Hi there.
In this introduction lecture, I'd like to talk about and introduce Karpov as a classic positional player.
So Karpov, his view on chess actually is encapsulated in my view, and some of his key quotations.
One of the very interesting quotations he made, he basically said, Let us say a game and a 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 calculations.
The other is clear positional pressure that leads to an end game with microscopic chances of victory.
I would choose the latter without thinking twice.
And he goes on to say, If the opponent offers keen play, I don't object.
But in such cases, I get less satisfaction, even if I win.
Then from a game conducted according to all the rules of strategy with its ruthless logic.
So.
What do we get from this?
We get this idea.
Cop Off is about control of the position.
He likes to have clear positional pressure, and sometimes there's a maze of variations which might
be promising in some respects, but they're not that clear.
And as human beings, we can easily miscalculate.
So this does seem to be a safer way of playing chess.
Less potential for losing.
If the preference is for clear positional pressure.
And he also enjoys the ruthless logic of the game.
Now.
The Oxford Companions Chess by Hooper and Wald indicate when you look up, if it's a great book, when
you look up, Karpov indicates he's modelled on Capablanca.
Now, I'm sure Capablanca is a huge influence on Karpov.
However, in Gibraltar interviews, Karpov has indicated he is like a petrosian style by playing for
a win as well.
So bear that in mind.
Both Nimzowitsch and Capablanca are potential role models for Anatoly Karpov in his development.
Karpov has also said pawns not only create the sketch for the whole painting, they are the soil, the
foundation of any position.
So he really likes his pawns.
So pawns are the long term elements of positions which we can accumulate advantages with.
So he loves his pawn structures, really values them as opposed to the potential randomness of tactics.
So pawns do provide a kind of ruthless logic to chess, which transcends just calculating lots of if
thens.
In variations, Karpov indicates the ideal in chess can only be a collective image, but in my opinion
it is Capablanca who most closely approaches this.
So this is further evidence.
Capablanca is a huge influence on Karpov really admires Capablanca.
He also said I simply developed the universal style which dominated with the arrival of Spassky and
then Fischer.
But all the time we were different chess players.
Of course, both Spassky and Fisher were brilliant at developing and sensing an initiative.
In that regard, I was perhaps a little inferior, but on the other hand, I stood out by having excellent
technique for converting an advantage, but positional sense and an ability to maneuver positionally
in that area.
I was clearly superior to Spassky and Fischer and perhaps everyone except Petrosian.
So Anatoly Karpov indicate that, and he did hold Petrosian there.
I believe he's a big fan of Petrosian as well as Capablanca.
So yes, this also maneuvering is another way of saying quite often the high class weighting moves because
when you maneuver, the opponents can actually self destruct as well.
That's another perk of maneuvering with small advantages.
So Karpov in general seemed to like even microscopic advantages.
Perhaps we should qualify that if they are able to be accumulated, then they're really going to be
much more meaningful.
These so-called small but kind of effective, if they're more permanent in nature, you can accumulate
them.
So if we see Karpov having the style of Petrosian and chosen being influenced by Nimzowitsch and Nimzowitsch
being influenced by the Art of War principle, which is basically put yourself beyond defeat before
going onto the attack, we can perhaps get another view points that we want to try and do things with
minimal backfire.
Defense first, strengthening the position first.
No risky tactics, no risky attacks.
When the endgames, if needed, make it long and grueling if needed.
So.
It means you're less likely to be.
That is, to be beaten in principle if you're not playing risky plans international.
Andrew Leger I believe once he told me he started really improving when he started studying Cop Off
and I've been meaning to study Karpov for many years after, but I've been attracted by my dynamic attacking
heroes as well, like Garry Kasparov.
So it's good to see the champions of particular styles, though, and we're going to see many great
game examples of Anatoly Karpov.
Let me just highlight one.
So this is from the north of 1994, which Karpov actually scored 11 out of 13 ahead of Kasparov with
eight and a half out of 13.
And Kasparov indicated the winner of Linares should be known as the tournament world champion.
Perhaps he regretted that after Karpov's amazing performance.
So this is a game against Judit Polgar, which is analyzed in detail in the course.
Let's have a look.
So e four from Karpov so he can play E four position eight and we have a C free Sicilian.
So this is an interesting positional choice already by passing.
You could argue sharper open Sicilian variations.
We see E six, D, four, D five, and our E takes D five, e takes D five.
