Hi there.
In this lecture, we're going to talk about why prevention is a key part quite often of accumulating
advantages.
So prevention is unfortunately known in NIMS, which is my system as prophylaxis.
Now, prophylaxis sometimes is given.
A kind of low brow definition.
Indeed.
At one level, prevention can be of a single move.
So, for example, in the Sicilian Najdorf, we could say that the night off is really quite cute with
this high class weighting of a six.
It does help prevent White's use of B five.
We've used the move in what seems to be a sharp opening, but it's standard theory.
Six It does prevent y sometimes with Bishop B five check, which could be useful.
That's just a very, very simple use of prevention.
Prevention can be used with much more impact for the opponent's entire possession or a whole part of
the opponent's possession.
It can be used to restrain the opponent's counterplay, chances to create any play or tactics.
And I'll show you an example which we will revisit later on in the course maths and Nimzowitsch.
But before we do, let's talk about this prevention idea.
So prevention is often better than cure is the advice which has been indicated by a philosopher Desiderius
Erasmus and around 1500 he indicated this idea.
And in chess terms it's very cruel, especially to tactical players.
If we don't give them any counterplay or chances they won't be able to show their great tactical abilities
if all their pieces are shut in.
And we're gradually improving our advantages and we just crush them positionally.
So prevention of counterplay is often, as Nimzowitsch argues, it's often achieved for restraining
the pawn structure.
And you might ask, Well, why is that?
Why is that important to restrain your opponent's pawn structure?
Well, it has an implication for limiting pieces quite often.
And if there's no peace activity or little peace activity, it means there's no tactics.
And also, you know, from the outset, from opening theory, the positional players can be really annoying
to tactical players.
So, for example, if you want to have the fun of the in defense and you want to take up the Sicilian
fashioning carve and you're hoping for firm positions like this, you know, I've experienced positional
players, killjoy friends of mine like Paul Georgiou, who recognize I'm good tactically and he'll just
play what's known as the anti bishop Bb5, which has gained huge popularity, popularity over the years.
It's a cruel way where it's just saying, I'm going to play it like Roy Lapaz with C4 in D for having
none of this counterplay business.
We're going to play our positional game instead.
So prevention is a form of cruelty to tactical players who want to have fun on the chessboard.
It's killing their fun in advance.
We're not going to give them those chances to have devastating attacks against our king.
If we're the positional player.
So, yes, prevention of counterplay is a key thing and it's often achieved with pawn structures kind
of blocking in pieces, especially bishops in closed positions.
Bishops have the peril of being able to be locked in sometimes rather badly.
And we see that in neural network games.
So Leader was able to be much more analytical engines sometimes through just positional play, just
crushing the pieces.
So all the calculations in the world, they didn't mean anything.
And yeah, if we can accumulate advantages without controversy, i.e. preventing the opponent's counterplay,
it would mean that we simplify our chess thinking.
We don't have to calculate loads of variations to see are we losing material or we'd be to there.
We just wanted to increase an advantage and we're getting mated instead now.
So we want to limit the counterplay.
It's definitely a very important consideration to accumulate advantages, essentially without hassle,
without controversy.
We would like to use prevention throughout the accumulation of advantages process.
We might need to change parts of our opening repertoire, not to give counterplay from the outset to
any opponents to grab Petrosian, a world chess champion, hardly lost any games, and he had a lot
of prevention of the opponent's plans even before they had conceived them.
So he really didn't like losing.
So he's known as a master of prophylaxis and exchange sacrifices, defensive exchange sacrifices, quite
often just to shut down the opponent's counterplay.
And so, yes, playing positional players, if you're a tactical player without any positional player,
positional strength, you could be in severe trouble.
You just basically shut down your your chances are shut down, your counterplay shut down.
You can't really demonstrate tactical ability if all your pieces are completely useless.
So, yes, it's interesting.
Also, Leyla Chess, I experienced playing the early leader of chess and the positions just became kind
of depressing.
So Leila wasn't even calculating that much.
Just from experience knew how to play.
Positioning evolved a great positional sense 2500 GM even playing at 2 seconds per move and having all
your tactical ideas and counterplay destroyed makes the position kind of depressing.
There's nothing to look forward to.
So this is the art of positional play, especially against tactical players with nothing else.
