WEBVTT 00:00.780 --> 00:01.890 Hi there. 00:01.920 --> 00:07.950 In this introduction, I share, I want to talk about the importance of detailed and thematic game analysis. 00:08.100 --> 00:14.880 So our examples, which we choose in this course I've chosen because I feel that they are instructive 00:14.880 --> 00:21.240 in some way or manner, and it's important to get to the nitty gritty details. 00:21.240 --> 00:24.240 To have a nuanced understanding is great. 00:24.240 --> 00:31.920 Ideally, if we look at the great game annotators of the past, even before computers, Alexander Alekhine 00:31.920 --> 00:39.540 even before computers was a very detailed annotator and many of his annotations stand the test of time. 00:39.750 --> 00:43.560 Some are kind of broken, refuted by computers. 00:43.560 --> 00:49.770 They didn't have the luxury of engine analysis, but he sought objectivity from the games he did analyze 00:49.770 --> 00:55.020 from classic Tillman's, where players were, you know, roughly the same kind of standards. 00:55.050 --> 00:58.830 He was trying to find a deeper and deeper truth of chess. 00:59.250 --> 01:05.550 And in doing so, it kind of respects, if you think about it, the accumulation of small advantages. 01:05.550 --> 01:12.420 Theory sets out why our first official world chess champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, that really the position 01:12.420 --> 01:14.520 is a fight for the advantage first. 01:14.520 --> 01:18.560 And when you do have that advantage, then you have the right for attack. 01:18.570 --> 01:24.480 That was like one of the basic teachings of Steinitz to make it the game more of a scientific basis. 01:24.720 --> 01:29.490 Because in the romantic era, there were some crazy unsound gambits being played all the time. 01:29.790 --> 01:35.970 That sort of attacking chess might be fun, but it's not that scalable to stronger than stronger opponents. 01:35.970 --> 01:39.750 And also opening theory is like violence nowadays. 01:39.750 --> 01:43.200 You don't really want terrible positions of the opening. 01:43.200 --> 01:47.550 So we want to respect the accumulation of potentially tiny advantages. 01:47.550 --> 01:53.550 And to do that, we need to really kind of forensically go through games, in my view. 01:54.000 --> 02:03.660 So when revisiting classic games, I find it has been useful to ask even more questions for clarification. 02:03.660 --> 02:05.400 Clarify what are the concrete? 02:05.400 --> 02:12.210 France Because players might be reacting to really subtle threats we don't even see on some interfaces. 02:12.210 --> 02:18.300 You will press the axe button if you're in an analysis mode when you finish the game and or looking 02:18.300 --> 02:20.280 at math games and that will show you the frat. 02:20.280 --> 02:22.050 So it sort of switches sides. 02:22.080 --> 02:24.870 If if one side had an extra move, what would they play? 02:24.900 --> 02:33.150 That's often a very useful clarification tool for the subtle, you know, move frats that might be not 02:33.150 --> 02:35.490 so apparent when you look at most of the games. 02:35.490 --> 02:43.680 I find my own kind of super nerdiness about downsides is important for my overall chess accuracy. 02:44.010 --> 02:48.690 I see my chess accuracy has been relatively high even in speech as well. 02:48.690 --> 02:53.580 I adopt this idea that I want to really be interested in the details. 02:53.580 --> 02:58.410 Basically, when I talk about being nerdy, I'm talking about being interested in the detailed kind 02:58.410 --> 03:00.870 of downsides of the opponent's positions. 03:01.710 --> 03:07.050 So basically, we don't want to be too concerned about memorizing variations. 03:07.050 --> 03:13.110 We really want to get a gist of the variations and build up our attacking into intuition. 03:13.110 --> 03:17.340 Those ingredients get a hold of them, experience them in the variations. 03:17.340 --> 03:22.920 Something will rub off, and it's not always in your conscious thinking. 03:22.920 --> 03:26.400 It rubs off, you know, later your brain's kind of looking at the examples, putting them together 03:26.400 --> 03:31.260 while you're asleep and and forming these ingredients more intuitively. 