WEBVTT 00:01.790 --> 00:02.570 Hi there. 00:02.810 --> 00:07.020 In this lecture, we're going to talk about the foundations of modern positional chess. 00:07.100 --> 00:09.350 So who laid the foundations? 00:09.830 --> 00:16.670 There was such a thing as the romantic era in chess where attacks were kind of hit and miss. 00:17.180 --> 00:23.750 People would play gambits like The King's Gambit, which today is thought to be unsound but often get 00:23.750 --> 00:26.800 spectacular attacking combinations. 00:26.810 --> 00:30.770 And it was a way of winning games, and it did create that beautiful age. 00:30.770 --> 00:33.230 There are a lot of celebrated games. 00:33.230 --> 00:38.420 The immortal games of chess are quite often attacking masterpieces which are not that positional in 00:38.420 --> 00:39.140 nature. 00:39.380 --> 00:47.240 But Steinitz was the kind of innovator who recognized that the attacks. 00:47.240 --> 00:51.680 Why are they successful and why are they unsuccessful? 00:51.710 --> 00:59.990 He recognized that chess actually can be viewed scientifically, that successful attacks, often when 00:59.990 --> 01:00.950 the opponents. 01:01.730 --> 01:09.230 Is under a disadvantage or we have accumulated advantages and in fact is much more likely to be successful. 01:09.620 --> 01:17.690 So he wanted greater predictability for a tax being successful and recognized the elements of chess, 01:17.690 --> 01:19.840 which we still use today. 01:19.850 --> 01:26.180 And of course, we're aware of many, many more game examples, so many, many more fine grained elements. 01:26.180 --> 01:30.680 How elements are managed converting, converting elements from one element to another. 01:30.980 --> 01:36.920 If we can recognize the elements of a chess position, we know which side is better. 01:37.790 --> 01:44.930 So even beginner players recognize usually material balance as an element of possession of the position. 01:44.930 --> 01:47.660 So we start off with equal material. 01:48.260 --> 01:56.690 But there's other more discerning elements like king safety, like the activity, the relative activity 01:56.690 --> 02:04.760 of the pieces, like the pawn structure, like we can strong squares and the concept of space, more 02:04.760 --> 02:11.300 abstract elements of space and the responsibility that entails central control. 02:11.300 --> 02:16.850 When we think about the center, which side has central control, the hyper modernist preferred to view 02:16.850 --> 02:19.010 control as opposed to occupation. 02:20.690 --> 02:25.780 We can both occupy and control the center or just control the center from afar. 02:25.790 --> 02:28.850 Within Ghetto Bishops, for example. 02:29.150 --> 02:35.120 So these elements are the starting points for the discussion of which side is better. 02:35.360 --> 02:38.270 But what if you have better king Safety? 02:38.270 --> 02:40.370 The opponent has better pawn structure. 02:40.550 --> 02:44.240 It's the overall number that we can give to positions. 02:44.390 --> 02:49.640 Engines literally give a number for who is better, but we've got to kind of think in our head who is 02:49.640 --> 02:52.430 better overall. 02:52.430 --> 02:55.730 So elements are in conflict with each other. 02:55.820 --> 03:02.660 And Jeremy Silman introduced the concept of imbalances that each opening is actually a way of getting 03:02.660 --> 03:05.510 different imbalances in a position. 03:05.510 --> 03:10.040 For example, if you play this in in defense, if your opponent plays a sin in defense, you might have 03:10.040 --> 03:14.600 certain advantages, but the opponent has their advantages to work with. 03:14.750 --> 03:17.690 So it gives a route for both sides to win. 03:17.690 --> 03:24.080 Black could potentially win on the central pawn majority if they get to an end game and they have things 03:24.080 --> 03:27.980 like the semi-open CFO and what has the same default. 03:28.010 --> 03:33.790 And so each opening can be seen as giving elements of interest to both sides. 