Hi there.
In this lecture, we see a really inspirational positional game.
Michael Adams against Steven Gordon, a grandmaster in the 2019 British Championship round nine.
So if fall from Adams, does he have a positional variation to choose against the Sicilian defense?
So we have de six and he does.
He plays Bishop B five check.
So this bypasses a lot of the more tactical, hairy, complex lines of the Sicilian defense, the Canal
Sokolski attack, it could be called.
So we have nine BD seven So interesting.
If Bishop de seven White could consider just taking and there are options either from Roxy Binds with
C for later or White could even play it like a more in the Roy Lopez spirit of C for D four.
So this is going to be about an even position, but the nature of the possession is important, even
though it's about even the position is much simpler in many respects.
And it's about like building a central pawn structure.
You can more easily identify the possession or kind of map around the place.
It's not a maze of complex tactical forcing variations.
So we have 97 and then the bishop drops back.
This is a really interesting move indeed.
So in advance of a six, if White had castled a six, the bishop can't actually live on a four here.
It would have to retreat back.
That would be the point.
So the bishop would have to go back.
If it goes to a four, then b5c for winning the bishop.
So Bishop A4 keeps the option open for this bishop to actually come to this diagonal potentially.
If C four can be played as well, that's that will be stopping B five.
In any case we see 9gf6 white castles and you might think, Wow, this is surprising what's going on
here.
We have a six.
So the first kind of little trap if Knight takes E for rookie one is good because in this position D
four and it's a funny position indeed if e six for example D five and black would be in trouble here
because of this pin, this is just one example.
This pin is actually troublesome for black.
So basically if it takes D five, so we'll look at those nine takes D five, there's Queen takes D five
and you might think, well, just black plays E five, Right.
What would you play in this position for 100 points.
So the king's in the center, we've got this pin.
Is there a tactical idea here?
You know, there's a crushing tactical idea.
It takes five because of details.
We have rook tanks, e five check, exploiting the pin piece and then D six absolutely crushing stuff
with black holes.
Ouch.
Forking Queen and rook.
So a six is played.
We have C four, E five, and now this gives a hole on D five.
There has been a Nakamura against Maxim Bachelor graph Grandmaster game where that continued G six and
that seems a bit more solid for black and it ended in a draw but OC e five was played.
We have d3g 6.12 C frame Bishop G seven So what is the positional plan?
What positional plan would you choose in this position?
Test your positional plan.
So Adams chooses a very interesting one, as you might suspect.
Yeah.
Rugby one, we can try and undermine and try and get pressure on the queenside, try and undermine the
structure.
Black Castles.
But first here, interestingly, H three is played.
So this move give the king some air.
Prevent that using G four.
Maybe that's useful sometimes in the future.
We have 98 and now B four.
C takes B four.
Now you could say, what about B six?
Well, that does weaken the C six square one could pop in there and then say Bishop G five.
And this is going to be interesting for this position.
So say Bishop B seven, we could take and then we could take on C five.
We're going to end up with a small edge, say D takes, we're going to end up with a small edge here,
a bit of a binds against the back of pawn.
So oc C takes b4 is played rook takes b4 now 9595 and here it seems that even gone is not quite with
it.
He plays B5 with a tactical trick idea which might not be entirely appropriate in this kind of position.
Okay.
If Knight takes a forward being played queen takes this position, the Queen could drop back to a fray
with advantage.
There's pressure points in this position, but b five and NMS actually takes on B5 and we have Bishop
DD seven.
Now here is a really amazing concept.
So for 200 points, what would you play in this position?
And it leaves white kind of dominant with an upward trend.
So it's a positional sacrifice that's a clue to you.
Okay, it's b six.
So it represents a position of sacrifice.
There are the moves.
I mean, Bishop G.
Five could have been played and sure, why it's going to be slightly better here.
Or Bishop E three could have been played.
There are other ways of playing it, you know, and what it's going to end up with an edge in these
variations but this is absolutely know counterplay crushing B six encouraging black to win material
win exchange but what do we have for that?
