Hi there.
In this lecture, I want to talk about one day chess.
So I had the opportunity to play in the Masters when I was more of a junior chess player.
And in one day tomans you might want to try one day every day.
Thomas reiterated, For example, At some point, the role of preparation is important to make sure
we get attacking opening variations.
So I had a classic example.
Now that I look back at it from a few angles, it's kind of interesting.
We've touched on in another intro video about how attacking players dream up stuff.
So Bronstein was actually preparing stuff against Korchnoi and he dreamt up a lot of attacking variations,
in effect in the names of Indian.
So this is something we want to do as attacking players, make sure our preparation for a specific player
that we sometimes know the pairings in advance from the organisers.
So we look at their openings and see are they kind of defensive or passive in some way?
Perhaps we can inject some attacking ideas even before the game.
That's one of the beauties of one day Chess.
Sun Tzu in your war said he or she will win.
Who prepared himself or herself waits to take the enemy unprepared.
So preparation is a key thing in general in the art of war.
And for me I was prepared for a particular game which have from memory about against Murugan, who was
over 2400 feet.
I was 2190 at the time and it was International Master Mark Ferguson.
Just actually my preparation arm was was poor.
It was Mark Ferguson.
Just literally like a few minutes before the game, he was establishing to me the carers attack basically
against the Sicilians of shaven England.
So this is a very interesting thing, the Sicilian Scheveningen.
Does have.
An idea for White to directly attack with early G-4.
So I'll show you why that is.
But the principle is yeah.
Mark Fergus and I are drawn with Bosniak Congress as on somewhat friendly terms, and it's good to just
build up contacts in the chess world because they're going to help you sometimes in key games to prepare.
So an opening is maybe as one as your own preparation.
It's great to build up friends and influence people.
That's another theme.
So basically, you know, even if you lose horribly, it's good to do a friendly post-mortem after games
whenever you can.
You're not just building up your chess, you're building up your chess contacts as well and connections.
So it's good to have preparation for particular opponents in one day.
Chess.
And yeah, he gave me certain ideas to exploit the classic Sicilian shape in England.
And it's funny that, you know, Keres attack is in the name of the version that I use, basically Karras
attack named after Paul Keres.
So it's good in principle, I feel.
Yeah.
Find out the opponent's openings and see are there any attack variations?
They might not be named attack, but there is attacking potential.
You can see that the king is being attacked.
The opponent's king is being attacked, not yours.
So it's sometimes good to see also in preparing those versions, the the role of the unexpected, the
pieces that transform from defending pieces to attacking pieces.
It's good to see, you know, the nuances of attack variations that you're preparing.
So basically, we're taking the idea, you know, bronze things.
Dream was actually bronze themes, preparation.
It's preparation that is key often.
And behind a beautiful attacking game.
Many of Kasparov's absolutely brilliant iconic games were with the help of computer preparation like
home cooks, especially in key like world championship matches.
There are certain games like for example, against Vishy Anand, there's a classic in the of which is
very, very deep sacrificial preparation.
So yes, we're not talking sometimes about just unexpected stuff.
We can find amazing resources for a computer preparation of course as well.
You don't just need to rely on friends in the chess world.
You can look at the opponent's repertoire and you get serious.
You know, you get a chess database like Chessbase and Chessbase lets you have a dossier on the opponent
so you can go through and say, Look, do they have any passive kind of openings where you could inject
some attacking potential?
So, yes, we want to dream our dreams against a particular opponent.
It's called preparation, basically.
And computer preparation is very powerful nowadays.
So you can find a lot of interesting resources in the opening.
So in this game it was only a few minutes before that I had been prepared for Murugan.
So I play E4 and he goes into the Sicilian Shave and England, in effect, he starts with the E6 move
order and we have 96, 98 days sex.
So one of the issues here is that the bishop is not stopping white from playing an early G4.
At some point the carriers attack and in fact here I played G4.
If you look actually at Kasparov's games, even he moved from Sicilian Shave in England to night off
because in the night off.
Well one of the reasons in this move order let's say this move order.
In the night of which is hugely popular, you'll see that there's no carriers attack.
The bishop on C eight is still looking at G4.
There's no Ernie G4 and.
Yeah.
Black hands.
The option of a five and one goes sometimes.
It really depends on what it does next.
It's very, very theoretical.
But okay, in this particular sequence, we have a different sequence.
Yeah, we have the shaving and -- structure and G4 is possible here, so it's going into the carer's
attack.
So it's literally an attacking opening variation.
