Hi there.
And this introduction lecture, we're going to zoom in on the question of the importance of prevention
for control in positional chess.
So even if we go back to Sun Tzu, he said the good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the
possibility of defeat and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.
It seems, you know, Nimzowitsch may have been inspired by Sun Tzu for many of the things in Nimzowitsch
is my system like strengthening the position is in a way you could say putting yourself beyond the feet
is making precautions in your position that there aren't liabilities which could backfire if the position
opened up tactically.
You don't want, for example, unprotected pieces or structural issues and sometimes making preventative
moves to make sure the opponent hasn't got dangerous pawn breaks.
That's good.
And then you can focus on attacking without the worry of the backfire.
It's like taking out the backfires in advance.
Now, Petrosian was known as the master of prophylaxis, and prophylaxis is another term, in my view,
for prevention, and he prevents the opponent's concepts even before they knew they were available.
So like looking deep into what the opponent wants to do and kind of preventing that, and then you can
get on in peace with what you want to do.
Quite often, though, Petrosian did have a lot of draws and the general public often didn't like Petrosian
style of play.
They preferred Boris Spassky, who was more daring and imaginative, it seemed, and more sacrificial.
However, the Petrosian style is a very, very effective style, and Karpov took it up basically, but
with the idea of winning with it, not just drawing.
Chosen was loathe to losing.
He hated, absolutely detested, losing, so wouldn't mind drawing.
But Karpov took that principle of kind of putting himself beyond the feet to the absolute maximum and
was often grinding out players in endgames.
There is a saying which is really, really powerful, a philosophical saying Prevention is often better
than cure.
And in chess terms, if we can prevent the opponent's counterplay in advance, that's much easier often
than handling after it's been created.
So and we're talking about often pawn breaks, pawn breaks and chances often quite critical to actually
generate counterplay because pawns are often hemming in the opponent's pieces.
And how do we handle pawn breaks in the most effective manner?
We can take clues, in my view from Nimzowitsch how he talks about past pawns as being criminals to
be kept under lock and key.
Active surveillance is not enough.
In chess terms.
If we can actually blockade pawns, then they legally can't move.
So that is kind of the ultimate form of control and restraint.
So control often links to delay gratification.
Yeah, we're taking time out to put ourselves on the feet so we're not hurrying.
We're making sure that is a first class process in our in our thinking and in our play.
So prevent first, then attack.
Nimzowitsch has amazing notions like over protection.
So where we're actually over protecting to some extent, we're actually stopping discouraging pull rates
for the opponent.
There could be so much pressure built up behind the central point that if the opponent dared to try
and liberate, they get smashed because the amount of pressure behind an over protection, sometimes
pawn breaks are simply worth allowing.
If you try and prevent quite often pawn rates, you might be creating weaknesses.
There is the other rule to respect that every pawn move you make to try and prevent the opponent's pawn
moves.
You know, that's criminal decision.
You might actually be creating exploitable weaknesses and sometimes you might just want to allow the
opponent's pawn rank because they might get even more exploitable weaknesses.
So the notion of exploitable weaknesses is absolutely central as well.
Prevention is an art form.
It's a double edged thing.
Quite often it's not that easy to prevent.
Sometimes it's not that practical, it's not even desirable sometimes.
So bear that in mind.
It's in certain positions that might be useful to use preventative chess if it doesn't cost you too
much.
And generally as positional players, we only want to crown oppositional chess when absolutely ready.
So again, Sun Tzu, you know, put yourself beyond the possibility of the fate then wait for the opportunity,
a very safe opportunity.
It becomes a much more safe opportunity for defeating opponents, defeating the opponent.
So only enter into the tactics or the attack when absolutely ready.
So don't hurry.
And the tactics, you know, the controversy of the tactics is taken out in advance.
Just a few more preparatory.
Removes.
And all of a sudden tactics have zero backfire to you.
Maybe you've tucked away your king first, for example as well.
So quite often locking key blockades.
Prevention is is much stronger than active surveillance.
And I have an example for you in practice.
So this doesn't sound to theoretical cop off against Bushwick in 1978.
