WEBVTT 00:00.840 --> 00:01.580 Hi there. 00:01.620 --> 00:07.940 In this lecture, there is another iconic game, which is a must see game, in my view. 00:07.950 --> 00:15.330 And also, you know, Alexander Alekhine has this term associated with him, the Alekhine's gun, which 00:15.330 --> 00:20.790 is a particular arrangement of Turks and the Queen, where the queen is at the base of the two rooks. 00:20.790 --> 00:24.090 So the most expensive piece, the queen is at the base of the two rooks. 00:24.090 --> 00:28.670 And we see actually in Anakin's gun construction in this game, which is absolutely fascinating. 00:28.680 --> 00:34.350 So this is alekhine against Nimzowitsch in 1930 Sanremo Tournament round three. 00:34.350 --> 00:37.110 So it starts off with Anakin kicking off with E4. 00:37.110 --> 00:39.270 We have a French defence from Nimzowitsch. 00:39.570 --> 00:46.770 D4 d5 nine c3 Bishop b4 so a winner variation the Advanced variation c5 Bishop d2. 00:47.520 --> 00:48.960 So this is slightly unusual. 00:48.960 --> 00:52.620 More usual is a three, but grandmasters like Timman have used this move. 00:52.620 --> 00:54.840 This is a decent enough move. 00:54.840 --> 01:04.980 Bishop D2 We have 97 and now nine B5 Bishop takes D2, Czech Queen 62, Black Castle, C free and now 01:04.980 --> 01:05.460 B6. 01:05.460 --> 01:06.480 This is a slight mistake. 01:06.480 --> 01:11.100 It weakens line squares F6 is more to the point. 01:11.100 --> 01:17.700 It seems to try and undermine the pawn chain of bets or get some peace activity, for example. 01:17.880 --> 01:18.900 C Thanks. 01:18.900 --> 01:19.740 C Thanks. 01:19.740 --> 01:29.670 F Thanks e5 D Take C five and if Bishop D 796 Black actually has got a small edge overall, White has 01:29.670 --> 01:31.650 got potential weaknesses in the position. 01:31.650 --> 01:39.690 It's not all about the knight on D6 being pretty, and you can see that Black's queenside is fairly 01:40.440 --> 01:41.280 solid at the moment. 01:41.280 --> 01:47.520 It's good not to move the pawn sometimes, but here with B6 there's there are some light square weaknesses 01:47.520 --> 01:48.090 creeping in. 01:48.090 --> 01:56.160 With B6, we see F4 Bishop A6, I'm afraid, Queen D seven and now A4 supporting that night, night 01:56.160 --> 02:02.070 B six, and now a very strong move to stop stuff like A5 in its tracks. 02:02.070 --> 02:08.730 We have to move B4 because you could imagine sometimes Black might be interested in A5 at some point 02:08.910 --> 02:12.090 and maybe Knight C4 even to try and open up the D5 square. 02:12.090 --> 02:18.870 There are some positional ideas lurking, but this move b4 kind of squashes those ideas and puts pressure 02:18.870 --> 02:19.950 on C5. 02:19.950 --> 02:26.640 We have C tanks, C tanks, Bishop B seven and now 90 6f5. 02:26.640 --> 02:30.390 And Black's counterplay is kind of limited here without this f6. 02:30.390 --> 02:33.810 Now you can see Black's pieces are less active. 02:33.840 --> 02:37.770 This knight's a bit of a monster knight on d6 Octopus Knight. 02:37.980 --> 02:40.650 We have a A5 as well. 02:40.650 --> 02:45.750 Night C eight and now weakening black on the Knight Squares. 02:45.900 --> 02:50.520 And you might think, Well, that's entirely paradoxical, isn't it, King's Crusher Because isn't that 02:50.520 --> 02:52.260 bishop like terrible? 02:52.260 --> 02:55.440 Anyway, why would Alekhine give up his look here? 02:56.640 --> 02:57.480 Well. 02:58.810 --> 02:59.650 Yeah, it is. 02:59.650 --> 03:05.380 It is an interesting move because it is amplifying potentially the LightSquared and we have a LightSquared 03:05.890 --> 03:06.650 counterpart. 03:06.700 --> 03:08.540 So it swings and roundabouts. 03:08.560 --> 03:15.880 Now getting this kind of Queens -- installments is kind of dangerous for black as well with tempo 03:15.880 --> 03:23.170 Queen of seven and on Bishop be five we have Knights 87 now the thing is black is setting up Nimzowitsch 03:23.180 --> 03:29.740 is setting up a target on C6 to be kind of pressurised, you know, with huge pressure potentially. 