Hi there.
In this lecture, we see Alex and the client playing against Aspen.
This is 1930 1:00 simultaneous display E four from Alekhine.
We have a French defense night.
See for an interesting move.
Order here with night c3d5d4, nine, ten, five, six.
So we're transposing into a more mainline here.
Bishop e seven.
Now, nowadays there's a very strong gambit which is actually called the Alekhine Shattered Gambit,
which even engine suggests is absolutely fine.
So Alekhine here took on f6, but that's quite committal.
E5 is actually really interesting.
I'll give you a little bit of a tool here.
If 94 we can take on E seven, take on E for Queen E two.
So we're ready to meet Queen B for check with C4.
And we got a big advantage here.
We in queenside, we're going to put pressure on E4 know that's kind of gambit at fine.
We're just much better there.
So that's a bit of a cheeky line with Knight E4.
We'll use you as knights going back to D seven and we can play H four, which is the Alekhine Shattered
Gambit.
And I have lots and lots of wins with this even in over the board chess as well online.
So h takes hare Queen takes.
We play knight H three Now if queen H four which is a bit of a cheeky rare move, we can actually play
Knight B5 and if Queen goes back then we get Queen G4 with an advantage.
Here we're looking at H seven and this is problematic for Black in various ways, so.
Och yeah.
I mean there's certain, you know, tactical zaps and things.
There's nine times e six here if black's not careful, you know, this looks absolutely like devastating
stuff.
1986 and here there's lots of fun to be had.
And if Queen is seven, 1967, there's a lot of fun to be had there.
So let's let's say eight.
We just get our pull back, if nothing else.
And that's in that very weird Queen H Well, but more usual.
Queen EE seven And then we go Queen G for hitting G seven, King F eight, Queen G four.
And we get a very nice attacking position.
For example, like this is very, very interesting, this kind of scenario with 96, there's no fractures
of that pin and you get a taste, you know, if black's going to play a p sack because otherwise we're
getting into F seven.
It's already desperate for black.
But this piece is not that convincing.
And we're going to be, you know, potentially, you know, just just well up here in this position.
So that's if nine takes five, otherwise 9/10 F seven, you can see it's quite ferocious gambit.
And I point this out because actually it is kind of theoretically important nowadays.
This is well established and engine approved.
Basically, it's one of the few engine approved gambits.
But in this game we see Alexander Alekhine playing Bishop E7 and we get this Bishop takes F6, which
is quite committal indeed.
So Bishop takes f6, have three black consoles.
This is a bit dangerous.
C5 is more for about king safety of Bishop B5 five, Bishop D7 This position there isn't much for White
to write home about here.
This position for example black has that dot square bishop as compensation and for anything which white
might offer off offers.
White like I say, queens pawn the bishop is enough compensation here.
This is about even so that is one safe way of playing it with C5.
But Black Castled and we have the E5 pawn chain, which is often very dangerous for the so called great
gift sacrifice because there no defender on H7.
So the H7 software is more soft than usual and in fact Alekhine plays H for he's preparing a Greek gift.
And this is the sort of thing I play in fast time controls to help me win tournaments.
If Bishop defray C5, we can play like this.
But be warned, Black has the key move h six here which stops any idea of Bishop takes h seven and Black's
should have a small edge here in theory, but in practice we still do have attacking potential.
Maybe we can even get a rock out later or castle queenside.
But h4 was played immediately and Black played a big mistake.
Really?
Already a big mistake.
If h6 here we can play Queen D two and sure, Black does have actually an edge if we try and crush black
with G four, c5g5 black can try and seal things up with H five.
And if we get this situation, black's should be fine.
That should be better here with the bishop power.
Which is why I think this variation is a bit controversial, giving black square bishop if there's no
dangerous attack, which opens up things, this could be controversial now.
I should point out.
Yeah.
If Queen D to this again, black has a small edge.
So Rookie eight though, is playing Bishop D free.
And now this is already problematic.
C5 is played, which is actually a huge mistake, really asking for the great gift sacrifice.
So the great gift is when you sacrifice a bishop on H seven and then often knight G five check is followed
by Queen H five.
It's a great attacking mechanism which I've won literally hundreds of games with.
Now before we get into C5.
If f five, the funny thing is we can play Knight G5 here.
This is funny stuff because Bishop takes aged takes, Queen takes.
