Hi there.
In this lecture, we see Michael Adams against Roof Sheldon in 1997, the British championship round
one.
Let's have a look.
E4, a Sicilian defense.
Nine two, three, E, six D, 4cd, four 964, 96 nine, C three, Quincy seven.
We have Bishop E three, a six, Queen RD two.
So is this a positional game?
It looks like a hack attack game, yes, but Adams does play 1e4 in a positional style quite a lot of
the time.
On this occasion, after nine of six free, there is a kind of prophylaxis here to this construction.
Free does stop moves like 9g4.
It does also mean that there's a battery here as well, which could be useful in the future.
We have Bishop E seven and our space scanning G four, so it's positional and attacking D six white
castles, Queenside black castles on the kingside.
G 590 7h4 It does look positionally as though white is better here.
Why?
It's going to be quicker to connect the rooks to get everything working.
And maybe the positional play is slightly simplified now with this accelerating move, just opening
up things.
So what move would you play here of the B five for 100 points?
Okay.
G6 trying to accelerate opening up lines to the King.
If now No.
F six was played, if F takes G six, then we can just win the exchange.
Thanks very much.
If H takes G six, h five, and then if Knight takes RD for Bishop takes the four.
This situation is going to favor White.
Slightly.
Went a bit faster for the attack.
Even if Black's resourceful like this, holding that pawn with the Queen White's attack here is pretty
strong.
It is about the attack in this position.
So, for example, Bishop takes up six, nine, six, five, six.
We've got a key tempo gainer against the Queen.
Speed is important here again, a key tempo gainer and black can be absolutely annihilated.
Rook takes G seven, check, Queen G five, check all of tempo and taking the Queen.
It's just one example of the destruction that's possible if H takes G six.
So black kind of ignored it might have six, G takes h seven check King takes h seven.
And now with tempo nine, take six, Queen take six.
Bishop D three kind of with tempo is practicing E five King H is played, Rook g1b4.
And now again another major tempo gainer move.
Really powerful stuff from Adams here showing that although he's a positional player, he's really working
in the tempos in this game.
So I think it's nice to see the picture in context sometimes a little bit.
So here White's play, what would you play in this position?
Yeah.
Bishop six So looking at G seven, we have Rook G eight.
If G takes 86, Queen takes H six, tech minus H seven.
Queen G seven is checkmate.
If B takes C, free Bishop takes G seven.
Check King James We're peeling open the king Bishop takes up six check E five check.
Yeah.
This isn't entirely positional, but it is absolutely winning stuff.
So we have Rook G eight being played, but now again E five not wasting any tempo moving the knight.
So we see g six if B takes C free.
The thing is the bishop's now looking at h seven which makes this more effective.
Bishop takes G seven, Rook takes G seven, Queen H six.
Check Rook eight seven, Bishop takes H seven and we're back to mating.
So it's quite brutal.
We have G six, but now E takes F six, B, take C free.
And here I move, which ends the game.
Can you see what that is?
It doesn't allow a shred of counterplay, basically.
Edmonds plays Queen five.
This looks a lot stronger than maybe the tempting Bishop G seven, but that allow Rook takes G seven
and Black lives on a bit there.
But the way it's played Queen G five so tempo on on the bishop and we've got form pawn which is a really
dangerous attacking pawn and that resigned if Bishop fi we're just going to take on our fate and Queen
H six Jack and Queen G seven so there's a lot of tempo gainers in this game.
If we want to be a fully rounded positional player playing 1e4, which a lot of us do one play 1e4.
We haven't committed to one D4 necessarily, but there are going to be cases when playing against the
Sicilian defense that the positional player will be transforming into what seems to be an attacking
player.
It's about playing the position we actually want to win, whether we play positionally, attacking chess
or trying to play tactically all the time.
It's about winning and about generally to win against stronger and stronger opponents.
It's about playing the position.
So this is just a reminder, maybe a bit of a contrast to other games that we're trying to play the
possession in chess.
And even if we've got a stereotypical leaning in terms of our style, sometimes we've just got to play
the position.
And here Adams is just brutally playing the possession with a lot of tempo, gaining tactics and logical
opening up moves to open up to the king.
So in a sense you could say, Well, it is kind of positional in that Black's position was destroyed.
But yeah, so this was the 1997 tournament where Adams actually won this British championship edition.
So it's interesting to check the games here and including this one.
Okay, So much.