Hi there.
In this lecture, we see a battle of two British superstars.
David, how very strong British team against Michael Adams.
So this is 2016, British Hampshire, round seven.
So e four from David Howe.
e5939c6, Bishop B five.
And Adams chooses here the Berlin defense very, very solid approach champions by Vladimir Kramnik,
who beat Garry Kasparov in a brain Games world Championship match with the Berlin defense to neutralize
Garry Kasparov.
E four So the Berlin defense is all the rage now we have de fray Bishops C five Bishop c6d Take C six.
Knight BD two.
If Knight takes E five, there's a kind of weakness of the last move neglecting D four Black can play
Queen D for here and black has one now with the Queen takes F two mate, so black would have to give
up a piece and that's winning.
So nine BD two We have black casting here Queen E to rookie 89c4 97 Bishop Ditto 9b6.
Now there are two ways of taking on E five so this is kind of fascinating actually.
If Knight C takes E five, the move to play here would be F six.
Yeah.
So in this position, if 94 we can take on C four and we've weakened E four and there's a key move here
tactically Bishop F5 and Black's going to be better after this if E five, Bishop takes C two and,
and Bishop C three, Black's going to be fine.
Better actually.
Significantly better and even worse.
If white cancels, Bishop D free will win the exchange.
So yes, Knight takes Knight, C takes.
We answer with F six here and the other way.
Knight F takes five.
It's a little bit more fascinating actually.
Bishop D4 is indeed useful here to E five and B two.
And let's say Bishop C three.
We can take on C free and here F six.
This is a safe routes.
There are other options like Queen G fine, but this is the most straightforward of six.
If Knight takes eight, takes this position, even though black is a pawn down, there is compensation
here and it should be about even when it has double pawns.
Black has the cube structure here but the a foul play, it's overall even there is another more exotic
way of treating this with Queen G five instead of F six, Queen G five.
But yeah.
Knight I'm afraid this leads to a little bit of interesting complications.
But overall, this, this is even as well.
Okay, so taking on E5, basically it doesn't really do quite too many favors.
So we have 93 keeping more tension in the game, more pieces on the board, more tension.
We have a5h for Bishop D for white consoles, Queenside to protect B2, Bishop E six and now King B
one to protect a two.
If C free, we can take time to take on E freight and take on A2 without the bishop being trapped.
So King b1f6, G four.
Very aggressive.
So this is a pawn sacrifice for a bit of an attack.
Now, Adams takes the challenge.
He plays Bishop takes e free.
Taking this defensive challenge, Bishop takes G for Rook G one and our bishop takes a free.
Interesting.
For equality.
See for is interesting for bishop takes a free queen 60 to eliminating that potentially dangerous bishop.
But this way is interesting.
Bishop takes her free queen takes king hate and thou queen free.
Just to show there are some dangers with this bishop and the G foul to weights Credit H five.
Let's say the strongest move for is 97.
Let's say H six is it's actually asking for trouble.
This would be we have to safeguard our king here.
Rook g 697 Bishop takes h six and blacks in big trouble.
So Adams is avoiding this.
This didn't happen anyway.
This is a terrible situation where it doesn't matter about our positional player for kings getting splattered.
So either our king is getting checkmated or we lose the queen or other horrible things happen.
King of fate, we lose the rook on eight.
So there are horrible things happening sometimes with the bishop.
But actually, you know what?
We can bypass all of this by playing 97 and in this case H six, G six.
We haven't got too much to worry about.
If Queen G to rookie seven, we shouldn't have too much to worry about.
So it's not that bad.
The pawn sacrifice isn't like a forced win for white or anything.
So Queen G free is played Rook E seven and now F four.
We have C four here tactically using that pin against the two if 90 7g2.
This is also about even so 90 C for bishop c1e takes F four gives the knight the nice E five square,
and then the bishop goes off the ball, which is maybe a sigh of relief.
It's more simplified.
And in fact, you know, towards the end games this is going to be a passport majority to correct a
pass pawn.
We have rook f one queen D six rook f5a4a3b5 rook hf1 rook g eight King c1c5h5b4.
We have Queen E three.
And now h six wrote g one Rook e six Defending against Rook g six Rook f seven.
And now B takes a three, B takes a free C four.
So hitting a three.
Of course allowing won't to protect though if D takes is played and that is played which protects a
free.
But now look at the fragmentation though.
So a very interesting position.
Rook f6c5 Queen da rook have one pair of rooks come off and they'll see sex.
Okay, so it's equal on pawns.
But once structure is in in four different islands, so to speak.
One island, two islands, three islands, four islands.
So they're on the same.
