WEBVTT 00:00.890 --> 00:01.820 Hi there. 00:01.850 --> 00:08.240 In this lecture, I want to talk about the elements of possessions and how they trade off against each 00:08.240 --> 00:08.720 other. 00:09.020 --> 00:16.250 So many chess websites kind of agree that there are four key elements of a possession when you evaluate 00:16.250 --> 00:17.000 possession. 00:17.510 --> 00:17.900 So. 00:17.900 --> 00:20.300 KING Safety is an absolutely major one. 00:20.300 --> 00:21.890 Checkmate ends the game. 00:22.040 --> 00:22.430 So. 00:22.430 --> 00:23.720 KING Safety is all important. 00:23.720 --> 00:26.510 And that's one of the big focuses of this course. 00:26.690 --> 00:28.840 But there's also, of course, material. 00:28.850 --> 00:36.290 So if you're handed a possession, you look for king safety and material and you try and judge, you 00:36.290 --> 00:43.000 know, if someone is material down, you you try and say what what compensatory features have they got? 00:43.010 --> 00:45.470 Maybe their king is safer than the opponents. 00:45.560 --> 00:48.320 So these two can trade off against each other. 00:48.380 --> 00:51.160 And the same with pawn structure and activity. 00:51.170 --> 00:55.180 Sometimes you can look at, say, double pawns and be very negative about it. 00:55.190 --> 01:01.790 But then if you consider the activity around the double pawns, maybe the opponent has active rooks. 01:01.790 --> 01:03.230 So it's not all bad for them. 01:03.230 --> 01:03.980 And the same with you. 01:03.980 --> 01:10.640 If you carry structural defects, what is the compensation for those structural defects? 01:10.910 --> 01:16.670 And of course, there are more elements to the possessions and the ingredients of this course. 01:16.670 --> 01:22.020 Many of them are smaller ingredients, so such as bishop without a counterpart. 01:22.040 --> 01:29.510 So when you evaluate a position, you could say, well, this player has got a bishop without a counterpart 01:29.510 --> 01:31.400 and, you know, maybe it's exploitable. 01:32.440 --> 01:35.850 So there's a slight tradeoff with all the elements. 01:35.890 --> 01:40.300 So to consider them as a whole, it's very, very interesting, this balance. 01:40.300 --> 01:44.470 That's what makes chess really, really interesting, that there's even smaller elements that can trade 01:44.470 --> 01:45.940 off for each other. 01:47.200 --> 01:54.190 So basically, yeah, all the attacking patterns and ingredients of this course could be very, very 01:54.190 --> 01:58.540 useful for your attacking evaluation of positions. 01:59.440 --> 02:06.160 And it's apparent that Alaska made use of finer grained elements than than those identified by Wilhelm 02:06.160 --> 02:08.950 Steinitz, the first official world chess champion. 02:10.150 --> 02:16.870 So Steinitz had a quite, quite a simplified model of positions, it seems, from his writings. 02:16.870 --> 02:19.240 But there are actually finer grains elements. 02:19.450 --> 02:24.190 And Lasker also saw how those finer grain elements could be traded off for each other. 02:25.810 --> 02:31.300 It's good to identify the elements of the ingredients of positions like form pawns. 02:31.300 --> 02:37.660 So you might be sacrificing some material elsewhere on the board to get a form pawn. 02:37.660 --> 02:42.640 And I've done this several times and the form pawn is fairly deadly, especially if a queen comes and 02:42.640 --> 02:43.540 it just helps. 02:43.540 --> 02:44.320 Checkmate. 02:44.770 --> 02:46.810 So that's that's an example. 02:46.810 --> 02:52.090 If you have these signposts, these attacking signposts which relate to King's safety, these small 02:52.090 --> 02:58.660 elements that you can identify, that's going to be useful to you from an attacking perspective. 02:59.110 --> 03:03.100 So yes, King's safety verses material is an absolute classic one. 03:04.030 --> 03:06.760 And here let me just show you a concrete example. 03:06.760 --> 03:11.290 This game is analyzed in greater detail in the course. 03:11.290 --> 03:12.940 It's alekhine against Morocco. 