WEBVTT 00:00.870 --> 00:01.660 Hi there. 00:01.680 --> 00:08.370 In this introduction lecture, I want to head on talk about beauty versus accuracy. 00:08.370 --> 00:09.390 So head on. 00:10.210 --> 00:14.310 Okay, so we had a romantic era in chess. 00:14.940 --> 00:20.940 Which had things like The King's Gambit and the Evans Gambit as opening choices, leading to very sharp 00:20.940 --> 00:29.190 situations where often white, the play of the white pieces could end up absolutely crushing opponents. 00:29.190 --> 00:35.010 And Paul Morphy was one of the heroes of the romantic era and of Anderson. 00:35.010 --> 00:42.030 So the Romantic era had these gambits, which often did work because defensive technique wasn't that 00:42.030 --> 00:48.630 good at the time, and it was also full, ungentlemanly and cowardly, too, to not accept sacrifices. 00:48.870 --> 00:50.800 So maybe that's the opening gambit. 00:50.850 --> 00:53.130 Sacrifice or sacrifices later, maybe it was fought. 00:53.190 --> 00:59.090 It was like cowardly not to accept the sacrifices when maybe they shouldn't or they accepted them later. 00:59.090 --> 01:01.560 Or at least they should have done count the sacrifices. 01:01.560 --> 01:06.540 They should have put more of an effort into king safety and defensive technique. 01:06.930 --> 01:13.080 But in chess history, the evolution of chess style, there was an increase in the defensive style. 01:13.080 --> 01:19.230 And Steinitz is a remarkable character in the evolution of chess style. 01:19.260 --> 01:24.660 He started off his career as a romantic error kind of hack attacker, you know, playing all sorts of 01:24.660 --> 01:25.620 dodgy stuff. 01:25.680 --> 01:27.240 Then there was atonement. 01:27.240 --> 01:28.110 There was a change in his career. 01:28.140 --> 01:32.700 This particular tournament, he started playing in a more dull way, more boring way, accumulating 01:32.700 --> 01:36.840 advantages, for example, entrenching a knight outpost, accumulating the bishop. 01:37.290 --> 01:39.210 He was accumulating advantages. 01:39.510 --> 01:45.390 And when it came to the tactical clash, because he had installed these advantages in the position, 01:45.960 --> 01:51.990 you know, especially in more closed positions, where you can accumulate more advantages more easily 01:51.990 --> 01:54.330 rather than open, more chaotic positions. 01:54.480 --> 01:58.800 So he was accumulating advantages and winning in a more risk free manner. 01:58.800 --> 02:01.530 So his consistency of results shot up. 02:01.830 --> 02:05.970 So he kind of introduced the more scientific era to chess. 02:06.450 --> 02:09.630 So that kind of put an end to the romantic era. 02:09.660 --> 02:12.420 They stopped having so many heroes at the highest level. 02:12.420 --> 02:16.720 The world champion is basically a star, which is very attractive. 02:16.740 --> 02:22.340 He's like world champion and he's also a brilliant communicator in chess, magazines, etc.. 02:22.350 --> 02:24.420 So he's communicating these ideas. 02:26.030 --> 02:28.290 You know, Paul Morphy wasn't a fan of the open game. 02:28.290 --> 02:33.780 He even went so far as to include stipulations in matches that at least half the games should begin 02:33.780 --> 02:38.040 with E4 E5 in open games, more open games rather than close games. 02:38.040 --> 02:42.840 So the idea of even default openings was like considered dull by Paul Morphy. 02:43.890 --> 02:44.650 So we have. 02:44.670 --> 02:51.150 So in the romantic era, you know, big names Anderson, Morphy, and also Spellman was considered the 02:51.150 --> 02:52.230 last romantic. 02:52.320 --> 02:54.240 So not British Grandmaster John Spell. 02:54.240 --> 02:56.110 No, this is Spellman esp I. 02:57.980 --> 03:03.420 And he was considered the lost romantic some really beautiful games of chess by Spellman. 03:03.450 --> 03:11.550 But anyway, so the scientific era started off by Wilhelm Steinitz and continued by Lasker, who made 03:11.550 --> 03:13.190 it into a formidable weapon. 03:13.200 --> 03:18.300 Factoring in also the context of games, who is actually playing the tournament situation. 03:18.300 --> 03:26.730 So Lasker took that scientific basis for chess and made it into a weapon to be used for chess as a sport 03:26.730 --> 03:31.590 as well for maximizing results based on the circumstances. 