03:29.740 --> 03:37.510 The thing is, if we look at this critical position in detail with Knight going to e seven Route one, 03:37.510 --> 03:39.730 this is advantageous to white. 03:39.730 --> 03:42.370 For example, let me just show you an example here. 03:42.370 --> 03:50.080 So Rook see two rooks double and even, you know, Rook C seven is a great, great move here. 03:50.590 --> 03:57.040 But even taking the rooks off, even taking the rooks off here is actually a big advantage for white 03:57.850 --> 03:58.240 here. 03:58.270 --> 04:01.540 This position is is very unfortunate for black. 04:02.660 --> 04:10.350 For example, Bishop 87 had 97, Queen C seven, the queen coming in and then just holding it full for 04:10.370 --> 04:10.640 a moment. 04:10.640 --> 04:14.150 There's no rush even to to take on 87. 04:14.150 --> 04:18.830 Just hold, hold f four and let's just say Queen D six. 04:18.830 --> 04:20.060 Forget A7. 04:20.420 --> 04:22.910 This stops any counterplay with Queen Sax before. 04:22.910 --> 04:25.580 Anyway, so that's the key move here. 04:25.580 --> 04:28.250 And White has a huge advantage this position. 04:28.250 --> 04:37.100 Bishop takes E6 but if queen tanks e takes this position is also it's just hugely advantageous because 04:37.100 --> 04:40.010 White's going to play D seven soon winning a piece. 04:40.250 --> 04:47.630 So yeah, there are issues with the position in general, even if it isn't even Roxy seven. 04:47.630 --> 04:51.770 Even taking the rooks off is actually a huge advantage technically for White. 04:52.220 --> 05:01.190 So Rook saying C eight though is also so an alternative, but rook C seven here and this position with 05:01.190 --> 05:08.390 the work on the seventh is even more kind of bad for black, you know, levels of badness here. 05:09.230 --> 05:11.090 There's a big problem with A7 as pawns. 05:11.090 --> 05:16.850 Only two squares away from Queen and white would have tactics like Rook change, E7 looking eight. 05:17.150 --> 05:25.100 So anyway, I wanted to show you this because you might think, Well, isn't it crazy that Nimzowitsch 05:25.100 --> 05:25.910 didn't move the knight? 05:25.910 --> 05:26.990 But let's have a look. 05:26.990 --> 05:30.500 Now what happens with the knight just in its place at C6. 05:31.040 --> 05:35.480 So it's a lot like square where black is kind of weak on the Knight Squares. 05:35.840 --> 05:44.690 We have castling h6 rook FC one, Rook FC eight And now just building up rook, C2, Queenie, rook, 05:44.690 --> 05:45.380 AC one. 05:45.410 --> 05:46.610 This is just very nasty. 05:46.610 --> 05:52.550 This ping rook Abby, eight, Queen, F3, rook C seven. 05:52.550 --> 05:53.450 And here it is. 05:53.450 --> 05:56.630 The Alekhine's gun is being created. 05:56.840 --> 06:03.920 Rook C Frame Queen D7 Rook one C2 ready for the so called Alekhine's gun. 06:04.250 --> 06:08.810 So this is like an attacking construction based on batteries. 06:08.810 --> 06:12.140 So when we have batteries, we have what I call killer common squares. 06:12.140 --> 06:17.090 They are cooperating on key killer common squares to try and break through. 06:17.630 --> 06:24.440 And now this isn't the kind of main focus of attack in this course, which is about the king. 06:24.560 --> 06:31.340 But nevertheless, because it's such an iconic game and batteries might be used in general to get advantages 06:31.340 --> 06:36.740 prior to it, an attack or an attack might not even be needed on the king like here, because we've 06:36.740 --> 06:42.500 got an absolutely winning pin, basically a winning amount of pressure on the C file in this case. 06:42.500 --> 06:45.860 So Queen C1 Alekhine's gun has been established. 06:46.190 --> 06:51.080 So this is the construction, the most sensitive, valuable piece at the base of the battery. 