03:33.800 --> 03:38.750 And it's up to you to prove that your elements are better than the opponents. 03:39.590 --> 03:47.420 Now, I like to consider the overall elements and think what are the actual kind of downsides of the 03:47.420 --> 03:48.170 opponent's position. 03:48.170 --> 03:51.240 So it might not be that they've got triple pawns. 03:51.260 --> 03:53.680 It might be because they've got an unsafe king. 03:53.690 --> 04:00.530 You've got to really determine factoring in the elements, sort of neutralizing each other from the 04:00.530 --> 04:07.220 position you have, who is overall better and what are the real kind of exploitable downsides. 04:08.300 --> 04:12.590 We've got to actually be able to exploit downsides with our pieces in a particular position. 04:12.590 --> 04:16.160 We are playing in a particular position position. 04:16.400 --> 04:25.910 So I like to think about downsides as the overarching way of considering element management. 04:26.690 --> 04:31.490 I did many years back think of element management, but I just had a lot more fun. 04:31.490 --> 04:37.430 Thinking about downsides and downsides can be concrete downsides, like an unprotected piece, in which 04:37.430 --> 04:43.910 case you might have tactical solutions or an unsafe king, but it can be more abstract, profound downsides 04:43.910 --> 04:47.180 of the opponent's position, like a weakened structure or weak square. 04:47.390 --> 04:52.910 And you can use positional methods to exploit, for example, weak square or establish an outpost. 04:52.910 --> 04:59.480 So to establish the downsides is talking, relatively speaking, of the elements for both sides. 05:00.980 --> 05:02.450 And I absolutely love that. 05:02.450 --> 05:07.580 And it scored me so many tournament victories online and brilliant games over the board. 05:08.120 --> 05:14.210 This concept of the downsides model, but it's based on the elements of the position. 05:14.210 --> 05:18.350 And the more we can appreciate the elements of position, the better we're going to be able to judge 05:18.350 --> 05:20.540 the actual downsides of the opponent's position. 05:20.720 --> 05:25.220 So we're looking critically at elements like a weak king and weak squares. 05:25.220 --> 05:27.530 Is it really an exploitable downside? 05:27.530 --> 05:28.040 Maybe it's not. 05:28.040 --> 05:29.030 In some cases. 05:29.030 --> 05:30.620 Maybe you need to wait more. 05:30.650 --> 05:35.900 You might need to use the methods given in this course of positional play, like waiting or provoking 05:35.900 --> 05:40.820 more weaknesses or waiting for the opponent's position to become more disorganized before you try and 05:40.820 --> 05:46.010 exploit downsides, or just in strengthening your position slightly, improving your position while 05:46.010 --> 05:46.700 waiting. 05:46.700 --> 05:49.100 So that's waiting in a high class star. 05:49.100 --> 05:53.680 If you can slightly improve your position and waiting for downsides which you can exploit. 05:53.690 --> 06:00.300 So the downsides model to me is is absolutely vital, as in this course as it is in the complete Guide 06:00.300 --> 06:03.710 to tactics course or the attacking course. 06:04.250 --> 06:07.430 It's just what downsides are we most interested in? 06:08.600 --> 06:13.550 And also in this course, the accumulation of advantages. 06:13.550 --> 06:15.590 Some advantages are just temporary in nature. 06:15.590 --> 06:23.330 So quite often in positional games, the nature of the advantage is the pawn structure is like a storage 06:23.330 --> 06:23.690 device. 06:23.690 --> 06:29.000 You can actually have more permanent storable advantages. 06:29.000 --> 06:37.340 And Steinitz in a particular tournament, Vienna, 1873, kind of showed the world a new way of playing 06:37.550 --> 06:38.150 this. 06:38.150 --> 06:44.870 This game is regarded as the early kind of example of positional chess. 