Hi there.
In this lecture, Alexander Alekhine is playing against Capablanca.
This is in 1948.
Avro Tournament, round nine E4 from Alekhine.
We have a French defense from Capablanca.
We have had d4 d5 now Alekhine plays the transformation notes.
F6 is played.
Capablanca has tried C5.
But against carers.
But this didn't work out too well.
So this is a switch to sex in this game.
So a few days earlier C5 but okay E5 we get this quite dangerous pawn Shane Bishop D3 c5 This is for
me and iconic attacking plans Pawn chain.
Basically we have C3 9692 Queen B six Knights F3 C takes d4c thanks d for Bishop b4 check.
This is an interesting move.
We have King F one and White does have this grip on various dark squares.
Here in this position we have Bishop E7 Ivory and from an engine perspective, black needs to play very
accurately.
Here there are two moves which might be better than what was played.
98 seems overly passive.
It seems if Black Castles there is an option for white for Queen C two and this is dangerous.
Perhaps Black's best is to play F5, but we get situations where White does have such a grip on the
dark squares and for example, here White could potentially evolve and attack with the G4 using F5 as
a lever, for example.
So this would be a promising attacking situation where we could even throw in a piece sacrifice for
good measure and get a very strong attack from here.
This is just a fictional example.
Let's take it a bit further, but you can see why it's getting a strong attack on castling there.
Now there is actually a more active move available to Planck, which is F6, and this seems the safest
bet.
So for example, if it takes nine takes, the point is the king is on the file.
So later black should have, you know, at least an extra on the king.
Black should have a small edge here, actually.
So once best, if F6 is played as actually it seems not to take on F6, but play Knight F4, which is
razor sharp so black could play knight D takes E5 two grab the centre White should counter sacrifice
pack.
Otherwise these pawns are pretty dangerous with the king on F1 it will be black that's attacking on
the file.
If white starts to go backwards with the Knights, so say Knight takes E5 counter-attacking back Queen
h5.
So knights have seven is forced, Bishop takes H7.
This situation reaches a kind of dynamic quality.
So all in all, F6 actually seems the safest even with F4 because of this knight d takes E5.
The point is to try and exploit the king on F1 F4.
But anyway, in the game.
Yeah.
There's this passive move from Capablanca Knight F eight.
I'm a big fan of Capablanca as well as Alekhine, but this is a passive move.
And yeah, this is one of the key, the science of games.
After that epic world championship match, there were two the size of games that they played in tournament,
eventually only two.
This is one of them.
So nice.
In fact you can see blacks in a passive state because of this opening with a fight.
Especially we have be4 now Bishop D7 Bishop Efrain 98 might see Frank and we have here a five knights,
a four Queen 87 B5.
So it's kind of got black in a kind of locked up position.
We see B six and now Jeffrey, this gives the King G2 and the Rooks kind of useful potentially on the
final at five if h6.
Let's just see this as an example.
King g2g6h for Rook Queen D two This is such a wonderful pawn chain to have fair and say Black wants
to keep the H six pawn Bishop g5.
The dark square weaknesses are being amplified.
This pawn chain automatically kind of gets a grip on dark squares and winning tactics with the E5 pawn
chain.
If you look at my more generic pawn structures course, often when in tactics are on the dark squares,
it's a logical expectation because we have support for dark square infiltration.
Dot square tactics here.
Bishop thanks G5 Queen Thanks G5.
This situation for example with Queen a seven blacks not doing anything and black will be in trouble
here eventually.
There are tactics even on the Queen side.
Even if this looks solid, you know, a tactic like Knight takes B6.
It's just very unpleasant to play for black.
This kind of scenario, there's too much pressure being built up, and Black doesn't want to allow a
queen infiltration or the rooks, the rook going behind the queen.
It's just so pleasant for white to play.
White could double and infiltrate on C seven later.
It's just bad states playing with 95 as well.
It's just horrible.
So anyway F five though was played here.
King G2, Knight f7 Queen d2 h6h49287 and now H five marking out that G6 square nine after five.