We have a strong pass board we have a strong night on D five.
These are positional signposts.
So we have F six.
Well, so F six.
That looks like a not not very useful move, but what else if 9f6, Bishop G five Bishop takes F six
and white, it's going to remain extremely dominant here in this position.
So so F six we have 92 and this knight is up to no good to help its fellow knight in crime.
So Rook have 79c4, Queen RD seven and Adams welcomes the exchange of Queens.
Bishop E three So Black has no attacking prospects and hardly any tactics.
Those aspects of chess are being shut out.
In fact, Black has to defend against past potential now f five for keeping the bishop in the pawn chain.
Bishop f6 at least trying to use the eight rook b one getting behind the pass pawn Bishop d A and now
Knight A five rugby and now 96 rook B seven.
Look at those rooks.
They're really suffering from not having what they need.
So yeah, they are kind of bad pieces, which they can't really improve that easily in this particular
structure.
It's doomed that Knight The Knights are really dominant here.
If Rook C eight won't could consider B seven here.
Let's be concrete.
How?
Why is this actually absolutely winning?
Because isn't there Rook takes B seven.
Sure there is.
But the thing is rook takes B seven, rook take C six.
You'll notice that Black's pieces are unprotected on the back row here and White can play rugby eight.
That's scooping up some material.
But let's take this further.
Black has a little bit of potential counterplay after Bishop H four because Black owns access to the
C file might be able to nudge the bishop.
So let's take this particular story further.
White Windsor piece on E eight, King of seven and let's say Rook eight, King G seven and Rook eight.
But now F4.
So finally a piece down here.
This is a fictional scenario.
Black has a bit of counterplay y actually has to tread carefully here.
And the best move here is Bishop takes our fall.
Just simplify.
Just get rid of the counterplay through simplification, even offering material back if Bishop F2.
Then we see finally Rook see one bit of counterplay for Black and Black's winning.
So just Bishop takes a four, he takes check and this gives us rook C seven and we're forcibly taking
the rook out of the equation here.
It's like simplifying a mathematical equation.
We're forcibly getting a winning end game in this position.
It's much clearer now.
So yeah, the advantage here isn't so great materially, but it's still great positionally and this
should be a no fast win in the endgame.
So yes, that Rooks eight does actually lead to some potential tricks after B seven.
But in the game Black played just rook B to be seven didn't go into that so game on from here now it's
a five rook be 896 and it's not going to be a repetition.
Adams plays a four.
He wants to reinforce the passport and also it locks this weakness down the A six weakness.
If White can get to play a five, there's less strain on the pieces protecting B six and the pieces
can do other things.
So king of seven, if black plays a five, then there's nine takes a five.
So king of seven, we have a five point F six.
And now after Knight DB four, actually, Black resigned.
Why did Stephen Gordon resign?
Well, there's going to be two connected pass pawn soon.
Let's say Black played on with F4.
The bishop tacks on F two tucks away Knight B takes a six Well I can take on a6869 b4 but we have two
connected past pawns and here we can take out D so we can take a step forward with a six.
Yeah, we're just going to blockade the pawns and we don't even have to concern ourselves with Knight
six the eight We're just going to blockade the pawns and it's going to be absolutely crushing like this.
So yeah, what a wonderful positional game.
No counterplay.
A game very, very professional against a tactical grandmaster.
A grandmaster opponent was given no counterplay.
Who would have thought that Adams could do this to another British grandmaster?
For this kind of game.
So yeah, Steven Gordon really had like zero chances of, you know, significant tactics.
No significant attack, no significant counterplay is really a brilliant controlled game masterpiece
in my view.
So I hope you enjoyed this as much as me.
It shows the power of a positional exchange, sacrifice within certain structures where the rooks in
particular are congested and the upward trend is going to be look at the upward trends to make it part
of your toolkit.
The option to do a positional exchange sacrifice is an important part of the toolkit.
The positional toolkit has so much.