06:45.110 --> 06:50.570 Steinitz was playing against Adolf Einstein, who is a great romantic player and romantic era of chess, 06:50.570 --> 06:53.950 brilliant combinations, combinations and tactics. 06:53.960 --> 07:03.350 So this game in Vienna, 1873, round seven, Steinitz chooses a D opening quite often D four or C4 07:03.350 --> 07:08.870 lends itself very well to more storable permanent advantages in a position. 07:08.870 --> 07:14.390 So it's more about the pawn structure and plans rather than the chaos of tactical positions like The 07:14.390 --> 07:15.260 King's Gambit. 07:15.260 --> 07:17.630 And also there's no element of risk. 07:17.630 --> 07:20.240 We're not committing a pawn, maybe unsettlingly so. 07:20.450 --> 07:23.060 Launchers are built by Steinitz in this game. 07:23.060 --> 07:26.090 It starts with Queen's Gambit declined. 07:26.660 --> 07:35.570 And even if we take an engine view, it's a very nice like mountain climb without too many hiccups. 07:35.570 --> 07:37.640 It's very controlled chess. 07:37.640 --> 07:42.230 And that's the kind of game we really want to play, where we play in a reliable fashion. 07:42.230 --> 07:44.420 We're not like in a gambling casino. 07:44.420 --> 07:48.890 We're on a chessboard with ruthless logic if we want it to be. 07:48.890 --> 07:54.170 So there's the ruthless logic of the pawn structure, of stored advantages, of accumulating, advantages 07:54.170 --> 07:59.690 of kind of using the pawn structure as a way of maintaining more permanent advantages in possession. 07:59.690 --> 08:06.920 So here, after 1987, Steinitz took on de five takes and we have the so called hanging pawn structure 08:06.920 --> 08:08.060 here, actually. 08:08.060 --> 08:17.270 So hanging pawns with the adjacent files, potentially black could make use of these but white plays 08:17.270 --> 08:20.420 Queen A and we have 94 already. 08:20.420 --> 08:21.860 This is a mistake. 08:21.860 --> 08:24.950 And black is heavily penalized for this mistake. 08:24.950 --> 08:29.240 If H six Bishop H four black could have played default. 08:29.240 --> 08:37.460 And this position blacks using their kind of favorable imbalances from the opening this potential to 08:37.460 --> 08:43.820 open up the bishop and inflict structural damage and this situation should be about even so black not 08:43.820 --> 08:46.760 managing their elements quite optimally. 08:46.760 --> 08:51.320 And now white is establishing a big advantage with bishop takes E4. 08:51.950 --> 08:55.460 We have D takes E4 now Rook for one. 08:55.460 --> 08:57.020 This is a really clever point. 08:57.620 --> 09:02.690 If one played Bishop takes E seven, then it's only a small edge to play with. 09:02.720 --> 09:06.080 This is less favorable than the game continuation. 09:06.260 --> 09:12.530 For example, this position is less favorable than what happened with FD one. 09:13.670 --> 09:17.760 So we have an element, a greater element of simplification, so it's much more controlled and then 09:17.780 --> 09:20.630 it takes G five, Queen takes G five, Rook takes these seven. 09:20.630 --> 09:22.340 So the bishop's on the fire. 09:22.340 --> 09:24.050 We have the rook protecting the bishop. 09:24.050 --> 09:29.570 If Bishop c eight we have rook D five tempo gainer and we can play Queen A four and you can see that 09:29.570 --> 09:35.660 that pawn advantage for white, relatively speaking, it can be picked up and white's increasing the 09:35.660 --> 09:38.000 advantage advantage ruthlessly. 09:38.000 --> 09:43.650 So Rook FP eight We have Queen bee free, which is a nice tactic in a way. 09:43.650 --> 09:45.710 It hits B seven and F seven. 09:45.950 --> 09:52.430 So Bishop C six, Queen takes F seven check and H four to try and nudge the Queen away from G seven 09:52.430 --> 09:53.300 because that would be checkmate. 09:53.300 --> 09:58.970 If Queen takes G7 without the Queen protecting G seven, Queen G four and now taking another pawn. 09:59.420 --> 10:01.910 So accumulating more advantage. 10:02.670 --> 10:03.780 In the possession. 