You could say they're on the same island, but King B two we have Queen RD one now looking at H five.
So Black is keen to Adams is keen to take out this but also frightening rugby one we have rugby sevens
defending against rugby H Sorry, that was the rugby eight, not rugby one.
So here if as example Roxy seven forget taking H five we can play rugby eight check and kick the king
and bell.
So this position, it's about king safety.
So here, this is quite vicious for example here and we're winning the Queen.
The thing is, if Queen E two we have rook f h king e free queen for it's checkmate.
So, yes, it's fascinating stuff.
I just wanted to demonstrate.
Rook See some rugby.
Forget taking h five.
We go for the king now.
So anyway, B seven was played, dropping H five.
So yeah, it's better for one king to remain alive than lose five.
But now we've got a 2 to 0 majority over here.
Queen G free, Queen E eight.
The Queen is flying around.
Queen E six, King before.
No, this is actually technically a mistake, but Anand's played Queen a two.
This is a bit of an inaccuracy, it seems.
It does have an exciting threat to win the rook, but it does seem here in this position that the 2
to 0 majority it might actually be safe to start using it with G five.
So for example, Queen D three, G four and let's say this possession where White is trying for Rook
RD six to harass the king, we can play Queen f6 very accurate this position the pawns get going basically
they get going and it doesn't really matter about Rook.
This is Queen F4.
It doesn't matter about the check.
We can move on King and say this position Queen G five.
We're ready to push the pawns again.
So the 220 pawn majority gets really exciting here now instead of Queen G four either if Rook D six,
Queen G five Rook take C six.
Let's imagine G three and G two.
This position is also going to be in Black's favor.
Yeah, we're going to Queen sometimes if we look at that again with G five, Queen D, four, G four,
there's another option.
Let's say we have to play accurately here against D six, but even even G three works.
Even if we lost sorry, the H six point 6bh even if we lost h six, it really wouldn't matter.
This is actually still better for black, but it's trickier.
We don't want to be having to play more accurately if needed.
So anyway, all in all, Queen Etta is a bit of an inaccuracy here.
When G five does seem quite good, we have King A five and that's a very good move.
Queen St C two, Queen Tangs E five, Queen D free.
So at the moment, black a pawn up King B six queen takes a three.
So two pawns up one point up Queen RD free Ruby eight We have rook times B eight Queen times eight,
King H seven, Queen five.
So there's a possibility of lots of checks.
Here we have Queen A six check King d5a3.
The Queen can go to G six on Queen A five now.
So we we have queen have five check King G eight though, is used.
The thing is Queen G six white can actually take on G six and play C six.
And this position is going to be about even.
Yeah, there's too many checks around.
So King J is better to play for the win and.
It's a bit different here.
The tempo is everything.
So C6 is played, the tempo is everything.
If Queen E six, black's fine, Black's got the advantage after a two queening first, that's going
to be over for white.
We've got this h pawn.
We can set the queen.
It's over for white.
So anyway, c six is joint queen B five check.
Very accurate.
Queen bee five, a two.
There's Queen E six check.
Queen of five, ten Perpetual.
And if we try and go over here, this is getting very tricky after C seven.
This position, we have to rely on perpetual check with black to draw.
So, Queen bee five check.
Very accurate.
And now this queen takes her five, Getting the queen's off and not minding.
New Queen's on the board.
So new queen is on the board.
Check h five.
So finally, Black is trying to use the past H pawn.
And here, Queen g four check h for the past eight.
Pawn is pretty dangerous.
That pins the f five pawn.
And now h three here.
Not minding.
Not minding really f six.
Check here.
It's not really a big deal.
And in any case, Queen F two, Queen H five, Queen H two.
And now Black is making progress soon with G six.
So kingly for Queen takes F five.
Now it's just a matter of technique, really.
So these pawns are being pushed gradually, carefully.
And here after G for checking H for Queen and King G free, it's time to resign.
If Queen de Fray White resigned, if Queen de Freed and queen are free so there's no more significant
checks.
Blacks making progress to queen the h pawn finally.
So it's quite funny in the middle game.
Yeah.
White had a bit of compensation but didn't you know this?
If it goes to the end game, that is a dangerous pass pawn potential.
So yes, funny stuff.
So a bit of a grind this game.
A bit of a long test for Adams 77 moves.
So from David Howell, one of Britain's top grandmasters as well, David Howe.
Okay, So Adams beating the new generation here in this game with the Berlin defence, a very respectable
choice of black.
So Vladimir Kramnik popularizing the Berlin defense, and it shows great solidity in this game.
Okay, I hope you enjoyed that.
Got some points from it.
Thanks very much.