03:31.830 --> 03:37.770 So this scientific error had well and truly been established by these two world chess champions, Steinitz 03:37.770 --> 03:38.520 in Alaska. 03:39.690 --> 03:44.880 It showed that attacks only worked for, you know, generally for a person with the advantage. 03:44.910 --> 03:48.120 The advantage is like the kind of balance you have on the chessboard. 03:48.120 --> 03:50.640 Can you actually afford attacking chess? 03:50.670 --> 03:55.440 If you tried it, would it actually just be easy to defend it and. 03:56.530 --> 03:56.800 Yeah. 03:56.830 --> 04:01.880 Basically in our chess nowadays, though, we're not playing. 04:01.960 --> 04:05.230 We're playing quite a lot of casual chess online. 04:05.380 --> 04:11.470 So the Kings game, it remains a super dangerous weapon for most players online, but they're kind of 04:11.470 --> 04:12.790 put off playing it. 04:12.850 --> 04:17.890 Sometimes I feel, because we're looking at what the Grandmaster is playing one day chess to be respectable, 04:17.890 --> 04:20.260 but there's a whole different goal around that. 04:20.260 --> 04:24.160 Grandmasters in say close tournaments don't want to lose racing points. 04:24.160 --> 04:29.290 They want to be kind of stable and consistent and be invited to the next event without losing tons of 04:29.290 --> 04:30.310 rating points. 04:30.310 --> 04:36.730 In general, there are exceptional grandmasters that don't really care so much and have more shaky ratings, 04:36.880 --> 04:38.440 more of a spectrum of ratings. 04:38.740 --> 04:43.450 But anyway, the romance era isn't really that dead. 04:44.050 --> 04:49.630 You know, in the modern era of chess, where most people are playing fast time limits, it doesn't 04:49.630 --> 04:52.180 really matter if you play a crazy game. 04:52.180 --> 04:52.690 It's game. 04:52.690 --> 04:53.800 It's just fun. 04:54.250 --> 04:56.050 They put opponents under pressure. 04:56.440 --> 04:57.910 They give initiative. 04:58.330 --> 04:59.530 The initiative is very important. 04:59.530 --> 05:03.550 The faster the time control to be putting the opponent under pressure. 05:03.700 --> 05:13.000 So anyway, basically the case with this four quadrant diagram being made is we ideally were especially 05:13.000 --> 05:14.260 on the longer time limit. 05:14.260 --> 05:19.000 So let's quantify this on the longer time limits. 05:19.000 --> 05:24.130 We do generally want high accuracy and high beauty on the shorter time limits. 05:25.510 --> 05:30.820 Then maybe we don't mind lower accuracy, but also beautiful and of course would give us great results 05:30.970 --> 05:33.010 if we play for the initiative. 05:33.010 --> 05:39.940 On the faster time limits, we can also aim just to be putting all our efforts into accuracy and not 05:39.940 --> 05:45.280 caring about beauty is is kind of an optional thing if you want to play more scientifically or more 05:45.280 --> 05:46.210 artistically. 05:47.050 --> 05:53.440 It was Anatoly Karpov that said that basically chances aren't science and sports. 05:53.620 --> 05:56.560 So the art side, the beauty side, the science is like, you know. 05:56.620 --> 05:57.670 LASKAS You know. 05:57.670 --> 06:04.210 STEINITZ And the sport is about the actual results, getting the results in terms you fighting on relentlessly 06:04.210 --> 06:08.110 from seemingly tedious Jewish positions to get the results. 06:08.500 --> 06:11.880 So, you know, you have players that will just grind and grind and grind. 06:11.890 --> 06:16.300 For example, Magnus Carlsen can grind out lots of tedious and games to a win. 06:16.300 --> 06:21.880 So it's also a sporting element just remaining at the ball for hours on end, being physically fit enough 06:21.880 --> 06:23.560 to do that endurance. 06:23.560 --> 06:25.750 So there's that angle of chess as well. 06:25.870 --> 06:29.350 So we're talking about high accuracy. 06:29.350 --> 06:32.680 With high beauty is something to strive for in general. 06:33.370 --> 06:38.830 But the romantic era of relics in terms of concrete openings, we can use them without feeling too much 06:39.280 --> 06:39.670 guilt. 06:39.670 --> 06:40.330 In my view. 06:40.330 --> 06:45.190 If you check my phone numbers going to chess openings, I argue that, you know, you can choose openings 06:45.190 --> 06:46.660 based on the circumstances. 