10:03.780 --> 10:07.260 We have a couple of rooks coming off. 10:07.260 --> 10:11.490 Rook takes Be2, but Black's not been given that much counterplay. 10:11.490 --> 10:14.130 The bishop is kind of blunted by its own pawn. 10:14.580 --> 10:16.650 And we see Queen take C five. 10:18.540 --> 10:28.350 OC Queen E six and our Rook RD 1h6 and Rook dd six, Queen and seven, which does look at F two. 10:28.380 --> 10:29.580 This needs to be addressed. 10:29.580 --> 10:31.080 Otherwise why don't we mate it? 10:31.440 --> 10:32.910 But a clever move here. 10:33.060 --> 10:33.700 What do you think? 10:33.720 --> 10:34.770 Why you should play here. 10:36.640 --> 10:37.690 400 points. 10:38.480 --> 10:38.930 Yeah. 10:40.040 --> 10:40.670 91. 10:40.670 --> 10:46.490 It hits B2 and Vertex F to Lovely and we're still attacking C six. 10:46.490 --> 10:48.170 So Black's losing material. 10:48.170 --> 10:48.980 Rookie two is played. 10:48.980 --> 10:55.940 If Rook be one we can play Queen take C six knowing that our rooks guarding D one so rookie two And 10:55.940 --> 11:06.470 now a nice move to avoid any hassles with even rook e one guess what is played here and this is a hallmark 11:06.470 --> 11:07.930 of positional chess players as well. 11:07.940 --> 11:12.860 Patience no hurry, good self control accumulate advantages gradually. 11:12.860 --> 11:17.480 Less controversially it's like slow and sure climb up a mountain. 11:17.600 --> 11:18.110 So what? 11:18.150 --> 11:19.370 Be a nice move here. 11:20.260 --> 11:25.540 Yeah, slightly improving the position, kicking off one with tempo tempo gainer again, Black resigned. 11:26.140 --> 11:32.580 So if Rook takes a two, yes, we can take on C six and there's no controversy that hasn't got any attacking 11:32.580 --> 11:33.010 a chance. 11:33.010 --> 11:33.700 Really. 11:33.700 --> 11:39.040 We can play Queen D five hitting the rook and finding Route D a black would have to go back. 11:39.700 --> 11:43.120 And we just got an absolutely winning position here to go go from here. 11:44.110 --> 11:53.380 So it was a very nice control game, which is a big contrast to some of science's crazy King's Gambit 11:53.710 --> 11:54.760 adventures. 11:54.760 --> 11:58.690 Whereas King's sometimes unsafe in the opening, it's much more double edged. 11:58.690 --> 12:00.250 This was more single edged. 12:00.250 --> 12:06.010 We want as a positional player to get into the single edged mindset, not allowing counterplay, having 12:06.010 --> 12:14.830 complete control of the position at all times, ideally being able to slightly increase our superiority 12:14.830 --> 12:20.500 over the opponents, and that will culminate in either an attack or winning material, you know, winning 12:20.530 --> 12:26.380 tactics, winning material and just winning end games generally if it goes all the way. 12:26.500 --> 12:31.720 So basically, we have a lot to thank Steinitz for. 12:31.780 --> 12:39.130 Unless Lasker basically took Steinitz his scientific approach and made it into a much more formidable 12:39.130 --> 12:46.450 weapon, also factoring in the opponent and the tournament situation, etc., and having finer grains 12:46.450 --> 12:49.270 elements and knowing how elements interchange with each other. 12:49.270 --> 12:53.830 So Lasker, in Kramnik's view, became the first 2700 player. 12:53.830 --> 12:58.470 But in terms of innovation, Steinitz is the great innovator. 12:58.480 --> 13:04.870 He is the great scientist, which the elements and that consideration of elements of the position that 13:04.870 --> 13:10.000 we take for granted nowadays and how we assess positions and imbalance. 13:10.000 --> 13:16.900 Fearing from SILMAN, I like to think of the downsides of the opponent's position, taking all elements 13:16.900 --> 13:17.650 into consideration. 13:17.650 --> 13:20.350 What are the real kind of exploitable downsides? 13:21.130 --> 13:29.830 So basically, yeah, but it all started from Steinitz taking this idea that chess doesn't have to be 13:29.830 --> 13:31.000 complete chaos. 