To them, it's going to be a delight to destroy those kind of players.
So lack of counterplay can often lead to self destruct and downsides.
Just created.
Adams has mopped up a lot of players who tried to attack him later out of desperation.
They're just crying often more weaknesses and which are easy to exploit.
More downsides.
Now here, here's the master of prophylaxis, the original inspiration, it seems, for Tigran Petrosian,
who inspired Karpov.
We're looking at an Aaron Nimzowitsch example here.
So Hermans Matheson against them as we'll see this against Nimzowitsch.
We'll see this later in the course as well.
So D4 nine six and Nimzowitsch invented the NIMS are Indian and part of this is damaging the pawn structure
and kind of locking down the opponent's pawn structure, which in turn limits the pieces.
So here nimzowitsch just took straight away on C free and he aims to limit the C one bishop and what
really didn't get too much counterplay in this game.
So here C five you see the double pawns, they're fixed and the bishop hasn't got too many attacking
prospects.
So it doesn't matter if the opponent is a tactical genius.
Now it's difficult to make use of this bishop.
So here G three, we have B six, and this other bishop is parried both sides Castle Knight, H four
And now Nimzowitsch is happy to take off that bishop and then get the Queen to a better place tying
white down to C4.
So why it's really not got too much counterplay 96 now threatening a five and white may have felt well
the pawns are being doubled but this leads to a case of more exploitable weaknesses.
This is an example of increasing advantages through what seems to be a paradoxical decision to double
the opponent's pawns.
The thing is, a mighty knight is achieved on C four, and there are targets now after a six to be celebrated
like the backward a pawn.
So B takes rook, takes a six.
Black's able to build up, amplify the pressure on the A file and we see that throughout this.
The counterplay is very limited.
The knight holds D six here now.
Well, it did before as well as the rook and white's.
It doesn't matter if White's a tactical genius, this may as well have been in modern times the leader
neural network playing against the human who just the tactic.
Just disappeared.
92.
We have 95 tying white down further.
Why?
Pieces are becoming absolutely terrible, just looking after weaknesses, basically.
So this is an example of zero counterplay game after E four.
This is a total self destruct move, but there wasn't much else going on here.
Material loss is going to happen, but with this 95 and White now resigned so just 23 moves and knock
out.
So make no mistake, sometimes positional games can end very, very quickly.
Adams has proven that time and time again in the British championship games.
We'll see in this course.
So positional players shutting down counterplay and here if rook d196c free further material lost 99
free check picking up the rook happens it's just a disastrous position rookie one nine and three check.
Yeah it's just a total disaster you know a twos going basically.
So yes this position you can understand why White's has resigned.
There's going to be a lot more material being lost soon.
So anyway, it's a simple example of restraints against pawn structure, hemming in pieces and also
pieces having to look after weaknesses isn't a good sign.
If the opponent's pieces are destroyed through having to nany pawns or being blocked in by pawns, it's
not a good sign.
So this is a really instructive, celebrated game which really impressed me.
So nimzowitsch by his example games and his teachings in my system has influenced future generations
of grandmasters.
But the notion of restraints and prophylaxis and over protection, we're going to examine all of those.
But in order to in more simple terms, prevention can be of specific modes, but it can be shutting
down parts of the opponent's position or whole possession prevention in a wider sense, more significant
sense, more global sense rather than specific like piece or particular move.
Prevention is such a powerful concept in its own right.
In many, many contexts, prevention is better than cure.
Of course, in the medical sense, that's the most like life critical.
If you prevent issues, it's better in the first place.
So prevention is really important, like having flu jabs or whatever.
That is a bit of controversy there for some people.
But in general, you understand that the concept of prevention is important in many different domains.
It's often very, very useful to prevent things rather than have to tackle the symptoms after.
That can be a lot more expensive.
So that applies to all sorts of things in life.
So prevention as a philosophy, we can see that incorporated in our accumulation of advantages model.
It's yeah, like the grace to make the mechanical workings go much more effectively if we don't have
the hassle of having to deal with the symptoms of the opponent's counterplay, if we can prevent the
opponent's counterplay from the outset.
So I hope that's kind of clear that we're going to see look out for this.
The idea of prevention in the games of Karpov and Adams and other great positional players in this course.
It's something which is such a powerful philosophy to embrace.
Och.
And so much.