So Knights FC seven and actually I had gone further with Mark Ferguson to get this position to understand
that actually there's an attacking potential of some subtlety, at least that here there's a plan.
It's good to not just know the opening sequence, but no follow up attacking plan that basically this
night could usefully transfer to G free on occasion.
And also there's an idea of Queen D2 to support G5 form for blasting through of H5 and G six.
So that's the general plan.
So it wasn't just moves in a vacuum, there's a plan behind it.
So 92 here b4 knight G free.
And so we have this attacking preparation which is giving us this lovely attacking position.
So preparation in chess especially one day, chess is very, very important and it has been since the
dawn of time.
Yeah.
If you can prepare against particular opponents then that's great.
You're helping guarantee yourself a nice attacking position.
So you've got to be keen enough, especially for serious chess with higher stakes, to really try and
guarantee things as much as possible.
So my good friend Alexei Fillon's essentially said one of the recent British championship winners had
prepared to the Hill against his French defence in one of one of the club games even, and kind of took
him to a very, very scary position where, you know, he eventually lost.
Preparation is is key in modern chess.
The more you can do against the particular opponent, against their particular variations, the better.
Generally, as long as you don't completely exhaust yourself before the game.
I'm not talking about spending.
You're burning the midnight oil.
You've also got to give the performance.
You've got to have the energy to actually calculate at the board the enthusiasm.
So but the role of preparation is definitely valuable in moderation, of course.
So here we have an attacking position that I'd kind of been aware I could get to.
So Queen Veto.
Now supporting the G5 pawn means that, you know, the battering ram is ready with H five and G six.
So Queen A five, H 595.
So black's not yea near my king just yet.
But you know, given a few moves, this could brew into something really dangerous.
So be free stops actually A four bishop B seven f3, D five and now actually an inaccuracy.
Bishop difference seems as though G six might be better straight away from a technical point of view.
Just let E4 go this position because it's forcibly opening up lines to the king, as David Bronstein
would say.
Perhaps, you know, cold winds to the opponent's king.
So Queen H two, there's cold winds coming from the opponent's king here.
And black can't really stop this opening up, especially here.
Bishop C for this night takes age five in the air now.
So this kind of pins that night to e six, it's very dangerous scenario.
And the rook can come in and it's a very dangerous position once Knight takes h five happens.
So this is in theory, you know, a great way of playing at night six We have Queen saying say five
at least.
So this this is like a crushing attack.
You can see this is a crushing attack scenario where that kind of breakthrough isn't delayed too much.
So that was possible there.
So that's fascinating stuff.
And if you know F thanks g6, H takes this position.
Queen H two as example, check.
There's actually a resource rook H six which is nice to know when you've pinned that.
G Seven points is a nice to know attacking resource as well.
So here in this position things can get nasty.
For example bishop tanks have since king tanks and now yeah things just get nasty.
This is opening up things like a five check for Queen D six check rookie six check.
And the black king's going to get mated here, even though black's like alpha material wants to stop
Queen seven or Queen F seven, Nothing much.
So there are attacking, you know, beautiful variations with the battering rams throw away.
But I played Bishop D3 and now I'm rewarded with an inaccuracy though by the end.
So there were better ways of playing the position here.
But let's continue.
Gee, thanks.
So I play this and it's kind of dangerous.
Knight takes the free C takes now F thanks is a definite mistake as well.
It's helping wines.
But the thing is, here is where time to find resources is important, because what happens after this
battering ram?
What is the key point?
I spent at least 30 minutes on this next move because it is actually a subtle resource in the possession,
which I found.
So even with all that preparation, you still have to work hard at the board as well.
So what do you think a key attacking move here is good.
And what subtle does it contain?
If I give you 5 seconds of pause video, what would you play here in this position of wines?
Okay.
I played Bishop before and it has the subtle of Rook H check because we're looking at a pin's pawn.
We're going to bank on G7.
So I was pleased with that finding.
And now Bishop f8 if D takes evil, let's put it on the board.
Rook h h ach, let's put it on the board.
So this is a nice pin which we're using there.
And if well, King f7 Queen F4 check.
And this position Bishop takes f6 is strong.
So if they take the rook, we can take on the eight and win the Queen at the very least.
If G takes Rook h seven check and this is crushing.
If Bishop c6 here Rook h8 Shank Queen a full shank.
Bishop takes thinks this is just crushing.
Okay, so.
Bishop and Faith was trained in the game.
We have Queen G five, King or seven and now Rook eight, seven.
So the threat here is not so subtle.
What's pin pawn Queen f6.
So we have E5 stopping that, but at some cost.
