Hi there.
In this lecture, we ask the question.
In particular, we ask Can positional chess be seen as making continually slight improvements?
And do these improvements slight improvements actually result in an engine graph which escalates?
Well, here is a vivid example.
You can see the graph here is of Adams against Simon Williams in the 2010 British championship encounter.
And you can see the gradual improvement of the advantages and the strengthening of the position is actually
evident in the game.
I'm going to show you.
We can see that sometimes positional play is a one way accumulation of advantage graph, so it seems
to link quite well to strengthening the position more and more and no chance is given to the opponent.
So we strengthen the position quite often in the highest priority way specific threats dealt with during
any proposed activity if we're going to make activities.
But yes, generally we see this amazing link between strengthening the position even slightly all the
time.
We might not be thinking about the top moves, just maybe the third or fourth best move, which maybe
is a slight improvement.
The important is the important thing is a lot of slight improvements accumulate and accumulate and actually
correlate to engine evaluation being more and more positive.
And what might be really surprising about this is in the British championship with 2010, the speed
of the games was absolutely amazing as well.
Adams won six games in less than 30 moves, so you might think, well, the positional player, it's
long and drawn out.
Not necessarily.
So here's an example game that this graph is based on.
Adams against Simon Williams.
This was in round ten, so Adams plays E four and we see that E four can be used for positional players.
C five, 93d6.
We have an off beat line here, relatively off beat.
Bishop B five check.
Of course Adams has played the Open Sicilian as well in a positional manner, but this is in my my view
really aligns to Adams positional style.
Just avoiding counterplay generation in the opening, just exchanging on D seven and setting up a proxy
bond, you can see that there's harmony in the position.
There isn't a hemmed in line Square bishop and we've got this kind of bind structure and it's kind of
kind of frustrating sometimes for opponents to be in a positional bind.
We see d4c takes d49 times D for Bishop G seven, so F three.
So this strengthens white a little bit, depriving black of the G four square.
We see black casting bishop e free, adding support for d for Rook and now another strengthening move.
Well, protecting the c pawn.
It seems fairly logical and useful to do that.
So e six and out of frustration there's this D five break and sometimes the positional players need
to know what the state of exploitable advantages or disadvantages are.
Exploit ability is key, so we can't really do too much to dissuade D five.
Sometimes we can embrace what seems to be potentially a liberating pawn break.
It's kind of embraced here with Rook.
C1 So D five actually happens.
It's actually an inaccuracy though, and Adams transitions the position.
E five This is a very, very good move.
If C takes D five, E takes five, Black may have a point to generate counterplay after a rookie eight
here, for example f49g4 and this is not a position we want when there's a bit of counterplay.
So now e five make sure that the e file is shut, that there isn't an active, lively rook on the E
file.
So 98 and this is a good sign piece is going backwards.
We have C takes D five now E takes D five.
If bishop takes E five, D takes E six is good here for white.
This position will be good.
As example where black has the worst pawn structure.
So e takes D five.
We have 49c6 white castles 9c7.
And this is the beauty of accumulating advantages.
Sometimes paradoxical decisions are made or seemingly know someplace.
Well, maybe you might have this belief that all the estate queen's pawn is really weak, but sometimes
we can transform advantages from one to another if there more exploitable exploitable weaknesses is
the key.
And evidence plays 90 8c6 seemingly doing black.
Little bit of a favor in healing the structure, at least not having an isolated Queen's pawn.
Now, if Queen C six was played, there is 94 and a knight going to DD six is huge for white.
So B tanks.
But now there is a potential outpost square in front of this backward pawn.
So that could be used to further enhance the position.
94 tactically making use of the pin.
And this game, by the way, is featured with more detail than in the course.
It's one of many Adams games we look at.
So here now, the knight actually goes back for a moment.
Queen E six, Queen three and F five.
Sorry, A five is played.
And now the knight goes back to that alt post square.
So black's really under control here.
The position is really under control, and White makes a slight improvement here.
This gives the bishop slightly more scope on this side of the ball for maybe Bishop H for being useful.
So a very delicate slight improvements in the position which also potentially correlates to the engine
graph we see.
So we see Queen H three.
This is a slight improvement on the position the Queen wasn't doing too much on on F3 and now there
is a support for sometimes for Bishop H four but also the Queen is looking at C eight, which means
if for example, the move we have Queen.
Okay, so black's getting a little bit more tied down subtly, a little bit more tied down.
And five is an unfortunate move.
It's creating commercial weaknesses.
It's making this pawn of protected possible and we can see subtle improvements being made now to the
position or the opponent damaging their position.
So either you make subtle improvements or there's subtle damage being created in the opponent's position
by themselves.
Now here Queen C4 is looking at a five rook and inaccuracy.
It seems as though Queen might be more accurate.
This position is still very pleasant for whites, for example, you had 96 here for nine takes for this
is going to be a nice advantage.
Winning a pawn and white can work with that.
But Rook eight we see a four and all of a sudden actually Knight B six is a bit of a nuisance, right?
So it's difficult for black.
Black's under pressure here and black tried rook a six.
And believe it or not, guess what Adams played which ended the game move 27.
So, yes, a lot of the black pieces are really made miserable positionally.
These guys are just like passive.
And this next move shows how bad the position is really concretely.
So all of a sudden, we've gone from the abstract notions of slightly improving the position to a concrete
material gain with this next move.
And that move is queenly free and it's very, very difficult for black to perilous.
So black actually resigns.
Simon Williams resigns.
If Queen B seven, there's 95 winning material.
If rook A if rook eight, then knight B six.
Folks, the two rooks.
This is a miserable position and it's going to be made more miserable once it's going to build up.
So, yes, a cute little game, less than 30 moves where White really didn't have any worries in the
world.
You know chosen would be proud.
He doesn't like losing.
Where were the worries or concerns for why and the positional choice of opening is really of interest
as well that we might be worried about all the different flavors of the Sicilian offense.
But you know what?
We can work with modern engines to look at, you know, maybe the second best move, the third best
move, you know, eighth best move.
As long as we have a slight edge, which we can make slight improvements with and yet the engine go
off above.
So if you're doing it right positional player, you'll get more and more games where you look after
with an engine, you see the engine graph and it looks like climbing a mountain, you know, a little
bit by little bit.
So yes, So I am an absolute admirer of Michael Adams's positional controls, calm chess and even the
way, you know, he plays chess with elegance and calmness and gliding pieces.
It's really amazing to watch ADAMS, you know, play play in real life.
So when I have seen him in British events.
So, yeah, this is this course there's a lot of Adams Games examples because I think, you know, he's
one of those grandmasters that has been over 2700 for so many years.
So and his play is is really great positionally to admire.
And this is one of those games.
So can positional chess be seen as making slight improvements?
I would say absolutely.
And you know, we're even asking another question.
You know, are those slight improvements actually related if you looked with an engine after to to the
advantage technically being in your favor?
Absolutely.
And can we win games quickly with such approach and approach?
Absolutely.
The transition from abstract slight improvements to material gains is quite evident in this game example
that Black's pieces are just unable to cope with the questions posed by the white position.
So yes, I hope you really enjoyed this game example, but you see this in more detail later on in the
course as well as a large number of other games of Michael Adams.
Okay, So much.