And here this is an interesting move 92 H for not minding annoyance temporarily on e e4 94 Queen B two
It could have actually been taken as well for advantage White's position is very strong.
If Dee takes the ninth can go into G six with advantage.
If Bishop takes H for, it's not such a big deal.
This position is also just very nice for wines, but Queen B two was played king of seven and free nine,
egg five and now.
Yeah, attacking with this wonderful pawn chain with black having a lack of counterplay.
So can you see what's white plate here which is very logical to open up the black king will try to sow
at ten points.
Yeah.
G fo.
Yeah.
Just trying to crack open the position here.
F Thanks.
Which gives Bishop G six.
Jack So now the rooks are kind of disconnected and now a clever looking move.
Four I mean, White's in such a great place here.
Half takes could have been played as well.
This position is also strong.
For example, here this would be winning material for wines that would be strong as well as an example.
But F4 looks very nice.
Nice F3 If 94 one can afford to take out that night with Knight G six.
And here, for example, Queen bee free.
There's pressure points for five coming in later.
Among other things, night takes or even D five opening up the bishop looking at B6.
It's huge for white, but not every was played by Capablanca.
Bishop takes H7 seven shank.
Very, very strong position indeed.
19th century could have been played as well.
This is just great because White could use the semi-open G file with a few preparations.
For example, this situation Y can just build up on the semi and g file road to Black's king and this
should be absolutely great.
It's going to be very difficult for for black.
I mean, this is such a powerful position.
If that's a good move for defending, that's not a good sign.
We know we can take out h seven or we can just build up and build up.
For example, we can just maneuver a knight basically to f6 it's and play.
Even if I get everything we want with the attack here.
So this kind of thing is absolutely crushing.
So that's just the fictional continuation.
So it takes F3 in a nutshell.
We use the G file.
We can get this Knight's F6.
If nothing else, we can play slowly, as slowly, slowly as once.
Black's so tight up here in this fictional version.
Just to recap here, if Black's tying up like this with this E5 pawn chain, it gives us more time to
systematically build on the GFL road.
So just looking at this fictional continuation, we can see that we can even we can take time here.
Why not get this piece to be an attacking piece?
This is in a way, it's an instructive engine variation that we don't have to win material.
We can just get this piece to be involved in the attack and just come like this.
Yeah, it's an absolute crush there.
But Bishop takes h seven check was played rotates now 96.
And this is kind of funny that the king could actually use G4 and take out G4 here.
So Bishop de Rook, AC one, because the knight is kind of stranded, it hasn't got any escape squares.
Bishop e8 And now the king goes to G4 to take out G4 and with that the knight is just hanging.
So this is a bad state of affairs.
Queen f7 is joint king size G4.
The king is going to be carnivorous.
Here we have Knight H4.
But yeah, this is just losing material.
Knight takes H4, not mine.
In Queen age five.
Check.
It's no big deal there.
King G3, Queen f7.
And with Knight.
Afraid this is the end of the game.
Yeah.
Not Capablanca finest.
It's towards the end of Capablanca, his career.
He had some health issues, to be fair.
And this is one of his, you know, battlements.
One of the only battlements in Capablanca Korea, this Avro tournament in 1958.
So yeah it's.
It's perhaps it's an iconic game because of because of the two players involved.
But it wasn't Capablanca at his peak.
To be fair, let's just say that.
So anyway, if the game continued, why it's just material up here and can just get around to taking
out the H for pawn.
So for example, like this, that's opening up an attack against the rook.
You know, this is one variation, but also if, say, the rook had moved into H5 f6, you know, this
situation is just really going to be strong with that G file y could round up the h pawn and you know,
White's already material up.
Black's pieces are not doing too much.
So, yes, an interesting game, but it was for me, it seems effort is not in the spirit of what Black
did to put the King on F1.
It seems as though a key resource to improve here in this position would have been F6 seems the safest
according to modern engines.
So okay, an interesting game nonetheless.
I hope you got some points from it.
That's very much.