06:46.660 --> 06:51.040 If it's just casual online chess, a priority you might have is just to have a lot of fun. 06:51.040 --> 06:55.060 So gambits, you know, create that opportunity to have a lot of fun, especially the more you know 06:55.060 --> 06:58.060 about a gambling like the Smith Moran game against the Sicilian. 06:58.210 --> 07:06.010 Okay it might be potentially not not the greatest sometimes in terms of theoretical advantage but also 07:06.190 --> 07:08.980 the element of surprise with these things is another factor. 07:09.490 --> 07:11.530 So this is something to think about. 07:11.560 --> 07:17.950 Our romantic era in chess was officially squashed by Steinitz, the first official world champion, 07:17.950 --> 07:20.050 and Lasker after him. 07:20.230 --> 07:23.460 But that doesn't mean we you know, we can't play romantically. 07:23.470 --> 07:30.010 And players like Boris Spassky still played things like The King's Gambit with great success beating 07:30.010 --> 07:31.210 even Bobby Fischer. 07:31.330 --> 07:35.470 So the romantic era relics are still, you know, they're still playable and fun. 07:35.770 --> 07:37.600 You just need to give them a chance to experiment. 07:37.600 --> 07:40.510 And if you like having fun with chess, then fine. 07:40.540 --> 07:44.560 I might point out specifically as an example plan, there's Matador. 07:44.620 --> 07:46.660 So he's definitely of the romantic era. 07:46.660 --> 07:51.430 He played beautiful combinations, but he also had some problems. 07:51.430 --> 07:53.650 He was a restricted player for international tournaments. 07:53.650 --> 07:54.940 They didn't really give him a chance. 07:54.940 --> 07:59.960 And when he did play internationally, he got very good results, like, for example, ahead of Korchnoi 08:00.010 --> 08:06.130 in in one of his few international tournaments, he played in Macau Hotel, described as the happiest 08:06.130 --> 08:09.310 day of his life when he lost to his metamorph. 08:09.310 --> 08:16.120 So in matter, Matloff as a person who created lots and lots of artistic masterpieces on the chessboard 08:16.600 --> 08:23.290 and he just wasn't given opportunity, you know, for the for the international events. 08:23.440 --> 08:29.020 So sometimes, especially in those conditions, yeah, it's, it's tricky. 08:30.640 --> 08:35.950 There is a roof being put on you anyway, even if you, if you didn't, if you wanted to play scientifically, 08:35.950 --> 08:40.660 if there's a roof being put on you for not being given opportunity, that's a different story as well. 08:41.170 --> 08:51.250 The romantic era of the arts generally focused on emotional expression more than technical mastery. 08:51.250 --> 08:59.950 So that is analogous to the chess romantic era, the emotions that were evoked from a game in sacrificing 08:59.950 --> 09:08.050 pieces, the drama of it, the outrageous of event, the emotional expression the emotions evokes when 09:08.050 --> 09:09.430 people look at those games. 09:09.430 --> 09:12.640 Yeah, they they stand the test of time. 09:12.640 --> 09:13.990 These are mortal games. 09:15.370 --> 09:22.480 So there is there is a great argument for artistic play. 09:23.200 --> 09:25.240 So there's these priorities. 09:25.240 --> 09:26.680 You can call them priorities. 09:26.680 --> 09:35.980 But generally for me, even in fast time limit games, I like accuracy to a certain extent, but I do 09:35.980 --> 09:41.020 like, you know, fun attacking openings, which might not be that sounds because most of the time we're 09:41.020 --> 09:46.030 talking about most of the time it might be just acceptable to you, especially if the priority in a 09:46.030 --> 09:52.240 specific tournament is to win quickly to get to the next game that I like quickly, finishing off opponents 09:52.240 --> 09:53.500 to go on to the next game. 09:53.500 --> 09:55.090 So there's a bias to that as well. 09:55.120 --> 10:01.390 The sport sporting bias, you could call it when you factor in, you know, the tournament reward system 10:01.390 --> 10:02.110 as well. 10:02.290 --> 10:07.690 So these are just priorities to bear in mind. 10:08.790 --> 10:16.830 Basically, for me, accuracy generally is a priority and beauty is a secondary priority. 10:16.830 --> 10:19.050 But I do like to play beautiful games as well. 10:19.320 --> 10:22.290 Okay, food for thought here and so much.