Hi there.
In this lecture, we see one of my all time favorite games of token Petrosian.
He's playing against Ludic.
PASHMAN, who is a great grandmaster and great book author.
Actually, I have one of his books on the middle game.
So this was played in 1961, The Bled Tournament, Round Six Knights and Free from Tigran Petrosian.
We have C five, G free C six, Bishop G two.
So this is an opening hassle free idea just to play the King's engine attack system with the white pieces.
So g six Chosen castles.
Bishop g7d3e6e4.
I do have a course on the King's engine attack.
By the way, if you want to play this set up, it's not very, very intensive.
We have Knight G seven, Rookie one So this is a standard set up black castles and now E five is played.
So this is interesting establishing this foothold which can be undermined, but at what cost we see
D six So what is the cost of doing?
D six Well, Petrosian actually takes on D six.
We have Queen takes these six and now Knight BD two and it looks as though, well, there's nice ideas
already for white, including Knight C and maybe a foreign bishop at four and get a grip on the E five
square.
So releasing the central occupation for control is a hyper modern idea, and it looks as though, you
know, White's position is super solid here already.
It's got that feel to it as still metal, very strong, steely look to the position in my view, very
solid.
We see Queen C seven might be free and already a mistake Knightly form so Black's possession does have.
There are some positional issues the development lag here the bishop on C eight is not as good as the
G two bishop.
Instead if b six this tries to address the c a issue and if Bishop F for this position with C three,
we can see that black should be okay.
Even if D four is play, try and open up things.
Black has resources like Quincy eight and if black gets to simplify like this, black should be absolutely
fine.
So that does seem as an example that seems plausible.
And if D four immediately C takes even this position.
Bishop B seven it's just even.
But with 94, we have this important tempo gainer which increases y its control over key central squares
like e five and the extended center square.
You know, we can think of the classical central four squares, but there's also a kind of extended
center around that.
These squares are also interesting to think about.
In the extended center we have Queen B six being played.
So blacks holding on to C five if queenly.
Yeah.
White can consider taking on C five.
There isn't really a meaningful backfire of the bishop takes her free bishop takes B to the thing is
rook be one and look at all of these pieces pointed at B seven and let's say Bishop C free nine takes
B seven with ten pawn.
The Queen Bishop takes B seven, Bishop takes B seven, Bishop takes e, one queen takes e, one rook
B eight.
Y ends up being better here of the bishop e four.
And if Knight takes every instead first, check this position with Queen B six.
We've got Bishop E five and we're weakening the opponent's king hair.
This is a very pleasant position indeed for white.
We can see that we've swapped central occupation for central control and C five is a liability for black
to drop off at some point.
Like this example.
But why?
It's going to be significantly better.
And even if the free drops, why it's got the bishop, her hair and strong pressure and potential to
create an outside pass pawn.
So that's better for white.
So we see Queen B sinks a number of F and now 95.
This is a very powerful move to try and harass the Queen.
With 9c4, we have nine takes B free and now for 100 points.
What would you play here?
Very important move to avoid simplification on this occasion.
For if a tax be free, black could play Bishop takes e five, even though that does seem counterintuitive
to weaken one's own king.
But this position with F6 White's advantage is more limited than in the game continuation.
And let's say Black doesn't play Bishop takes E5 apart Queen de A then once going to have a small edge
here.
This position black does have resources.
Sure like this.
So that hits the bishop on D six.
And White's advantage is limited, but with C four very important tempo gainer hitting the Queen this
position.
White's got a lot of central control here.
You see that there's nothing in the sense occupying center.
But look at White's glorious bishops stretching all across through the central four squares is a really
glorious position to look at.
And threats include Rook five supported by the Knights looking at C five.
And also Bishop de six looking at the skewer in the Knight and Rook.
So we see a five being played and that does quite create more weakness as that.
B six.
Bishop D six.
Bishop F sinks.
So this is a very difficult position indeed of rookie aides.
This position, as example of Bishop E five is going to be better for white.
White could pick up the A five pawn as one example.
You can see that this pressure has conspired here.
The bishop pinning b seven said pressure conspired on a five in this example.