03:31.590 --> 03:40.170 But when we revise games, master games of the past and do more detailed analysis, it's going to reinforce 03:40.170 --> 03:46.080 any concepts and important concepts, hopefully that that should be abstracted from those details. 03:46.920 --> 03:52.650 So, for example, Bishop of our counterpart in the classic Morphy Opera game, hopefully that's a detail 03:52.650 --> 03:54.540 now, a conceptual detail. 03:54.570 --> 03:59.040 You'll remember, you know, the iconic games often have great concepts to them. 03:59.040 --> 04:02.400 Just don't be too sidetracked by the final combination. 04:02.760 --> 04:04.770 You can't be obsessed with the final combinations. 04:04.770 --> 04:07.080 It's the question we're already asking this course. 04:07.080 --> 04:11.130 How on earth did they get those attacking positions? 04:11.640 --> 04:16.560 So at minimum, the course also kind of revisits epic attacking games. 04:16.560 --> 04:22.650 So for the nuances of the variations and the more fundamental themes, the ingredients, we're very 04:22.650 --> 04:29.010 carefully appreciating the detailed ingredients and the detailed analysis will often emphasize in the 04:29.010 --> 04:29.220 game. 04:29.220 --> 04:36.120 The imprecise moves can totally ruin an attack now, especially an attack where you've sacrificed the 04:36.120 --> 04:40.020 pace, like here Raymond Kane against Anthony Myles. 04:40.470 --> 04:44.190 Raymond Kane had to play very, very precisely here in this position. 04:44.190 --> 04:49.980 It looks like a great attacking position in principle that the King's been weakened by it needs a very, 04:49.980 --> 04:51.450 very precise follow up. 04:51.450 --> 04:52.800 The details matter. 04:53.610 --> 04:59.550 And when we analyze in our own games one of our big. 05:00.080 --> 05:05.990 Problems is like we're like a web browser, we're caching pages which shouldn't be cached. 05:05.990 --> 05:11.660 We should be looking at the exact position we now have for the detailed finesses for the opportunity 05:11.660 --> 05:12.920 we have in that position. 05:12.980 --> 05:19.670 Each position in our analysis all should be kind of individually respected on its own merits. 05:19.670 --> 05:26.900 And for me I found a weakness of the last move is a great bias crusher that look at exactly forget your 05:26.900 --> 05:27.470 grand plan. 05:27.470 --> 05:31.550 You've just you've just calculated with your ego like ten moves ahead. 05:31.550 --> 05:34.400 What is the specific weakness of the opponent's last move? 05:34.400 --> 05:38.000 It might be a major opportunity, might be a quick chat, mate. 05:38.030 --> 05:43.220 So it's really important, this open mindedness as well. 05:43.220 --> 05:51.380 We've got to try and remove our biases and analysis we've done ahead of time can be a major bias and 05:51.380 --> 05:53.630 you end up not playing the position. 05:53.930 --> 05:59.660 So detailed attention to nuances will really help. 06:00.050 --> 06:04.640 And that's like the root level for creating broader conclusions. 06:04.640 --> 06:10.970 It's like if you're doing something, if you have an accountant one day, you have to provide, you 06:10.970 --> 06:16.730 know, the details of the data they transactions, and then you get the more general trends, you know, 06:16.730 --> 06:22.130 the profit or loss or whatever the reports, but you need the details first. 06:22.130 --> 06:23.180 Then it's like chess. 06:23.180 --> 06:25.640 The details are in the chess games. 06:25.640 --> 06:31.610 We've got to have a detail view first before we base our conclusions on those details. 06:31.700 --> 06:35.240 So, okay, here, let's look at this, this game now. 06:35.270 --> 06:41.690 So Raymond Keenan had to play very precisely so the move he played is actually Queen B1. 06:41.690 --> 06:46.370 But we've got to really appreciate here why weren't other queen moves? 06:46.370 --> 06:47.540 This looks a bit odd, doesn't it? 06:47.540 --> 06:50.870 Queen B one Why weren't other queen moves possible? 06:50.900 --> 06:53.720 Queen D3 Can you see what black plays? 06:53.720 --> 06:55.190 And this is the pain of chess. 