This is covered in detail in this course.
And you'll see actually engines did suggest that black might have had some chance for counterplay.
So sometimes comp of games have the illusion of control.
But if you look deep, sometimes chess is such a vast game, there are resources to sometimes generate
counterplay, but the opponent didn't find them.
And here Karpov actually played a very nice positional move, which I hope you can see here for 100
points.
What would you play here?
If we're talking about prevention with locking key measures, what would you play before going on to
the attack?
So this is a concrete example.
Bishop e four and a blockades the e five pawn.
And if you remember, you might be aware there was this Kasparov against deeper blue match where the
computer played a blockading move like a knight move on E four instead of indulging some tactics.
And Karpov was horrified sometimes.
Yeah.
Blockading moves.
They represent deep positional principles of prevention.
So because that pawns not able to move, then black can't get a knight e five or open up the bishop
or even sacrifice the pawn to try and expose on the e file.
So all of these pieces are much safer with this blockade on the E five pawn.
So this is lock and key prevention and we see c if I'm trying to lift the blockade and Karpov is prepared
to give up his dance, grab Bishop to maintain that blockade and now he's ready for the attack.
He plays G four and actually Bookish was absolutely convinced he was busted here and resigned.
Yeah, the attack is I mean, it's also not just the blockading piece.
It's a potentially good attacking piece as well with G five in mind for F six.
So if the game continued with King H eight, then G five, Bishop E seven.
And here rook f one with F six in mind, if black has to play f six, then White's g full attack is
basically unstoppable.
So this position, Black's pieces are all kind of hemmed in.
And once it's going to invade on G six and there's really no counterplay here, this is a no counterplay
attack.
This is some zu in action on the chessboard.
The queen could go back.
This would be a perfectly good move here to vacate h five for the knight.
And if the exchange sack is offered, it's taken.
Rather, if the offer is accepted, then a huge knight on H five is crushing him with G seven.
So all of this without much counterplay at all for the opponent.
Yeah.
What's black going to do against G seven now?
It's a very, very vicious position.
This is hopeless.
But we see.
Yeah, this is a beautiful example to some extent.
You'll see that there's details in this game.
Black could have had counterplay if they played their cards right.
This is a game in 1978 though, which is very, very interesting.
Showing comp of style right from the beginning of his career, showing at least the notion, the desire
for counterplay, prevention is certainly there.
So if we go back yet for a long time the battle had been around the D five square.
It was a Sicilian defense kind of tamed.
If we look at the opening, you'll see that it was actually an E for opening.
So even E for both Karpov and Adams can play these openings with a view of control and blockade.
You know this D5 idea, the battle about Defy was reflected early on in the opening.
Basically early on, the game is covered in depth in the course.
I just wanted to show you really the principle of prevention, amplify the idea of prevention in this
introduction video.
So so we'll go back so earlier you know we spend four to move 3895 set up a blockade square on E four
and that was used for Bishop E four and then the other bishop given up and then the attack just plays
itself.
So that's the dream that, you know, we can crown well our usual skill set.
If you built up a tactical and attacking skill set that is useful.
But we're emphasizing in this course the sun zu part, you know, put yourself beyond the feet, add
positional security, make sure your position is super strong.
It means that any tactics or attacks or end games, you don't have to fear so much what's going to happen
later if you've really strengthen your position.
And part of the strengthening is restraint of the opponent's pawn breaks, in particular, because they
are often the liberating aspects of the position to liberate pieces of pieces of a pieces of clothes
then behind pawns.
So, yes, prevention, lock and key prevention especially, is desirable.
So we're talking about extreme measures of prevention, preventing legal moves and then going on with
the attack.
It's basically Sun Tzu on the chessboard.
Okay, So I hope you enjoyed this introduction lecture and are inspired by it and think more about positional
security before indulging in lucrative activities like attack or, you know, tactics.
Just wait for the right time and then there'll be even more effective.
Good things come to those who wait.
You know, that's the whole principle.
DeLay gratification as well.
So, yes, blockading prior to an attack is a beautiful thing to witness.
It's a one way attack with minimal controversy.
Okay.
That's very much.