We have Rook H five with a strong attack here.
Rook takes H seven because there's an unprotected piece on eight.
If Queen G have one.
If they take Queen H five chat Queen six.
E eight.
Queen C eight.
Now, if we look at this again, if Queen G six, we've still got a strong attack here.
We're going to play Queen D two.
Doesn't matter about the D pawn.
We're going to Castle Queenside and we get a very strong attack here.
This is a desperate move.
Knight at three.
That's just a very strong attack being built up in this position with lots of interesting ideas, if
not afraid.
Just to look at this, though, if Clarke wants to sacrifice a piece for this kind of tactic, it's
still going to be in its favor.
This endgame a piece up.
It's going to be in White's favor.
But anyway, it's a strong attack that.
So f59g5 is pretty nice, you might think.
Hold on.
What about H six here of the Bishop d3h6 does, actually.
What would you play?
This is checking your attacking skills in this position.
It's actually rather different to before we can play G4
if G6 Queen DD two.
So looking at six, if King G 792, we can get a very strong attack from this position.
So it looks as though, well, Black's got the bishop here, but look at the attacking potential here
in this position.
You know, one has a nice advantage overall and some very interesting ideas and potential.
Okay, So anyway, C five was played, though.
This is really asking for big, big trouble.
So, yes, the Greek gift sacrifice.
When you see a position like this, you should be calculating the Greek gift sacrifice, which is bringing
the king out to play.
Now, I've separated out the section on bringing out the king from the great gift, because the great
gift is responsible for a number of brilliant wins.
Indeed, and deserves, in my view, its own section.
So Bishop takes h seven, check is played, King takes H seven and Knight G five check.
So this works quite well here.
Bishop takes G5 is played so points to note if King G eight, Queen H five.
And what does black do?
Blacks in big, big trouble here.
So there's a threat of Queen H seven and Queen H eight.
If White's if I had their turn now.
So let's say Bishop takes H takes King F eight.
We do have G6 here and this position.
The attack just rages on.
Even though the king's not checkmated.
We can open up d file pressure now.
And for example this situation we can try and smash the light squares up so f four with the idea of
f five and it starts to get very, very dicey for black.
The king gets exposed.
In fact, the queen can make its way to C five in some lines now with E, six, Queen St, C five check
and the attack rages on.
This is just a fictional example in this position.
This is just fictional.
Rook takes D4 is strong here and you can see that sometimes the great gift can have long term king safety
implications.
If Queen takes D4, we have Knight B5 check and then take the Queen.
If Queen f6, we have 95 check, 96 check.
And this is just a really strong attacking position to start from.
Yeah, it's easier for black to slip up from here.
So yeah, there are some phenomenal implications here if we look at so that was bishop takes.
So that was on King G eight.
If we look at King G six, let's examine this in detail, this great gift mechanism.
What be fantastic here.
You think so?
This looks as though.
You know, there's some potential to slip up, actually.
But there is a really incisive move here, which is worth considering.
In actual games.
You might not necessarily want to play h five Chess because King takes five, but there is actually
for 100 points.
What was he playing?
You can actually encourage F-5.
It looks like a terrible idea to encourage you in a way at defense.
But when slicing through with tanks, King takes and now we're using F3 and we've got that killer common
square because it's on G5 f7, which means King G6 Queen have seven check And here what is the science
of in this position mating skills activated.
What would you play?
400 points.
Yep.
G4 Where?
France, then.
Queen H Five maids.
It's unfortunate here.
So Bishop takes five and G six opens up for Queen H seven.
So that's unfortunate.
So yes.
King G six doesn't work out well.
And in this position, you might ask.
Well, hold on.
King H six, this Queen H seven might catch five.
There's the cute G for check, Queen F three.
And you can see how dangerous this Greek gift is now.
So this is quite a bit of evidence that actually this is a really dangerous position.
So black tried Bishop takes G5.
We have H g g5, Czech King G eight, Queen H five.
So the immediately now is Queen h h King of eight White castles, Queenside King E seven and now g six.
The attack rages on here a6 if f takes g six, Queen takes g six wrote g8y can play d taxify with a
strong attack.
So this position Rook h three Queen d seven Rook f3 French thing Rook have seven What is black?
Do rook have sevens coming along and now Queen G five as example Knight 65 smashes through making use
of that pin.
If Queen Sikes of seven Knight takes e seven.