13:31.270 --> 13:37.960 The pawns enclosed in semi-closed positions, which often boards the likes of Morphy to tears, it would 13:37.960 --> 13:43.180 often request certain games and the match to be one if we hated the close games. 13:43.180 --> 13:44.410 But it's in the closed. 13:44.410 --> 13:52.180 In semi closed positions, we can often accumulate advantages in a much more reliable manner with less 13:52.180 --> 13:53.770 counterplay from the opponents. 13:53.770 --> 13:57.640 I mean, we see in this game that the bishop was blunted, for example. 13:57.640 --> 14:04.000 So the pawns are doing quite significant long term damage to certain pieces like blunting a bishop here 14:04.720 --> 14:10.870 on the pawns, blunting the Bishop on Be7 really didn't have much attacking coordination. 14:11.710 --> 14:20.500 So we're talking about a way of playing kind of less risky chess and future world champions, basically 14:20.500 --> 14:23.290 took aspects of Lasker and honed in on them. 14:23.290 --> 14:28.990 Lasker was considered a style of all styles he could play, positioning tactically and everything. 14:28.990 --> 14:35.920 But certain world champions, particularly like Petrosian use prevention in particular, kind of became 14:35.920 --> 14:38.410 a specialist on prevention and hardly lost any games. 14:38.410 --> 14:42.100 Karpov liked to say in this Gibraltar interview. 14:42.130 --> 14:45.040 He liked Petrosian but use that style to win. 14:45.040 --> 14:50.740 So you have this combination of making it very difficult to be beaten, but still using that style to 14:50.740 --> 14:52.090 try and grind the opponent down. 14:52.090 --> 14:55.150 Even it's in some long end games to copy off. 14:55.150 --> 15:02.800 Karpov was a very pragmatic player, steadily improving his positions and even using microscopic advantages 15:02.800 --> 15:08.890 and said that he preferred tiny advantages to ones which might offer the opponent's counterplay. 15:08.890 --> 15:17.020 So we're talking about this spirit of very controlled play and detailed knowledge of even tiny advantages 15:17.020 --> 15:19.540 as long as we can accumulate them, that's the key. 15:19.540 --> 15:24.460 So the accumulation of advantages is principle and philosophy and control. 15:24.460 --> 15:28.060 Chess and restricting opponent's counterplay is all part of that. 15:28.060 --> 15:30.040 Because how can you increment the advantages? 15:30.040 --> 15:31.570 If the opponents got loads of counterplay? 15:31.570 --> 15:33.130 You need to calculate loads. 15:33.130 --> 15:34.870 We don't want those scenarios. 15:35.440 --> 15:44.200 So ideally we want positional control, chess, one way street chess and modern positional players, 15:44.200 --> 15:51.040 which I totally admire, like Michael Adams, they they can be over 2700 for many, many years, record 15:51.040 --> 15:57.430 number of years because they have this fundamental fundamentally solid basis to their chess you know 15:57.520 --> 15:59.800 karpov's dominant for so many so many years. 15:59.800 --> 16:09.730 So the positional way, the whole foundation of the positional way was seen in examples of Johann Steinitz. 16:09.730 --> 16:16.630 So he himself a brilliant romantic player, transitions to be this more scientifically oriented player. 16:16.630 --> 16:19.630 So, yes, I hope you take inspiration from this. 16:20.030 --> 16:22.730 Maybe check out even more Steinitz games. 16:23.040 --> 16:26.510 You know, the sites like chess games come to check out Steinitz. 16:26.510 --> 16:31.410 But this tournament in particular, according to Wiki and other sources. 16:31.430 --> 16:33.050 Vienna, 1873. 16:33.050 --> 16:37.400 Some interesting real positional games, the start of positional chess, basically. 16:37.520 --> 16:43.370 And, you know, this is one of those key games which triggered the start of the scientific revolution 16:43.490 --> 16:44.570 of chess. 16:44.610 --> 16:45.160 Okay. 16:45.170 --> 16:49.610 I hope this is inspirational food for thought and so much.