WEBVTT 00:00.810 --> 00:01.740 Hi there. 00:01.980 --> 00:05.160 In this lecture, I just want to talk about a four quadrant model. 00:05.190 --> 00:08.920 It's when you have two variables that you're really interested in having. 00:08.940 --> 00:13.410 So generally in this course, we do want to have attacking chess. 00:13.890 --> 00:15.060 But at what price? 00:15.060 --> 00:18.600 It can't be at the price of lower accuracy in our games. 00:18.870 --> 00:23.080 Otherwise, we'll simply stop our games scaling up to stronger and stronger opponents. 00:23.100 --> 00:27.990 We want to be able to play accurately and also have an attacking style. 00:28.890 --> 00:31.380 So to do that, we need solid openings. 00:31.380 --> 00:37.800 For example, not risky romantic era openings like the King's Gambit in general, but for faster time 00:37.810 --> 00:38.130 limits. 00:38.130 --> 00:38.910 Sure. 00:38.940 --> 00:44.730 You know, all the gambits are working much more effective on a faster time control in general, because 00:44.730 --> 00:47.040 the opponent has far less time to defend. 00:47.040 --> 00:53.030 The importance of having the initiative is much greater because you're calling the shots on a fast dynamic 00:53.040 --> 00:55.590 game and you want your opponent to use lots of time. 00:55.740 --> 01:01.740 So the four quadrant model in general, though, the more serious the game is, you want to have a solid 01:01.740 --> 01:03.180 game from the outset. 01:03.450 --> 01:11.040 So less of the unsound gambits, for example, that could be described as attacking, but it's attacking 01:11.040 --> 01:17.910 an unsound at the same time and you'll be, you know, becoming unstuck even on faster time controls 01:17.910 --> 01:19.350 against stronger opponents. 01:19.620 --> 01:24.890 They're going to find weaknesses very quickly and defend accurately, and it's going to be much harder. 01:24.900 --> 01:32.460 So what we really need, we want to gravitate to the top left quadrant here, basically the top left 01:32.460 --> 01:37.350 quadrant, We want a king attack style and we also want high accuracy. 01:37.350 --> 01:43.680 So how can we guarantee we learn from role models that have that they're highly accurate but also kind 01:43.680 --> 01:45.120 of dangerous in the attack? 01:45.390 --> 01:49.890 Well, we can look at the world champions that favored an attacking style. 01:50.160 --> 01:55.470 Now, Paul Morphy was a kind of unofficial world champion, and he is very, very instructive for the 01:55.470 --> 01:56.550 open game. 01:56.550 --> 02:00.660 But his opponents were much weaker than in the later generations. 02:01.050 --> 02:04.710 He was so much head and shoulders above his his peers. 02:04.890 --> 02:12.360 So although Paul Morphy is an attacking player, a legend, and so is Anderson as well in that era, 02:12.660 --> 02:15.520 and they played absolutely brilliant attacking games. 02:15.540 --> 02:18.690 Paul Morphy's games often were very accurate. 02:18.690 --> 02:23.850 So, yes, both of those players were, especially Paul Morphy is worth studying, especially in the 02:23.850 --> 02:24.840 open game. 02:24.840 --> 02:33.810 But later on we have Alexander Alekhine, who definitely had a love for combinations. 02:33.810 --> 02:42.540 It's that love of combinations and attacking chess in general, which makes him a great example to learn 02:42.540 --> 02:44.430 from from his game examples. 02:44.430 --> 02:47.150 And that's why the first player of the course is Alexander Alekhine. 02:47.160 --> 02:53.910 We really do want a king attacking style, but with high accuracy and kind of normal kind of modern 02:53.910 --> 02:55.890 style openings in general. 02:56.730 --> 03:01.890 For example, Ruy Lopez As opposed to King's Gambit or some other weird gambit, you know, classic 03:01.890 --> 03:06.000 openings and seeing how attacks can emerge from you. 03:06.150 --> 03:09.810 Positional play quite often to gain advantages. 03:09.810 --> 03:17.220 And the advantage is they kind of make sure we've got balance in our possession and attack in general. 03:17.220 --> 03:22.800 If we're moving resources kind of artificially to one, you know, section of the board, we don't want 03:22.800 --> 03:26.790 to be totally off balance, for example, or center crumbling at the same time. 03:26.880 --> 03:30.420 So attacks need to be made with high accuracy. 03:30.420 --> 03:36.870 There needs to be enough reassurance reassurances in the position that the attack is going to be successful. 