Hi there.
In this lecture, Michael Adams is playing against the Ginger GM Simon Williams.
So this is in the 2010 British Championship, round ten E four from Michael Adams.
We have a Sicilian defense nine, we have 3d6.
Another fun killer move, Bishop B five checks.
This is a more positional choice in many respects than D four.
So instead of an open Sicilian, Adams is going for a moxie binds pawn structure.
He first gets rid of a piece which might not be compatible with pawns on line squares.
So the rest of the pieces are in harmony with the structure.
You can imagine this bishop is not going to be blocked in by light square pawns, but this one would
be.
So it's a logical opening for a miracle.
He binds without a bad bishop, basically.
So the miracle he binds is designed against D five break or B five break.
So these two pawns are guardians of D, five and B five.
And the idea is to try and minimize the counterplay from the opponent, which we have to deal with,
which is a lot of hassle sometimes.
So we get a position here where y it's very solid and there shouldn't be too many worries.
We see rook c8b free, so we see E six here.
Very interesting, rook.
C one And now Simon Williams tries to break out the bind with D five depending on how white plays.
Yeah, this is interesting this D five but white played very accurately here.
What be your positional choice in this possession?
Okay, 400 points.
E five.
This does seem to be the top engine move as well.
If we play C takes.
This is slightly different.
We're kind of liberating blacks position because we've given them some an e file pressure and that makes
a difference here.
For example E five rookie eight and this is more hassle than it should be.
Blacks getting an even position by playing E five.
We're keeping that e fo shots for black and now 98 we have c takes d5e times.
If bishop takes e five, then D takes e six.
And this position after F takes white castles.
F for this position, Queen and free white is a big advantage.
So E takes D five.
And now we have four.
So the bishops locked out as a weak pawn on day five.
But the funny thing is, after 90, 86 white Castles, there's a funny thing.
Now, after 97, what would be your choice here?
Great positional move here, which seems completely paradoxical in some respects.
So what would you play here?
1936.
Seemingly it's changing the structure.
It's giving black a backward pawn.
Basically B takes is played if Queen St.
C six.
We have 94 here.
So attacking the Queen and then we get in 96 and this is a great position.
So, okay, so B tanks, we have 94 anyway here making use of the pen and the C five squared.
So that pawn in front of the backward pawn nice blockade square.
So 95 Queen E seven.
But where is the teeth.
Okay.
The knight retracts actually, where can we get actually more teeth into Black's position to get a bigger
advantage.
Let's see Queen F3, This is really quite dynamic.
There's a dynamic consideration already made here, which is phenomenal.
So we consider that the blockade square in front of a backward pawn is great, but how do we actually
increase the advantage from there?
Well, we look at the perks.
Well, with hindsight of this game, one of the perks, if we have a knight on C five, we've got a
knight potentially looking at B seven and DH seven.
So just bear that in mind.
How could that be useful?
Maybe we can amplify, for example, those squares as tactical squares to make use of.
And we see here after a5c5 gets the queen off.
The light squares here.
The queen is actually evicted from the square.
So there's a kind of weakness of the last move because the queens neglected.
Now, this diagonal, if it did go to F five here, G four looks remarkably strong, trapping the queen.
The queen hasn't got DD free.
So yeah, that looks remarkably winning.
So the queen is evicted off the light squares and now we have Bishop F two and it does seem white reserves
the right to put the Queen on a light square, which could be handy in conjunction with the seven.
We have rook a, b eight, and now we see Queen H three.
And this is really funny stuff now because.
One is potentially threatening 97.
We have a five if h six.
Let me just demonstrate this outpost is actually quite vicious 97 because 97 is important, whereas
Black do rook eight there's might be six winning in exchange.
So this is very funny stuff.
If rook be 7.6 check.
And then we're still taking out an exchange.
So, yeah, very, very funny stuff.
H 697 896.
Just to recap, you know, we're winning exchange there.
So yes, F five looks like a sad move to have to make, but it's it seems a necessary move and it basically
gives this protected passport which needs to be now blockaded.
But the issue is the queen swinging around now, hitting a five.
There's also there was also another good move in the position.
G4 It seems this way of playing it is also viable.
It's a big advantage to white hair as well.
But Quincey phrase nifty looking at a five and rook eight is actually an inaccuracy which worsens Black's
position.
If Queen rd eight Rook fd1 bishop at 96.
And then this position we're taking out for Bishop C five.
This is a huge position.
We can take 85 there.
So anyway, things can get bad anyway, but Rook eight we have a four, so the threat is knight B six.
It's like these rooks are in trouble and this rooks holding that, that pawn, you know, the pieces
are under strain basically already.
They're not great.
They're passive pieces.
We have rook sex and now guess what ends the game here?
Queen de Fray.
Yeah.
This is really awkward for black.
Black resigned if Queen.
B seven.
We just -- with nine.
C five and winning a rook there, actually.
So we're going to be winning the you know, we've got that protected.
So what is black doing here?
So.
If Rook, I ain't the knight be six, then we're winning.
Exchange like that and we can further make progress.
Building up pressure there beautifully.
So yeah, Queenie Free ended the game.
So it's funny.
Another quick win for for Adams actually basically in this tournament so in this tournament he had actually
six games against kind of near 2500 opposition winning in less than 30 moves and he's supposed to be
a positional player and this is one of those games.
It's like everyone's absolutely terrified of Adams and Adams has to win to maintain his like 2700 rating.
And he did so spectacularly in this edition of the British championship.
So this is one of those profound games where that really didn't seem to have any counterplay, any life
to the possession.
Basically, after the opening wanted to play in the spirit of Bobby Fischer, you know, the exciting
dreams, you know, the night of games of of Bobby Fischer for the Open Sicilian.
But the Fun Kill started with Bishop B5 Check and the proxy mind.
It's very, very logical pawn structure play to restrain counterplay, to restrain pawn breaks.
And we see very expert transitioning as well of pawn structure in this example where black tries to
relieve against the proxy binds.
White is very careful not to give black too many rhodes of counterplay like semi f4.
So things are shut down here counterplay is really shut down quite well and this position with the backward
pawn is putting strain on the black rooks and in fact the black rooks find themselves in big trouble.
Like it really is a found game.
So kicking the queen first off the light squared diagonal, not immediately using light squared diagonal
parking the bishop on F2 first reserves some other ideas and gets rid of even any tempo gain a sniff
of a tempo gainer.
So here.
Yeah.
Now there's this big idea of 97.
It is absolutely a remarkable game how this queens probing on both sides of the board and winning material
just with Queen moves.
Winning material really a profound positional game.
It shows positional play can actually win games pretty quickly.
Och, really amazing stuff.
I hope you enjoyed this game as much as me and so much.