If rookie seven Knight h5 is actually even more incisive, it seems that's a very incisive move.
This position, for example, is terminal and also Queen f6.
We do have a five here and this is crazy stuff.
This is just crazy.
Bishop B six Queen takes her five check, Bishop takes the eight.
Black is getting dismantled.
So anyway, E5 is tried.
Bishop takes E5 rookie six and now I noticed actually Queen A4 Cheng is strong because of the King A
I have Bishop C7 seven.
So in the end I'm winning material and dismantling the opponents.
So black you know, more than two 400, he resigned her.
So it was one of my big early scalps in my chess, in my one day chess one day chess is more of a serious
business.
Yeah, there is the role of preparation, but if you enjoy the associated processes of one day chess,
getting to meet people, socialize, getting to prepare against particular opponent's repertoires,
you get very specific knowledge, sometimes just with a specific opponent's, you know, very specific
focused knowledge.
But the ingredients of this course, the attacking ingredients, when you prepare for something, someone
concretely, you can look out for the attacking ingredients.
So you can even if an opening is not identified as an attacking opening, you can say, well, for example,
I'm getting a bishop about counterpart or I'm getting the two bishops here, or there's a juicy knight
on a five.
Or there are weaknesses around the opponent's king here.
I can see the potential for teamwork.
So you identify attacking variations.
They don't literally need to be called attack, but there are a number of attacking opening variations,
for example, which which have attack in their name, like Austrian attack against the peers.
But yeah, the carriers attack against the Sicilian shaving and actually did kind of, in my view,
increase the popularity in the night off because it avoids the carriers attack.
The carriers attack is a strong attempt to get a significant advantage basically, in a general sense
against the Sicilian shaving.
And so the ninth off seems to be a much more popular fissure and eventually gravitated towards the Sicilian
night off, away from the raw shaving and allowing cameras attack.
So, yeah, this is this final possession.
Yeah.
Is is.
You know, losing material.
So Bishop takes the.
And this is horrible.
This F eight piece now you know Rook coming.
It's just.
It's just winning.
So.
Okay, I just wanted to highlight the role of preparation and dreaming up variations for a particular
opponent.
Try and absorb the attacking ingredients, the kind of generic attacking ingredients of this course
and never navigate concretely against a specific opponent.
Sometimes in one day chess is important, but also even online you might have the same opponent so many
times you're going to be playing them in tournament, often online.
So it's good sometimes to do some some work, some preparation work against particular opponents.
And I know I'm a bit guilty of this.
I had, you know, Alex or I'm chasing with his repertoire, but sometimes I don't do the work to see
his adaptations.
So, you know, this is one player that I have to prepare against in the openings, it seems, take
more seriously.
So the more you can take the whole process of preparation, make that a fun process for yourself to
get these juicy, attacking variations which have attacking ingredients.
You're aware of the attacking plans.
Yeah, in terms of adaptation, let me just show you against that one.
So I had one or two games where, you know, he was playing his 94 against me, the 93 course.
So it's an ongoing effect.
And I know that there's a kind of system here with a quick bishop Essex.
Anyway, he started avoiding this.
He started playing 865, which is very logical, and unless I become a Scandinavian expert, I'm not
necessarily going to get attacking variations.
But then as example C6, he's still going to play 93 and there is attacking potential here on Queenie
too.
I just need to find the attacking lines and he'll adapt from that, no doubt.
If I start to get attacking positions from here and you're going to be ready to adapt all the time and
prepare all the time because the opponents are moving as well.
The opponents are looking at their games as well.
So yeah, chess is quite a battle of preparation if you want juicy attacking opening variations with
juicy attacking, opening, opening opportunities, Sometimes you've got to you've got to prepare hard
for those.
Okay.
One.
One caveat, though, historically, if we think about one of the Alekhine Capablanca World Championship
match, both players were quite stubbornly playing endlessly.
The Queen's Gambit declines.
Certain variations in the Queen's Gambit declines.
We shouldn't seem to be attacking, but I believe Alekhine for that match had a special match strategy.
He didn't mind not having out and out attacking positions.
He was kind of wearing Capablanca down in a way and trying to make him flanker in his own game.
That's a different story.
But in general, yeah, if you're an attacking player, the role of preparation, it's it's a continuous
process.
You could be targeting particular opponents and their repertoires, trying to get in there, find all
the opportunities to put them under pressure, try and get advantages when you play them out of the
opening, especially those juicy attacking ingredients which are so nice for successful king attacks.
So anyway, I hope this has been a useful introduction video about preparation for series one Play chess
and something to bear in mind.
Okay, so much.