06:55.190 --> 07:01.070 It's a very, very cruel game that if you play imprecisely after sacrificing, you could be severely 07:01.070 --> 07:02.420 punished here. 07:02.420 --> 07:07.970 Black could play 95, and it's like hitting the queen and defending G6. 07:07.970 --> 07:09.440 So this is a snag. 07:10.040 --> 07:12.320 You know, this this position, we've got no attacks. 07:12.320 --> 07:17.360 That's the difference between an attack working an attack, you know, vanishing here. 07:18.110 --> 07:21.740 So if we you know, this is a very, you know, tricky position. 07:21.740 --> 07:26.780 Now, there's lots of variations and you'll see that in the more detailed analysis of this game. 07:26.780 --> 07:33.320 I just wanted to show you that precision engineering, especially in attacking chess, is very important. 07:33.320 --> 07:38.600 The details matter hugely, especially when you've made an investment of material. 07:38.780 --> 07:41.450 It's a kind of unbalanced position to weaken the opponent's game. 07:41.450 --> 07:43.430 So precision really, really matters. 07:43.850 --> 07:51.230 So here off the Queen B 195 was played anyway, D takes 94 and once just mowing the way through on this 07:51.230 --> 07:51.800 diagonal. 07:51.800 --> 07:56.450 Now the attack is much stronger than it would have been with the imprecise Queen move. 07:56.450 --> 07:59.630 So now I have six check and certainly Miles was a bit of a sport. 07:59.630 --> 08:01.730 He played on to the checkmate here. 08:02.030 --> 08:02.900 Checkmate. 08:03.500 --> 08:07.670 So, yes, we have this dream of checkmate in the opponents. 08:07.670 --> 08:13.640 And I'm saying we have to be truly rigorous when we look at all the attacking games. 08:13.970 --> 08:16.280 How would the attacks have fallen over? 08:16.580 --> 08:22.070 They would have shown nothing, nothing to show for the sacrifice at all if this attack wasn't played 08:22.070 --> 08:22.970 precisely. 08:22.970 --> 08:26.540 And you'll see this over and over again, especially in sacrificial attacks. 08:26.540 --> 08:31.850 The accuracy is a very important ingredient, very easy to take for granted. 08:31.850 --> 08:37.010 You have to play accurately once you've especially sacrificed pieces and weaken the opponent's king. 08:37.010 --> 08:44.300 So, yes, there is a bit of a downside to attacking chess, especially on one day games where opponents 08:44.300 --> 08:47.030 have a lot more time to find defensive resources. 08:47.030 --> 08:51.680 But attacking chess can still be successful if it's played very accurately. 08:51.980 --> 08:57.350 The intuition of weakening the opponent's king for material is a basic trade off in chess, material 08:57.350 --> 08:58.670 versus king safety. 08:58.670 --> 09:02.810 But to ignite and exploit that trade off, yes, we need accuracy. 09:03.050 --> 09:04.040 So okay. 09:04.040 --> 09:09.950 So I just wanted to reinforce some points here about detailed and thematic game analysis. 09:09.950 --> 09:16.400 If in our ingredient section, it was about bishop of our counterpart, I try and highlight the key 09:16.400 --> 09:22.490 variations relating to that famous specially hard and go especially involved in that particular theme 09:22.490 --> 09:25.910 just to get that ingredient highlighted and exemplified. 09:25.910 --> 09:28.610 So one game you can pivot around different variations. 09:28.610 --> 09:33.830 You're basically extracting as much insight from a particular game as possible, especially on certain 09:33.830 --> 09:35.090 key themes. 09:35.390 --> 09:35.820 Okay. 09:35.870 --> 09:41.390 So I like to let the theme of the section basically amplify all the relevant variations for that theme. 09:42.740 --> 09:49.940 So I hope this is a good basic introduction to why games are analyzed in such detail. 09:49.940 --> 09:51.320 It's going to be good for you. 09:51.320 --> 09:54.950 You don't have to memorize everything, try and get the gist of things. 09:54.950 --> 09:59.360 You can always revisit the games later and later and get more and more insights as your. 09:59.870 --> 10:01.730 Improves generally. 10:01.880 --> 10:02.780 Okay. 10:03.390 --> 10:04.130 And so much.