03:12.940 --> 03:13.480 See? 03:14.170 --> 03:18.010 So here Alekhine's actually got a structural issue. 03:18.040 --> 03:25.810 He's got an isolated queen's pawn, but he creates practical chances in this position. 03:25.990 --> 03:31.060 He just goes for the king with Knight G4 He lets de forces go, he lets it go. 03:31.360 --> 03:36.850 If he had played a move like Bishop F2 trying to hold on to that material. 03:37.360 --> 03:37.990 So he's not. 03:37.990 --> 03:44.200 If he's not trading off the material, then Black gets a really comfortable blockade on the isolated 03:44.200 --> 03:45.040 Queen's pawn here. 03:45.040 --> 03:46.740 So this pawn isolated there. 03:47.080 --> 03:51.280 And this position is just it's just better for black, it's just slightly better for playing. 03:51.280 --> 03:57.910 So Knight G4 is really going for the king offering the isolated pawn It is actually taken, which is 03:57.910 --> 03:59.140 actually a mistake. 03:59.590 --> 04:01.270 Engineers consider this as a mistake. 04:01.270 --> 04:04.720 Might be D5 just holding the position down. 04:04.720 --> 04:09.340 Reinforcing F6 is a safer king Knight takes H6 check. 04:09.370 --> 04:11.770 This position would be better for black. 04:11.770 --> 04:19.060 Black has no real king safety issue here it seems it's got a nice blockade on D5 and the king should 04:19.060 --> 04:20.170 be safe enough. 04:20.590 --> 04:21.700 Okay, game on from there. 04:21.700 --> 04:24.220 But the king should be much safer than what happened in the game. 04:24.220 --> 04:25.570 So Rook takes D4. 04:25.570 --> 04:32.290 So we see this trade off example where double pawns are inflicted around the opponent's king, which 04:32.290 --> 04:38.230 is an, you know, a kind of situation you should recognize as kind of a very weakened king sometimes. 04:38.230 --> 04:40.990 So weakening H six that's isolated. 04:41.890 --> 04:43.990 This diagonal is a bit weaker. 04:44.590 --> 04:49.030 And the queen taps into this with 94 first. 04:49.480 --> 04:51.280 So Rook 88 was played. 04:51.910 --> 04:55.600 Knight takes f6 check King F eight. 04:55.930 --> 04:56.320 Yeah. 04:56.320 --> 05:05.680 The problem is, if Black had tried to play F5 here then 96 check anyway. 05:05.680 --> 05:09.490 And here Queen E Fray is very interesting. 05:09.640 --> 05:15.520 So for example, this position, this actually Bishop takes her five 8/8 Queen H three and you can see 05:15.520 --> 05:18.010 how King Safety dangers are emerging. 05:18.040 --> 05:19.660 Kanji 795 Check. 05:19.660 --> 05:23.620 The knight and Queen could actually cooperate for at least a perpetual check. 05:23.620 --> 05:25.480 So there's a bailout there. 05:25.480 --> 05:27.310 So Black didn't want that. 05:27.310 --> 05:30.550 So Rook 88 Knight takes F6 check here. 05:30.550 --> 05:34.930 King F eight minus H seven, check King E seven. 05:34.930 --> 05:41.290 So it seems well, black's got pressure on the default but again material being offered for king safety 05:41.290 --> 05:48.700 F5 just offering the bishop now rook eight to d6 if rook takes D3, we see the king safety aspect being 05:48.700 --> 05:51.500 highlighted f6 check and then we can take on D3. 05:51.640 --> 05:52.840 That's simple enough. 05:52.840 --> 05:55.630 So eight to D six b4. 05:55.900 --> 06:00.400 So this is cute to get the queen off the D5 square. 06:00.400 --> 06:01.870 Sometimes that's useful. 06:02.860 --> 06:10.540 We have Queen saying b4 and the E5 square more crucially so the Queen can come into E5. 06:10.540 --> 06:15.700 So that pawn being traded off essentially for king safety with Queen e5 now. 06:15.730 --> 06:21.910 So that's the kind of weakness of the last move as well being tapped into with B4 encouraging the Queen 06:21.910 --> 06:23.140 away from E5. 06:23.140 --> 06:30.220 So in this position, 97, Queen H eight, and the Queen and Knight coordinating with the pawn in beautiful 06:30.220 --> 06:31.660 ways, Rook takes D3. 06:31.750 --> 06:33.010 There's also the mistake. 