WEBVTT 00:00.960 --> 00:01.830 Hi there. 00:02.010 --> 00:08.790 In this lecture, I'd like to talk about Alexander Alekhine as a combination of attacking player, a 00:08.790 --> 00:09.720 role model. 00:10.170 --> 00:16.920 So there are various quotations which are very flattering for Alexander Alekhine from other world chess 00:16.920 --> 00:17.700 champions. 00:17.940 --> 00:26.580 Emanuel Lasker, the longest world chess champion, said Alekhine grew out of the combination. 00:26.580 --> 00:27.890 He's in love with it. 00:27.900 --> 00:32.460 Everything strategic is only a preparation for him, almost a necessary evil. 00:32.460 --> 00:35.100 The stunning blow, the unexpected frost. 00:35.430 --> 00:37.250 This is his element. 00:37.260 --> 00:41.970 His imagination catches fire in the attack on the king. 00:42.870 --> 00:45.270 That's a great compliment, really. 00:45.810 --> 00:51.300 There's also a comment from Mikhail Botvinnik, the kind of father of the Soviet chess school. 00:51.300 --> 00:54.450 Alekhine is dear to the chess board, mainly as an artist. 00:54.540 --> 01:00.930 Typical of him are deep plans, far sighted calculation and inexhaustible imagination. 01:00.960 --> 01:06.640 However, his main strength, which develops from year to year, was his combination of vision. 01:06.660 --> 01:09.600 He saw combinations with great ease and accuracy. 01:09.630 --> 01:14.980 For this reason, alekhine's combinations possess such staggering, crushing force. 01:15.000 --> 01:17.190 Yet this truly was an amazing gift. 01:18.540 --> 01:20.800 Another quote from another world champion, Vasily Spins. 01:21.060 --> 01:27.630 The name of Alexander Alekhine is basically, it's illuminated by the brilliance of his chess combinations. 01:27.840 --> 01:36.900 Alekhine possessed an exceptionally rich chess imagination, and his skill in creative in creating combinations 01:36.900 --> 01:39.910 of complications is incomparable. 01:39.930 --> 01:43.980 It should be mentioned that Alekhine had a mastery of technique, and his striving for combinations 01:43.980 --> 01:48.450 was not an end to itself, but stemmed logically from the demands of the position. 01:49.470 --> 01:55.410 And one of his contemporaries, Rudolf Spearman, said, I can comprehend alekhine combinations well 01:55.410 --> 02:01.350 enough, but where he gets his attacking chances from it and how he infuses such life into the very 02:01.350 --> 02:03.240 opening that is beyond me. 02:05.160 --> 02:11.070 Alekhine himself said he had to work long and hard to eradicate the dangerous delusion that in a bad 02:11.070 --> 02:16.140 position he could always or nearly always conjure up some unexpected combination to extricate himself 02:16.140 --> 02:16.950 from difficulties. 02:17.220 --> 02:19.740 So yeah, the combination. 02:21.170 --> 02:23.300 Is ideal if it's from a good position. 02:23.300 --> 02:28.520 So I was always kind of evolving his game to lead up to that combination. 02:28.700 --> 02:34.670 And from a modern super grandmaster level, Aronian has mentioned this aspect. 02:34.670 --> 02:41.300 Levon Aronian considers Alexander Alekhine to be one of the strongest and most exciting players ever 02:41.300 --> 02:48.980 in terms of always evolving Alekhine really had to evolve his game to defeat Capablanca in a world chess 02:48.980 --> 02:51.590 Championship match, which was completely unexpected. 02:51.590 --> 02:58.070 It lost a lot of games against Capablanca, never beat them and managed to beat him in the World Chess 02:58.070 --> 02:59.090 Championship match. 03:00.230 --> 03:03.500 So what does it mean to be born out of a combination? 03:03.500 --> 03:06.330 That's my question for Laskas quote. 03:06.350 --> 03:08.330 It's like I'd say. 03:08.330 --> 03:16.400 I mean, my understanding interpretation is like he improved his game more and more. 03:17.190 --> 03:20.730 In terms of kind of relevance for creating those beautiful combinations. 03:21.840 --> 03:31.410 So yes, in a way, yeah, he is like a foundational master for us to also follow that kind of method. 03:31.410 --> 03:39.510 We want to be good tactically and combination, good at combinations, good finisher, but we need to 03:39.510 --> 03:43.350 get those good positions with the relevant attacking ingredients. 