Hi there.
In this course, we do talk about control a lot.
So I noticed an emphasis on control.
And one of the Lloyd's masters, where I saw a lot of the top players and, you know, 2500, they they
came and they kind of manage the counterplay of opponents.
They kind of crush the counterplay, especially of a lot of British players.
Just didn't have any counterplay to go with.
So even though British players were very strong tactically, they just couldn't get the games, which
could show their tactical skills.
And in general, positional play is largely about control.
When we say about counterplay crushing opponents, we're keeping control of the position and that has
many advantages.
We can take time then to accumulate advantages or take time to let the opponents make mistakes.
So waiting moves just let the opponents self-destruct or make commit or pull moves.
Karpov had this quotation, which is very, very famous.
He basically said, Let us say the game may be continued in two ways.
One of them is a beautiful tactical blow that gives rise to variations that don't yield to precise calculation.
The other is a clear is clear positional pressure that leads to an end game with a microscopic chances
of victory.
I will choose the latter without thinking twice.
So in one respect, this implies, you know, maybe the game is going to be boring, but quite often
the games are nothing but boring.
It's the notion of keeping control is behind this quotation, in my view, because we don't want to
have this maze of variations where we could miscalculate and things get out of control.
Keeping control is vital and we can make tradeoffs for control.
We don't need to find the absolute best moves in positions, and that might be very impractical.
We might spend a lot of time finding best modes and being time trouble later.
So good moves, economical moves is the hallmark of many classic positional players.
Capablanca was often playing games very, very quickly and he could also play huge, simultaneous,
very, very effectively because his style was clear and the positions didn't require sometimes huge
amounts of calculations.
He kept things pretty simple and simplified where he had an advantage.
So keeping things simple and clear and keeping control, trying to nurture even tiny advantages is a
hallmark of the great positional players.
And and another hallmark is often they are able to play moves quite quickly without huge amounts of
calculations.
They're not like the more dynamic, aggressive players like Kasparov or players that are investing large
amounts of time because they're doing huge amounts of calculation.
We're talking about, in a way, a simple view of chess that we if we can keep control, we can gradually
accumulate small advantages.
And it's very economical, it's very practical in many ways to do this, especially if we're playing
faster time limits online.
Do we really want these mazes of variations which we can't possibly calculate in time?
So keeping things more simple with control is a great philosophy and an integral part, in my view,
of incrementing advantages.
Sometimes we we might need to play waiting moves while keeping control, hopefully waiting for new downsides
the opponent to be created that opponents beat themselves.
Then you have a great scope for winning rather than only winning based on your brilliant attacks.
What if there isn't a brilliant attack?
So this idea of keeping control sometimes waiting for mistakes, it's a great hat to put on a great
playing style hat to be aware of.
And managing counsel is about control.
Blockading like Nimzowitsch is about extreme control.
If you think about blockading a pawn, then that pawn can't move.
It's in a form of extreme control.
But the whole of what Nimzowitsch calls prophylaxis, which you could just call prevention and not just
preventing moves, but preventing the opponent's half of all or half of their pieces not moving or a
lot of the pieces not being able to move.
That's all about control.
And if we look at the engine graphs of positional player games, they're not turbulent.
They're often just just this, you know, mountain climb, gradual but crushing mountain climb one way
games.
So do not rush is also a kind of trait quite often calmness calmness under pressure and sometimes positional
players are soaking up when the opponents try and attack them or play dynamically.
They're soaking up the counterplay.
So being able to.
And resourcefully and later counter-attack great skills like Petrosian especially.
So we see in this example, I've got an example for you, an absolute classic Karpov game, which you
may have seen before.
So in this position it's a closed position which actually makes the control aspects of this game even
more emphatic in my view, because Black's pieces didn't really have much to do.
And Karpov avoids simplification first with this iconic move Bishop a seven, so actually prevents simplification.
He doesn't want that just yet and it gives the top of the option maybe of moving that bishop later if
he wants an a foul exchange or to get into the file.
We have 98 bishops E to 90 C seven and now the rooks behind the A seven bishop Queen E seven.
We have Bishop B one, Bishop E and now 9298.
So black's not able to move too much.