Now 9f3, nine, C six, Bishop B five, and now C four.
This is a risky, strategic decision.
It commits the pawns.
It releases the tension on white center.
If not, it's f six.
This situation should be a pleasant advantage though, for white against the isolated queens born.
That's one of the big reasons for playing the tariff operations.
Sometimes black has this isolated queens pawn and white should be able to establish a small edge.
But we have C four and this might actually make things worse.
We have 95 queen bee sex cup of not minding, giving up the bishop.
So often when you give up alliance membership bishop you get dance square grip a more intense dark square
strategy and we have comp of casting Bishop DD six and they'll be free.
So in some sense you might think this is paradoxical un doubling, but we get more exploitable advantages
by doing this and the possibility our bishop has an see one of exchanging off the dark square bishops
see to be free is played.
We have eight times be free 97 and our bishop afraid so.
With this strategic Bishop exchange, we can look forward to outposts, more emphatic outposts on C
five and E five potentially when Bishop takes e five details, Bishop e six and now Queen D for cop
off, not minding the exchange of Queens here, nine and five.
It's too dangerous to take on.
Be free.
Bishop takes e seven with the king in the center and things like Rook takes a seven.
This is not worth considering.
This is just a great position for white.
And the Rock could use the A file.
So anyway, 95 we have Queen C five, H 592, F six, E takes f6g tanks.
So in some sense, it looks as though, well, at least blacks got king of Southern potential g file.
We have Bishop b4 King of seven Rook a four.
And you can see that the pressure is mounting here on that backward pawn on the semi-open file.
Queen's come off a six.
So there is positional pressure here.
This actually matches the quotation.
Karpov enjoying his last thing positional pressure H four is played.
This was one opportunity, as we'll see in the course.
Actually, Black might have had some play with D four.
So with Rookie, a black might have had a little bit of play in this variation, but it wasn't played
and things go very downhill for Judit Polgar.
Now after Karpov increases the pressure and Black's pieces are starting to be terrible in relation to
essentially oval protecting weaknesses, which is a thing Nimzowitsch has said you only over protect
strong points, not basically weaknesses because it means all your pieces are becoming terribly placed
if they're just on the defensive looking after weaknesses.
We have King f2 Ruby 8b4, rookie 8b3.
This D4 square is very nice.
Bishop B seven and a five.
This is a terrible looking bishop on eight.
So Rook goes to a two rookie six and now Bishop a seven.
Rugby five makes things a lot worse.
If Rook be a bishop.
See five.
This position is also it's improbable for White to play like this.
Dislodge the knight used for.
It's going to be lovely for white to play this position with a knight coming to see five than eight
pawns likely to drop after and if rooks to King Jeffrey, there's still advantages here.
So we have rook be five Knight be free, bishop be seven.
And now here g four.
So attacking Black's best piece is a way of improving the position.
If we can get rid of Black's best piece, the knight so that Knight's kicks backwards.
And now a tactic 94 is trapping the rug.
Quite a simple tactic, really.
94 trapping the rook and Judit Polgar resign.
This doesn't move very free.
So it shows a very tactical player like Judit Polgar was essentially shut down.
Even from the opening, we could say Judit Polgar was shut down.
The choice of opening very positional, not giving Judit Polgar the attacking, dynamic positions she
would usually excel in.
So this situation, if it continued with White winning the exchange, the bishop could come back to
safeguard C free.
Why?
It just has a huge advantage to work with.
So yeah, an interesting positional game which I covered actually many years ago on YouTube and it's
nice to revisit these games with more detailed analysis.
So essentially, yes, we see that several of Karpov's quotations are actually within this game.
The pawn structure did set up the sketch for the whole painting.
From the opening, there was clear positional pressure throughout this game.
There wasn't anything too complicated tactically to work out.
It was a bit like a Capablanca game.
You could argue it had clarity, simplification, aspect.
Capablanca liked simplifying when he had advantages.
It was a bit like Capablanca, it was a bit like Petrosian.
So anyway, we will see many, many examples of Anatoly Karpov, which you could argue any positional
course can't really be without Anatoly Karpov.
He's one of the strongest classic positional players of all time.
So I hope you enjoyed this introduction lecture and a more revved up and looking forward to the detailed
analysis of Karpov game examples and the patterns that we can use, the implied patterns that we can
use in our own games.
Okay, Thanks so much.