03:43.740 --> 03:50.850 So hopefully this course instills some of the key ingredients that we can observe from Alexander Alekhine 03:51.000 --> 03:52.230 game examples. 03:52.320 --> 03:58.860 So we want to evolve that kind of what that's called infrastructure relevant, but you could also call 03:58.860 --> 04:04.890 it the set of ingredients relevant for creating attacking positions in the first place. 04:05.460 --> 04:10.290 So yes, we want understand the attacking ingredients more and more. 04:10.590 --> 04:13.230 So yes, he is a kind of role model. 04:13.230 --> 04:17.250 You see his games in a lot of tactics and combinations, books. 04:17.550 --> 04:23.550 So let's have a look at a concrete combination, one of many beautiful ones. 04:23.760 --> 04:30.420 The staggering thing about this particular one, this is Alexander Alekhine against Von Fels in 1916. 04:30.420 --> 04:35.280 It was a blindfold simultaneous display, believe it or not. 04:36.540 --> 04:40.170 And here Alekhine played like a bolt from the blue. 04:40.170 --> 04:42.270 Can you see what he played for? 04:42.270 --> 04:42.990 100 points? 04:42.990 --> 04:44.790 What would you play in this position? 04:47.710 --> 04:48.180 Okay. 04:48.190 --> 04:50.380 He played actually seven. 04:51.690 --> 04:53.580 Yeah, It's in the Queen now. 04:53.730 --> 04:58.620 The king took you can see this game analyzed in detail in the course. 04:58.620 --> 05:03.120 If the Queen had gone to see Queen 66 is dangerous for black. 05:03.510 --> 05:06.890 For example, Bishop Kf8, we've got a smothered mate, Patton. 05:06.900 --> 05:08.160 It's kind of dangerous. 05:08.370 --> 05:10.020 So the king took. 05:10.830 --> 05:11.910 And here, guess what? 05:11.910 --> 05:13.020 And the Queen played. 05:16.590 --> 05:16.770 Yeah. 05:16.830 --> 05:18.870 It's even the completely outrageous ones. 05:18.870 --> 05:20.370 Queen takes 86 check. 05:20.820 --> 05:22.470 So we have King Jesus. 05:23.220 --> 05:26.850 If King takes 86, 95 is checkmate. 05:27.000 --> 05:34.350 If King if eight point G five black has 95 to stave off mate for a moment, but off, the bishop takes 05:34.350 --> 05:34.720 85. 05:34.740 --> 05:35.910 This is getting desperate. 05:35.910 --> 05:37.350 Blacks shedding material. 05:37.380 --> 05:41.820 Whites going to be crushing it with Knight takes age seven check to win the Queen. 05:42.150 --> 05:44.700 So yes, we have King G6 instead. 05:45.480 --> 05:47.850 And now a beautiful move here. 05:48.210 --> 05:55.200 G4 We have Bishop E4 trying to defend against the various threats, but Knight H4 is checkmate. 05:56.370 --> 06:01.740 This is one of many, many beautiful eyes on alekhine combinations. 06:01.740 --> 06:03.950 But how did he get this position in the first place? 06:03.960 --> 06:06.090 Yeah, so I'll show you that game lead up. 06:06.090 --> 06:08.400 If you if you go and look at the game in question. 06:08.400 --> 06:14.670 I just wanted to show you the beautiful bit there, the combination in this intro video. 06:14.670 --> 06:19.650 But the course does try and focus on how we got there. 06:19.650 --> 06:26.010 How on earth were the attacking ingredients emerging for this position in the first place? 06:28.600 --> 06:29.230 But yes. 06:29.230 --> 06:38.530 So to recap here, this introduction lecture is just how alekhine impressed it seems Many other champions 06:38.530 --> 06:47.920 and contemporaries for his combination skills in particular and his imagination, which kind of helped 06:47.920 --> 06:52.330 him look at these incredible possessions and combinations. 06:52.330 --> 06:53.470 Take them seriously. 06:54.820 --> 06:55.180 Yeah. 06:55.180 --> 07:02.140 So it's a very, very exciting he's a very, very exciting player to follow and try and understand. 07:02.590 --> 07:05.120 And you can see thoughts to see why. 07:05.140 --> 07:11.830 Garry Kasparov was very fond of looking at games of Alexander Alekhine and how he used, for example, 07:11.830 --> 07:17.800 quite a lot of sacrifices in the opening for the initiative to gain some attacking potential. 07:17.800 --> 07:22.360 That's one of many tools that Alekhine used. 07:22.840 --> 07:27.580 Okay, so I hope you got something out of this little introduction here and these quotes relevant for 07:27.580 --> 07:28.420 combination. 07:29.110 --> 07:29.830 Thanks very much.