Hi there.
In this lecture, I would like to draw some conclusions and philosophical points from the material we
covered.
So basically, you could say the art of war principle of put yourself beyond the feet before going onto
the attack seems quite relevant to the heart of Nimzowitsch.
Nimzowitsch is influential My system book, which has influenced generations of modern grandmasters,
more modern grandmasters.
So the principle was safeguarding the position is often better than attacking moves or tactical moves,
and often they make them work better.
Everything has a cost benefit.
A trade off though, you know, sometimes it might be better to go straight onto the attack or straight
for a combination, but sometimes there is this possibility of just improving the position slightly.
Nimzowitsch has said do not always be thinking of attack.
Moves that safeguard your position are often far more prudent.
So modern positional players as opposed to the more attacking players like, say, Shirov or Moraes
switch the positional players such as Adams and Karpov, they generally have a lower risk appetite for
potentially flawed attacks and tactics, and even this is shown in the openings.
It looks as though sometimes they're playing openings just to incur structural damage on the opponent.
So this positional undertone starts from the very opening choices they they make when they do attack.
It is usually non controversial with minimal risk and sometimes they're just building up advantages
just to win in end games.
And for example, Capablanca, that was one of his favourites, even tiny advantages, and that was
admired by Karpov.
So even tiny advantages don't even need an attacking combination.
You don't need to finish off the opponents in the middle game.
You can just move it to endgames to win there.
So Nimzowitsch and Capablanca seem to have a profound influence on the likes of Tigran Petrosian and.
Anatoly Karpov indicated in a Gibraltar interview that is, style is like petrosian, but with more
determination for a win as opposed to a draw.
So many world chess champions have had a strong positional bias.
So for example, Kramnik and Magnus Carlsen are also amazing positional geniuses and have a slight bias
towards that rather than an all out attacking style of, say, Alexander Alekhine or Mikhail Tal.
It seems, in fact there are more positioning based world champions than outright attacking world champions.
So we're talking about a relatively risk free playing style of making slight improvements to the position
and only crowning positional play with tactics and attacks when it's very safe to do so.
So it makes for more one way winds with minimal counterplay.
And if you look at an engine graph after, often it just looks like a mountain climb in a controlled
manner.
So we see in this course many patterns to support this idea of incrementing the advantages.
So control patterns are a major class of patterns we have seen in this course.
Patterns which align to controlling positions that enable the possibility of gradually increasing advantages
in a safe, controlled, non controversial manner.
We also see structure patterns because when we want to accumulate advantages, it has to be based on
the semi-permanent or permanent aspects of the position.
Usually it's harder to accumulate temporary advantages.
In fact, we just often want to convert temporary advantages into more permanent ones before they disappear
completely.
So we see structural patterns as well, the pawns being the slowest moving aspect of the position and
often the best for making slight improvements more practical.
So maneuvering around structure, improving structure, etc. So we see also some other important patterns
in practice, like waiting patterns.
Sometimes it's great to wait for opponents to just blow themselves up.
Activity patterns When positional players are in more dynamic structures like any other player, they're
looking for activity then.
King Safety is always important and the positional players, it will be futile to play positioning and
just get checkmated.
They do actually want to win games overall.
So.
KING Safety management is key the way that the bishops and the rooks move the line pieces within structures.
It's very important to consider bishops and rooks and the related strategies and game strategies where
the king is taking a more leading role and things can be actually much more active.
Quite often in endgames, King's being brought to the center.
We see a lot in Casablanca games and the center is always important and Nimzowitsch has had ideas like,
you don't have to necessarily occupy the center, you can control it, you can give it away to over
protect key points with the pieces.
So you don't you can give away your occupation space.
And we see great examples of space making use of space for extra mobility harmony patterns.
The harmony between pieces and pawns has also been explored among our patterns of interest.
So I hope you really enjoyed this course and it sets a path for you to play more controlled, less controversial
chess, which may be useful against stronger and stronger opposition that you face, which you can't
just blow off the boards with tactics and attacking chess.
You might need this extra level of refinement which will create greater capabilities for successful
attacks, tactics, or just winning endgames.
One more point I like to make is that Nimzowitsch his influence has been profound and the openings he
popularized are still in great use today.
So, for example, here I'll have to see for E six the Nimzowitsch engine f9c3 Bishop B for the whole
point.
Often doubling the pawns and setting up blockades is alive and kicking today.
And players like Adams and Karpov, two of our Fischer players, love to play the Nimzowitsch engine
and are prepared for the Queen's engine variations with Knight every as well.
So the legacy is alive and kicking today in modern positional players, not just of nimzowitsch his
concepts, but also his literal opening variations.
So that's very, very interesting as well to consider how positional play has been passed on from the
past generations.
So I hope you've really enjoyed this course and can even emulate a little bit more now both Adams and
Karpov with their opening choices.
So I hope you really enjoyed it and best of.
Luck and enjoyment in your chest.
And if you get time, please do give me a review of this course.
So much.