06:51.740 --> 06:56.600 And you get that in other battery situations you might have a bishop on B7 and the Queen on eight looking 06:56.600 --> 06:57.500 at the diagonal. 06:57.620 --> 07:02.390 So because you want to do the damage with the least expensive piece and then get the queen in around 07:02.390 --> 07:06.380 the king usually so this battery can start construction makes a lot of sense. 07:06.770 --> 07:11.690 Generally speaking, rook B.C eights and now guess what? 07:11.690 --> 07:13.490 Why it plays in this position. 07:15.370 --> 07:18.940 Which leaves blank struggling. 07:20.140 --> 07:23.080 So what would you play to amplify the pressure here? 07:25.890 --> 07:27.240 For 200 points. 07:29.400 --> 07:29.940 Yeah. 07:29.970 --> 07:30.280 Okay. 07:30.300 --> 07:36.520 I hope you find this Bishop A4 with the little threats deadly of B5 to win material on C7. 07:36.540 --> 07:42.810 So black boys sometime desperately would be five to put the bishop back and then gets the king involved 07:43.830 --> 07:45.180 to try and hold C7. 07:45.180 --> 07:48.810 This is a rather desperate state of affairs where the king has to come to the rescue. 07:49.110 --> 07:51.660 Bishop A4 again renewing B5. 07:51.660 --> 07:56.430 So the King comes the date to be able to hold C7 against B5. 07:56.520 --> 07:58.110 But guess what? 07:58.320 --> 08:06.150 Alekhine plays here, which is even more kind of sadistic making use of Zugzwang because the knight 08:06.150 --> 08:07.260 can't move because of the pen. 08:07.260 --> 08:09.690 Now it's a D7 queen. 08:09.690 --> 08:14.010 Yeah, it's just a zugzwang h4 zugzwang kind of situation and the game. 08:14.130 --> 08:19.410 Black's running out of moves so nimzowitsch resigned y could play b5. 08:19.590 --> 08:22.800 This position is also strong, but it's not as cute. 08:22.890 --> 08:29.640 We could install the queen on c5 here and this is a big, big advantage winning advantage for white 08:29.640 --> 08:30.210 here. 08:30.210 --> 08:38.280 But the game continuation is so much better because is as soon as the king moves, B5 is even more deadly 08:38.280 --> 08:39.690 because C7 is weaker. 08:41.070 --> 08:51.030 So say King a B5, we're just going to win C7 in broad daylight with this alekhine's gun and say G6, 08:51.030 --> 08:53.010 we're going to run black out of moves. 08:53.550 --> 08:58.650 I mean, the knight copy of the Queen can't move because, you know, Bishop takes C6 so well. 08:58.680 --> 09:01.830 Queen could move to E8, but if the knight moves, Bishop takes C6. 09:01.830 --> 09:08.850 But if King H to here again, Black's in a zugzwang h5 and in fact, we don't even need to move a pawn 09:08.850 --> 09:09.510 here. 09:09.870 --> 09:14.040 We can use the knight with nine to G5. 09:14.310 --> 09:15.540 And what does Black play now? 09:15.540 --> 09:23.160 Black's in a zugzwang if King eight Now we get in B5 and look at the Alekhine's gun on C7. 09:23.460 --> 09:25.500 We're just going to smash through on C7. 09:25.500 --> 09:31.710 So it's an epic game in my view, a really iconic game. 09:33.710 --> 09:39.350 And just show sometimes you're getting the king to have to be involved. 09:39.350 --> 09:41.060 That's that's a disaster in its own right. 09:41.060 --> 09:45.650 There was no need to even go for a king attack when the battle was so absolutely enormous. 09:45.680 --> 09:50.650 But yeah, batteries are really important elements of tactics and combinations. 09:50.660 --> 09:55.910 They're a great way of coordinating pieces as a team for killer common squads. 09:55.910 --> 09:59.420 And this is like the immortal Battery game in a way. 09:59.420 --> 10:04.580 So I felt I had to show you it, even though it's not a direct attack on the king, the enormous positional 10:04.580 --> 10:08.570 pressure here generated means we didn't even need an attack on the king. 10:08.870 --> 10:13.730 And it's just a highly celebrated, iconic game in so many people's collections for good reason. 10:13.730 --> 10:15.440 So I hope you enjoyed this game. 10:16.300 --> 10:17.110 Ten so much.