And if a four we can play bishops hg79 sage seven Queen f four is attractive and there are ideas here,
very dangerous ideas.
For example, 936 which would hit the Queen on B five and seven So if 98 let's say Queen E three now
and yeah, we just have a magnificent position here, for example, where we're potentially winning
material.
So Bishop f six was tried, Queen F, King G seven.
The king is not usually a good protector of things when the king is involved, but the thing is, what
is black?
Duke Bishop G.
Seven We're just taking on E seven, Rookie eight.
We're just playing Queen six.
So it looks like an only move to play King G seven.
Now Rookie four is played Rook D eight and now yeah, this is this is a bit of a mistake to say the
least.
Rookie a f knight.
Defy, though.
You know why it's just going to win material, right?
That seems out of the question.
So rugby ain't.
Now, this next move is absolutely magnificent, showing the tactical teeth of Petrosian.
So as many have said, you know, Trojans tactical abilities are absolutely amazing.
Some people argue on par with Mikhail Tal, but he usually uses them only when there's very low risks
to do.
You know, tactics and combinations is very, very low risk.
Petrosian hates losing, basically doesn't like speculation.
He sees chess as a ruthless logic game where gambling shouldn't be part of it.
If he wants to gamble, he could play backgammon instead.
So anyway, there's a move here which is absolutely beautiful, which even Fischer admired.
It's actually forcing a checkmate.
It's a really beautiful move indeed.
One of the most beautiful of all time, in my view.
So for 500 points, what would you play and what is the idea behind it?
What is the follow up?
If you don't have the follow up, then you're just guessing the first movie.
You need to know the follow up and the follow up is magnificent in its own right.
So the first move is Queen takes F six check and now E five check.
And now the beautiful move which ends the game.
And that is Bishop G7.
It stops the king from going back to safety and ends the game.
Fisher described it as a real problem move.
So here Black has to resign.
Black resigned if f six.
Let's take some examples.
H four.
Check.
King H five.
Bishop three is checkmate.
So that's F six rule out if f5h4.
Checking h five Bishop F three is not much different If Rook takes the free we're taking here.
Okay, first and then we're playing h four check and then Bishop F three.
And let's say the king went to, you know, instead of the king moving nine, 6h4.
We're playing G takes h four check and F king of five.
We have 96 checkmate or F King H five.
Again we have Bishop F three.
Champ means that Bishop is controlling this great squares on G seven If knights have 5h4 check nine
takes g takes h4k5.
We have Bishop H three.
Checkmate.
All 93 Checkmate.
Yeah.
If King H five, Bishop free.
King G five.
We have H four check King of five and now G four is checkmate.
And the thing is, after H four check.
There's also, by the way, instead of h four check, there's rookie five check nine to have five and
now h four check with the knight taking in this game square.
So it's all mating.
Basically.
It's a force.
Checkmate.
Really beautiful stuff.
So Bishop G seven, ending the game here.
This is a magnificence crowning of the earlier positional play.
So we're interested in this particular course in the positional ingredients.
We could say there was a kind of hyper modern swapping of central occupation here with E five to kind
of get pieces, glancing through, peering through the sensor when the pawn was removed while its actual
central grip did seem to be amplified here.
So this strong central control over key squares leading to great things and with the bishop as an issue.
So the positional play here leading up to the tactics is magnificent.
This is a really reliable position for White to have with great tactical pressure and an absolutely
beautiful, crowning combination.
Now, to be fair, just to be accurate, rather, it could have been considered instead of rookie for
I didn't want to spoil it for you first time round, but it's a rookie for it could have been played
here as well.
It could have actually been played here.
And for example, this situation, the black king is in big trouble.
You know, with G4, it's less clear than what happened in the game, though.
So this situation is going to be mating the black King as well.
But yeah, Rookie four was such a beautiful preload to what happened so that's more technical.
Queen Text F six did actually exist a move earlier but yeah, after rook D eight that really smooths
things out for queen size f six check even more.
So I really hope you hope you enjoyed this iconic game.
It's one of my favorite games of where I'm frozen of all time.
Okay.
I so much.