Hi there.
In this lecture, we're going to have a look at an amazing game I witnessed at one of the Lloyd's back
Masters.
This is back in 1988.
So Ken Larsen was playing against Michael Adams in round four, So e four.
So Adams I'd seen was a bit annoyed.
He had lost an earlier round game and was was actually a bit, you know, wondering about to leave the
tournament to go back to Cornwall.
But then he started winning and winning and winning.
He ended up winning and this is one of those games.
So E four he plays c6d free.
D 590 2g6.
We have G three.
Bishop G seven.
Bishop G two, E five.
So he takes the center wheel, occupies the centre 9gf3 97 both sides Castle Rookie one and now 97.
So this reinforces the e five point Knights f1h6 and now G four.
This is very ambitious from white.
It does weaken the f four square.
So what can we do?
Position me here regarding that square.
Well, Queen see seven x rays that square to start off with adding support.
If a knight ends up if one of these knights ends up on F four, one day it will be supported.
We have Knight G three, D takes E, four, D takes E, four and 95.
So this gives the idea that E six to f four might be handy.
Supported by the Queen.
We have Bishop E 390 6c4 an L 94 and there is a concern perhaps, well, why it should be concerned
about this thing.
Catto Bishop That is part of King's safety.
Here we have the move H three What else?
Because there is an unveiled attack against G four here.
If Bishop takes f four, this is not helping.
G m will drop.
So h three supports g four and then we have Bishop E six, which is not just a centralized move.
There's there's great interest in this move potentially pointing in the direction of the king under
the right circumstances once f five is played.
So Queen C two we have B six, B free King H eight, Rook 81 and now Knights G two is played.
King takes G two and now Adams plays the aggressive five.
Now maybe the position isn't totally secure before going on to the attack.
Good.
Attacking chess is building up the position, accumulating advantages prior to the attack.
And here it does seem there is one opportunity available for Y after E takes F five, G takes a five.
This does weaken the D five square, which means there's actually an access route to the king.
Potentially we have now G takes F five.
This is a mistake, it seems.
Why it should have played Knight H five trying to return the favor, get rid of potentially black's
bishop.
It does involve a pawn sac here F takes g four.
This is very dynamic continuation and maybe two pawn sacks, but you can see that there's a slight downside,
a slight backfire potentially of the black position as a positional player.
You want to play in such a way that when you attack there's absolutely no potential for backfire.
But this would require extreme creativity to sacrifice two pawns.
Rook f seven is an even position if black.
You know, this position is actually technically, even if G takes H free check, we can see actually
that black could be in trouble.
So this continuation, the king's got a lot of error around it and White has a promising attack position
for example like this would show a backfire would prove actually a backfire.
Now, this is very, very interesting because one of Adams's books talks about this notion, basically
a kind of nimzowitsch notion that you should strengthen your position, stabilize it really stable before
doing attacks, because otherwise you will get backfire.
So in a sense, it's not ideal this game, but black, you know, didn't estimate a double pawn sac,
understandably you know so we have here G takes our five knight takes f5c4.
If Knight takes F five, Bishop takes F five.
This position, there's Bishop E four.
Ouch.
And you can see the absence of the Cato Bishop is very, very painful.
So this position, Black's got a big advantage.
So C four is played Queen F seven.
And this gives the idea actually that there is support on D five and we have Knight G one really wants
to use this D five square and actually plays B five now trying to undermine the control of d5c takes
is played if which is not not great rook C one There's 94 though Bishop takes he takes black is actually
better in this position so for example here.
Like a plan like this and has a lot of positional advantages.
So this really makes blacks task easier of the bishop.
DD five check.
We have King H two and guess what Adams plays here, which is absolutely crushing, which ends the game.
And this is the start of Adams coming back in this major tournament.
So blacks are playing here for ten points, yet Knight takes E three.
I just think magical play it's crushing.
If F tanks E three Queen F to check is actually just mating.
If rook takes E for again, we're just mating.
So great things started from using the F4 square.
So for me, Adams is a positional hero.
And if we look at the elegance of this game and it was like a cute, you know, attack after, but the
four square was kind of marked out early on with Queen C seven in effect.
And nice maneuver is pretty standard quite often in Kings engine style positions to get a knight either
to default or F and sometimes you can go this route as well.
So this looks like a nice standard positional maneuver to have the knight central like this but eyeing
F four.
So it's a great use of using a weakness to leverage to weaken the opponent's king.
And the central square battle for D five is really interesting.
It's like a lot of undermining via F five and b five later to try and get that d5 square working for
black.
So really an incredible game in my view.
At the time I was just, I was just amazed by the simplicity and the effectiveness of this game.
So I hope you enjoyed it as well and so much.