06:33.340 --> 06:38.680 As I say, this game is analyzed in much greater detail in the course. 06:38.950 --> 06:41.230 If you find Morocco, see it as the keyword. 06:41.560 --> 06:45.760 So here the game ended with F6 check coming up. 06:47.050 --> 06:48.550 F6 chick ends the game. 06:48.550 --> 06:49.660 So what is endgame? 06:49.660 --> 06:55.810 If Knight takes f6, Queen takes f6 Jack and here Knight F8 is a cute checkmate. 06:56.530 --> 07:00.220 So yes, F6 ends the game If King D can you see what won't place? 07:02.450 --> 07:03.350 Okay, Queen. 07:03.350 --> 07:03.680 Thanks. 07:03.710 --> 07:06.080 You ain't Jack King, ain't rook. 07:06.080 --> 07:07.730 Kate is champ, mate. 07:08.120 --> 07:17.510 So we see here there's an important concept in our trade off scenarios of material versus king safety, 07:17.870 --> 07:23.710 especially if you've got an isolated queen's pawn instead of making all the pieces passive to support 07:23.710 --> 07:24.230 the pawn. 07:24.440 --> 07:27.800 Certain pawn structures, the dynamic ones. 07:27.980 --> 07:34.670 There is a risk that if you play too passively with them, yeah, it's straining all your pieces from 07:34.670 --> 07:37.700 an attacking perspective as well. 07:37.700 --> 07:40.580 You want the opponent kind of to be passive with their pieces. 07:40.580 --> 07:42.770 So again, you can go for their king sometimes. 07:42.770 --> 07:43.370 But here. 07:43.370 --> 07:43.730 Yeah. 07:43.730 --> 07:48.410 It's just thrown out of the position with Knight G4 Without further ado. 07:48.410 --> 07:55.190 So we see this trade off examples, a simple trade off example where in fact the material. 07:55.280 --> 07:56.540 Yeah, what do we do with it? 07:56.540 --> 08:00.100 If we try and keep the material, we pacify our pieces. 08:00.110 --> 08:01.220 So he went for it. 08:01.220 --> 08:05.690 Alekhine actually went for it with Knight G4 So yes, he's a great master of attack. 08:05.690 --> 08:11.180 He knows to trade off other things, but there are other smaller elements that are being traded off 08:11.300 --> 08:14.870 in many of his games and we try to identify those elements or ingredients. 08:14.870 --> 08:16.520 So think about trade off theory. 08:16.520 --> 08:19.400 It's one of the more powerful theories in general. 08:19.490 --> 08:24.530 It goes across multiple domains that often you're trading off something for something else. 08:26.180 --> 08:33.110 So here the trade off of the pawn worked out in this particular example, Sure, there were better moves 08:33.110 --> 08:36.710 for black, but yeah, it's a practical weapon to make use of that. 08:36.710 --> 08:43.970 Sometimes you trade off material for king safety or sometimes you trade off how neat your pawn structure 08:43.970 --> 08:49.160 looks for piece activity or mobility, which could have implications for king safety. 08:49.160 --> 08:54.140 If your pieces are all of a sudden looking at the opponent's kings, you've given away a pawn in the 08:54.140 --> 08:57.260 center and your, say, your bishop's blasting down. 08:57.260 --> 08:58.970 So I hope you get the idea. 08:59.540 --> 09:01.070 There are elements of possessions. 09:01.070 --> 09:07.160 The fundamental elements of possessions are those for so KING safety, material, pawn structure and 09:07.160 --> 09:07.640 activity. 09:07.640 --> 09:09.350 Those are the absolute essentials. 09:09.350 --> 09:15.860 But we're looking at spicier ingredients in this course and how they can be traded off for each other. 09:15.860 --> 09:18.110 So think about trade off theory a little bit. 09:18.350 --> 09:23.330 When you see sacrifices of material, especially or pawns, what is being traded off for? 09:23.330 --> 09:30.890 What it's interesting to consider and it makes one a more kind of dynamic player instead of doing plain 09:30.890 --> 09:33.170 rhythm moves just to protect your material all the time. 09:33.170 --> 09:35.180 Think about this trade off theory. 09:35.570 --> 09:37.280 Okay, So I hope that's interesting. 09:37.280 --> 09:38.390 Food for thought. 09:38.960 --> 09:39.680 That's so much.