Check this position.
We're getting all material back with interest.
So there are some really interesting attacking lines based on this great gift.
It really is phenomenal here.
So okay, so instead of F takes in the game, we have a six, G takes F seven Rook f8 and now dc5d7
if C six here Queen G six Rook takes F seven, there's actually Queen G five check.
And here.
We can absolutely be brutal with rook tanks D5.
I don't expect you to remember any of this.
It's just getting the force behind you, the intuition behind you.
So E6 check in this position leads to very, very interesting stuff.
If King takes rookie one check queen G4 check, queen G3 check.
And we're crashing through.
It's a very dangerous diagonal.
We don't let the king necessarily go to be eight.
So in the game, 97 was tried.
We have rook takes D5 here phenomenal stuff.
Black doesn't really want to play.
He takes D5.
It looks shaky.
He plays actually Queen A5.
Just for the record, let's be concrete balance sense.
If he takes the E5, we have nine tanks D five check here King E6 and now we can play Knight for check
and we can get this situation with Queen A5 with multiple mate.
That's 95 mates.
96 mates, 26 mates.
What does Black do here?
Queen C 795 Check then and we can play.
Actually, don't worry about taking the material.
We can try and end the war with Queen G five check.
And then here it takes f6 Queen 65 F Thanks G seven check.
And here we can cover escape squares again, trying to create mating impacts.
It's absolutely crushing, but this is just an example.
Queen e5 Rook takes f7 Queen six Jack We're going for the champ, mate.
We can get it quite soon.
It's brutal stuff.
So I hope you're convinced that it takes D5.
Yeah, we're playing Knight takes D5 check.
The key thing is a Knight A4 for this key position here.
It's absolutely devastating stuff.
So anyway, Black kind of trusted that or maybe saw that and played Queen A five.
Now we have Queen G five, check King F seven and now Rook H seven.
So a lot of attacking potential being revealed.
Rook G eight and now Rook d4.
We have Queen site C five and this is a really beautiful finish now coming up so we have Rook takes
D seven which disables the protection of F6.
Basically that's a pinned pawn on G seven Bishop 67 So 94 essentially it's an absolutely winning situation
here.
If we're threatening things like Queen F6, if nothing else, as well as 96 and if Queen E seven, well,
let's put that on the board, we would have 96 check here.
And this is running black out of options for the fence.
And then Queen F4, what is black doing here?
And the Knights controlling E eight.
So you can see that it's quite vicious.
So Black tries Queen b4, which at least threatens a naughty checkmate in one but alekhine wins with
checks here.
So can you see what he plays to start off with?
Okay.
96 chunk say forces the to fight.
You might wonder.
Blimey.
Thanks for listening, Queenie.
What is the idea here?
Can you say there's a force chap back here which ends the game?
You've got to be nice.
You've got to be good.
Rather, chap.
Mating.
Mating ends the game.
We've got to be masters of chap mate combinations.
So.
Yes.
Check out my art Checkmate course if you haven't, this is.
We're building on that to see how these attacking positions are actually generated in the first place.
But here there's a false chap mate sequence, so check all checks, even the outrageous ones.
So hopefully you find the fourth chap make your hair.
Okay.
About travel queen.
Have sex, believe it or not, Opens up seven, Frank.
Or it ends the game.
Plante resigned, but it takes Rook have seven.
Wow.
Juicy stuff.
I do find these games really up my street.
I must.
I must admit Alekhine compared to Capablanca, I must admit the contrast is evident that Alekhine really
is an attacker with a capital A So the great gift?
Yeah.
Here.
It's just wonderful.
And this was even in the clock.
Simul.
He played this stuff in a clock simul.
And it shows many of the elements of modern stockfish variations.
Many of the elements of smashing through the defile.
Just making sure the king is faced with cold winds, so to speak.
As Bronstein might say, the king is faced with cold winds, especially after Rook takes the five.
Black clearly is getting kind of frightened and trusting that this is it's too dangerous to take the
rook.
But, you know, white's smashing through anyway with the rooks being super aggressive.
Look at the Rooks, how they contrast the blacks rooks, incredible stuff.
And then taking out, you know, threatening to switch over here.
It's four, but actually Rook takes D7 now 94 Big tempo gainer 496 What a wonderful, absolutely sweet
cute finish.
I hope you've enjoyed this as much as me and so much.