03:36.900 --> 03:42.060 So we really do want accuracy in general and a king attacking style. 03:42.060 --> 03:48.900 And I believe we can learn a lot from Alekhine because Kasparov was also learning from Alekhine's examples 03:48.900 --> 03:49.710 as well. 03:49.710 --> 03:54.960 So both of these players proved that this style of play could be effective all the way. 03:54.990 --> 03:57.210 Now you might ask, well, what about Mikhail Tal? 03:57.420 --> 04:04.980 He did also prove this kind of style of play, but he was quite interested in complexity sometimes for 04:04.980 --> 04:07.020 its own sake in some of his games. 04:07.740 --> 04:13.770 So he wasn't world champion as long as Alekhine and Kasparov either. 04:14.070 --> 04:21.090 So yes, he's also another brilliant attacking player, but because of the complexity bias added on, 04:21.120 --> 04:24.660 it makes the examples also a little bit harder to understand. 04:24.660 --> 04:32.250 Sometimes some table games are just just enormous complexity, millions of variations, it seems, you 04:32.250 --> 04:33.930 know, in some some of Tal's games. 04:33.930 --> 04:36.060 But yeah, we really want examples. 04:36.060 --> 04:36.840 We can learn from them. 04:36.840 --> 04:44.430 So for me, a solid foundation representing this King style kind of bias and a bias is using energy 04:44.430 --> 04:45.630 in a certain direction. 04:45.630 --> 04:51.210 So we need balance, we need stability, but still have that underlying bias when opportunity arises 04:51.210 --> 04:53.670 and it's justified to go for the attack. 04:53.700 --> 04:58.800 It's like, you know, a karate kind of move, but you don't want to be off balance. 04:58.800 --> 04:59.790 Balance is very. 04:59.950 --> 05:02.700 Very important on the chessboard. 05:02.710 --> 05:05.710 So that's why things like central control are so important. 05:05.720 --> 05:13.240 A good opening is important to have a stable kind of solid position and ideally accumulating advantages, 05:13.240 --> 05:20.380 which affords us the luxury of attacking operations without worrying too much of vicious counterattacks 05:20.380 --> 05:21.730 with the attack not failing. 05:22.090 --> 05:28.360 So, yes, we want to attack from a position of balance, from a position of solidity, quality openings, 05:28.360 --> 05:31.210 quality accumulation of advantages, ideally. 05:31.900 --> 05:32.950 So, yes. 05:33.880 --> 05:35.590 So you can think about this. 05:35.590 --> 05:41.920 That's the quadrant we want to end up in a king attacking style bias, but with high accuracy so we 05:41.920 --> 05:46.090 can be whatever opponents online or offline potentially. 05:46.090 --> 05:53.380 We don't want to put a limit on our chess improvements, but still we want to retain a little attacking 05:53.380 --> 05:55.390 style preference, basically. 05:55.990 --> 05:56.890 Okay. 05:57.010 --> 06:00.820 Because basically biases do represent fundamentally weaknesses. 06:00.820 --> 06:04.060 If you have a bias, ideally we'd be playing like machines. 06:04.060 --> 06:05.860 Well, ideally inverted commas. 06:05.860 --> 06:12.160 So you just be playing the position and a good world champion for that for really, really high accuracy 06:12.190 --> 06:13.420 is actually actually. 06:13.420 --> 06:14.590 Emanuel Lasker. 06:14.740 --> 06:18.910 He was really a kind of play the position plan people felt at the time. 06:18.910 --> 06:20.230 He had all these different styles. 06:20.230 --> 06:25.690 He was actually just playing the position quite logically without too much of a bias in any direction. 06:26.170 --> 06:32.440 But also, you know, Capablanca was also a kind of play the position player with, for me a slight 06:32.440 --> 06:32.800 difference. 06:32.800 --> 06:37.990 He did simplify when he had even, you know, a very small advantage. 06:37.990 --> 06:40.300 So simplification was a big thing for him. 06:40.300 --> 06:43.300 But we're interested in attacking chess in this course. 06:43.300 --> 06:49.080 And so Alexander Alekhine, who kind of served as the kind of role model because Garry Kasparov is, 06:49.120 --> 06:53.620 is kind of a basic foundational role model in this course. 06:53.620 --> 06:58.090 It's all about accuracy and an attacking style. 06:58.090 --> 06:59.680 We want to have both. 06:59.680 --> 07:00.910 We want to have everything there. 07:01.300 --> 07:02.140 Okay. 07:02.920 --> 07:03.670 And so much.