimes Morphy is a bit too, too much above his peers.
So to be a more effective attacking player, what we're basically saying when we talk about Roots is,
you know, what is your supply chain?
Who is supplying you with the examples, the key game examples that that makes you a stronger and stronger
attacking player.
In my view, the more you can master the finances of each and every example, the variations, you know,
what was being found, why, what the ingredients, what the themes ingredients is a sentiment synonym
for themes, tags, patterns, you name it.
What creates the climate for a brilliant, you know, final combination.
So Kasparov indicated he studied Alekhine games and he also studied how Fisher Aronian thinks Alekhine
is one of the greatest players ever.
So also, you know, we should at some point add some aronian game examples as well.
But it's important to get the foundation set in this course as the top priority.
It is an evolving course and yeah, we can see clearly that there's a supply chain.
It's like Alekhine was basically a great supplier of creative ideas for attacking chess for Garry Kasparov.
We need to look at those supply chains of classic players.
So we need to kind of strengthen and also need to qualify our attacking routes.
So I don't know if you've seen this Cobra coin series on Netflix.
It's all about attacking the fence and different philosophies.
It's as if each world champion was a kind of sensei, a tutor, each world champion.
We can learn something about chess from each world Chess champion.
So, for example, Tigran Petrosian, we can learn about prophylaxis.
We can just learn.
Each bowl champion has quite a lot to offer in their own right, and some world champions have the same
kind of playing styles.
There's almost a pattern, you know, Capablanca, Karpov, Alekhine Kasparov.
They have the same kind of similar playing styles, but we want to qualify our root systems, make it
more effective and appropriate, so we don't want to get the wrong end of the stick force from some
alekhine games.
We need detailed objective analysis.
We need to know the truth of the games, flaws and all to strengthen our root system, to qualify our
root system.
So we might need to replace some misconceptions we've had about games.
We need to objectively analyze each game example and take it very, very seriously.
So the course aims basically to strengthen our attacking roots, mine and yours, because it's a good
revision for me.
You know, I've seen a lot of these iconic games before, but to try and get even more detail, even
more clarification on every single game example will improve our clarification of the core ingredients.
The more fundamental ingredients get the details right, We can draw more correct conclusions, more
qualified conclusions about the routes of attack, the ways of successful attack in chess, the root
of Spassky, you know, Polish became, you know, when Spassky had a new trainer, Tönnies really boosted
his attacking chassis, became much more dynamic.
And, you know, here's a game example to show you might not have heard of Polish, but Tony was also
playing The King's game and Spassky was playing The King's Gambit, so maybe encouraged Spassky to just
play what he wanted in the opening to get dynamic games.
So here in this game, this is an example game which is analyzed in much greater depth in the course.
So it's against a Lord serve in 1948.
I'm only showing you this game as an example of root influence or trainer influence.
So we have E2 65 here, Polish against the Lords, now Queen 65.
So nowadays E6 F4 would have been is more accurate.
So this variation is is more accurate.
Blacks should be okay here in this position.
But so we have Queen 65 and it leads to a brutal quick win actually.
So f takes E5 Queen 65, Bishop E to Bishop G for D for Queen E6.
So White's ahead in development.
So using the Romantic era King's gambit by 1948 USSR Championship.
So why course was queenside?
Bishop takes EA to Knight G takes ea to Bishop d6.
We have D5 opening up things in the center.
9/10 9/10.
So there's a key defensive point taken away.
Queen G3 big tempo gainer on D6 looking at G7.
So Bishop takes that for Shake the King still in the centre doesn't last too long here.
Rook HD check King f8 and now can you see the final touch for five points.
Queen A free check and it's going to be a back row mate soon after Slay Queen D6 or just F King J Rookie
is going to be checkmate so Black can only delay her.
So yes, this is an example.
I wanted to show you the influence of trainers, the influence of previous generations.
They are supply chain of examples.
The examples give us inspiration.
They gave us a clue for attacking gradients.
We need to be careful and attentive to details to get an objective truth about each game.
Example Seeing where it could be improved for both sides and hopefully it should be this logical method
and it can be applied in other disciplines as well.
Instead of trying to do advanced maps, you know, you've got to get your maths foundation right far
as you get the foundations right in your particular domain.
And then the advanced stuff should be easier and easier.
The more solid the foundation, the more solid your root system, the easier it is to put pressure later.
On top of that foundation, a strong foundations, strong roots.
These are important things.
So yeah, we're trying to get very strong root system here for attacking style of chess.
Okay, so I hope you appreciate this intro video.
Okay.
Thanks so much.