This pawn structure is restraining on Black's counterplay.
We have Knight H two, Bishop G seven and now playing F4, knowing that it's not really an exploitable
weakness.
The e five square black plays E takes the knight's not well placed to exploit the E five square here,
so this is a risk worth taking.
We have F six.
So just to show if E takes a four line, takes a four, we have f six.
This game is examined in detail in the course, by the way.
So this is just a lighter version.
I just want to emphasize the control aspects.
So here, for example, White's going to get a good advantage like this.
Just maneuvering, looking at C six and E six.
It's a very pleasant position indeed, and B five could be under pressure.
So anyway, we have F6 being played, so more weaknesses to work on based on the light squares.
F five we have G five.
So these are potential light square weaknesses.
If only we could play a strategic bishop exchange to weaken and amplify these weaknesses further.
So Karpov aims to incrementally try and have this little goal, this positional goal of exchanging off
the loin square bishops.
So this is a beautiful plan.
It would leave black with this kind of imprisoned bishop.
You can see it's a kind of prison in its own pawn structure.
So this is really great control of the position here where one is carrying out small improvements and
Black's just the spectator here at the moment.
Very passive game from black.
So Queen de one.
So this strategic bishop exchange is an option for whites, but we have this rook free waiting for a
moment's patience.
We have Knight G four and this is afforded tactically to be able to play this.
We have King Fe if Bishop.
So this is practicing now.
Bishop takes H five, the bishop takes H five immediately.
This is not working for black because of Knight takes F six check because it's check.
We're going to be winning the Queen after.
So King Fe threatens the bishop.
But now Knight E three, King G and now Bishop's come off.
And now another small plan infiltration on the light squares.
So this is kind of poetry in motion on both sides of the board that black really has been devoid of
counterplay.
So really one way game positional players love their one way games with minimal counterplay.
And now White has achieved another improvement in the position a juicy knight coming to F5 and that
dangerous pawn on G six but no one else.
It was a very, very difficult position.
So here black's on the way out now.
95 Black actually resigned here and we see many games of Karpov where, you know, the opponents aren't
even material down.
They just resign positionally.
They've been positionally, you know, stuffed like a turkey hare for Christmas.
Yeah, It's just, you know, there's nothing really black to do to try and defend.
White has various infiltration options and various ways of dismantling the position now.
So.
Okay.
You know, for example, night takes a nine of six after.
If Black tried to defend the bishop, it's just a horrendous position to be in or just moving the bishop
back to infiltrate on the file.
So Black just resigned.
This is an epic example of Anatoly Karpov with an iconic move, you know, Bishop 87.
And it shows that, yeah, if we can destroy the opponent's counterplay and gradually improve our position
and improve our position, sometimes even if the opponent isn't material down, they could be resigning
just out of being so sad about their position not being able to move many pieces.
So positional play has this kind of almost zigzagging goal on many occasions of the classic games.
Nimzowitsch did it back in the day.
He sometimes restrained all the opponent's pieces until, you know, literally they just couldn't have
any decent moves left.
So positional players, you could say it's like a slow form of strangulation or sadism, but whatever,
it's it's a very important hat in chess to be aware of positional play, making small improvements.
But control we see in this course, I like to call them patterns because that's less prescriptive than
saying kind of laws or principles or methods or small wins.
We have to bear in mind we're applying patterns to our games and they might be appropriate or might
not.
So by calling them patterns rather than principles, I hope you're more flexible in their use, saying
that up and down sides and seeing if they're more appropriate for your position that you get in your
games.
But yeah, there's a lot of control patterns, there's a lot of structure patterns about pawn structure
because it's where pawns that we can more easily accumulate advantages because they're the slowest moving
aspect of the position.
And there's other patterns we'll see.
So basically at the end of this course, you should be able to be motivated to play positional games
where you're kind of restraining opponent's counterplay and slowly kind of removing their good moves
and you might get wins just based on huge positions more and more as you increase your positional mastery.
So I would say, yeah, control is one of the most important patterns given in this course you know
about.
It's related to counterplay removal, it's related to increasing advantages gradually.
So I hope you enjoy this style of play or enjoy witnessing the positional games with this flavor in
this course.
Okay, So much.