Hi there.
In this lecture, there is another iconic game, which is a must see game, in my view.
And also, you know, Alexander Alekhine has this term associated with him, the Alekhine's gun, which
is a particular arrangement of Turks and the Queen, where the queen is at the base of the two rooks.
So the most expensive piece, the queen is at the base of the two rooks.
And we see actually in Anakin's gun construction in this game, which is absolutely fascinating.
So this is alekhine against Nimzowitsch in 1930 Sanremo Tournament round three.
So it starts off with Anakin kicking off with E4.
We have a French defence from Nimzowitsch.
D4 d5 nine c3 Bishop b4 so a winner variation the Advanced variation c5 Bishop d2.
So this is slightly unusual.
More usual is a three, but grandmasters like Timman have used this move.
This is a decent enough move.
Bishop D2 We have 97 and now nine B5 Bishop takes D2, Czech Queen 62, Black Castle, C free and now
B6.
This is a slight mistake.
It weakens line squares F6 is more to the point.
It seems to try and undermine the pawn chain of bets or get some peace activity, for example.
C Thanks.
F Thanks e5 D Take C five and if Bishop D 796 Black actually has got a small edge overall, White has
got potential weaknesses in the position.
It's not all about the knight on D6 being pretty, and you can see that Black's queenside is fairly
solid at the moment.
It's good not to move the pawn sometimes, but here with B6 there's there are some light square weaknesses
creeping in.
With B6, we see F4 Bishop A6, I'm afraid, Queen D seven and now A4 supporting that night, night
B six, and now a very strong move to stop stuff like A5 in its tracks.
We have to move B4 because you could imagine sometimes Black might be interested in A5 at some point
and maybe Knight C4 even to try and open up the D5 square.
There are some positional ideas lurking, but this move b4 kind of squashes those ideas and puts pressure
on C5.
We have C tanks, C tanks, Bishop B seven and now 90 6f5.
And Black's counterplay is kind of limited here without this f6.
Now you can see Black's pieces are less active.
This knight's a bit of a monster knight on d6 Octopus Knight.
We have a A5 as well.
Night C eight and now weakening black on the Knight Squares.
And you might think, Well, that's entirely paradoxical, isn't it, King's Crusher Because isn't that
bishop like terrible?
Anyway, why would Alekhine give up his look here?
Well.
Yeah, it is.
It is an interesting move because it is amplifying potentially the LightSquared and we have a LightSquared
counterpart.
So it swings and roundabouts.
Now getting this kind of Queens -- installments is kind of dangerous for black as well with tempo
Queen of seven and on Bishop be five we have Knights 87 now the thing is black is setting up Nimzowitsch
is setting up a target on C6 to be kind of pressurised, you know, with huge pressure potentially.
The thing is, if we look at this critical position in detail with Knight going to e seven Route one,
this is advantageous to white.
For example, let me just show you an example here.
So Rook see two rooks double and even, you know, Rook C seven is a great, great move here.
But even taking the rooks off, even taking the rooks off here is actually a big advantage for white
here.
This position is is very unfortunate for black.
For example, Bishop 87 had 97, Queen C seven, the queen coming in and then just holding it full for
a moment.
There's no rush even to to take on 87.
Just hold, hold f four and let's just say Queen D six.
Forget A7.
This stops any counterplay with Queen Sax before.
Anyway, so that's the key move here.
And White has a huge advantage this position.
Bishop takes E6 but if queen tanks e takes this position is also it's just hugely advantageous because
White's going to play D seven soon winning a piece.
So yeah, there are issues with the position in general, even if it isn't even Roxy seven.
Even taking the rooks off is actually a huge advantage technically for White.
So Rook saying C eight though is also so an alternative, but rook C seven here and this position with
the work on the seventh is even more kind of bad for black, you know, levels of badness here.
There's a big problem with A7 as pawns.
Only two squares away from Queen and white would have tactics like Rook change, E7 looking eight.
So anyway, I wanted to show you this because you might think, Well, isn't it crazy that Nimzowitsch
didn't move the knight?
But let's have a look.
Now what happens with the knight just in its place at C6.
So it's a lot like square where black is kind of weak on the Knight Squares.
We have castling h6 rook FC one, Rook FC eight And now just building up rook, C2, Queenie, rook,
AC one.
This is just very nasty.
This ping rook Abby, eight, Queen, F3, rook C seven.
And here it is.
The Alekhine's gun is being created.
Rook C Frame Queen D7 Rook one C2 ready for the so called Alekhine's gun.
So this is like an attacking construction based on batteries.
So when we have batteries, we have what I call killer common squares.
They are cooperating on key killer common squares to try and break through.
And now this isn't the kind of main focus of attack in this course, which is about the king.
But nevertheless, because it's such an iconic game and batteries might be used in general to get advantages
prior to it, an attack or an attack might not even be needed on the king like here, because we've
got an absolutely winning pin, basically a winning amount of pressure on the C file in this case.
So Queen C1 Alekhine's gun has been established.
So this is the construction, the most sensitive, valuable piece at the base of the battery.
And you get that in other battery situations you might have a bishop on B7 and the Queen on eight looking
at the diagonal.
So because you want to do the damage with the least expensive piece and then get the queen in around
the king usually so this battery can start construction makes a lot of sense.
Generally speaking, rook B.C eights and now guess what?
Why it plays in this position.
Which leaves blank struggling.
So what would you play to amplify the pressure here?
For 200 points.
Yeah.
Okay.
I hope you find this Bishop A4 with the little threats deadly of B5 to win material on C7.
So black boys sometime desperately would be five to put the bishop back and then gets the king involved
to try and hold C7.
This is a rather desperate state of affairs where the king has to come to the rescue.
Bishop A4 again renewing B5.
So the King comes the date to be able to hold C7 against B5.
But guess what?
Alekhine plays here, which is even more kind of sadistic making use of Zugzwang because the knight
can't move because of the pen.
Now it's a D7 queen.
Yeah, it's just a zugzwang h4 zugzwang kind of situation and the game.
Black's running out of moves so nimzowitsch resigned y could play b5.
This position is also strong, but it's not as cute.
We could install the queen on c5 here and this is a big, big advantage winning advantage for white
here.
But the game continuation is so much better because is as soon as the king moves, B5 is even more deadly
because C7 is weaker.
So say King a B5, we're just going to win C7 in broad daylight with this alekhine's gun and say G6,
we're going to run black out of moves.
I mean, the knight copy of the Queen can't move because, you know, Bishop takes C6 so well.
Queen could move to E8, but if the knight moves, Bishop takes C6.
But if King H to here again, Black's in a zugzwang h5 and in fact, we don't even need to move a pawn
here.
We can use the knight with nine to G5.
And what does Black play now?
Black's in a zugzwang if King eight Now we get in B5 and look at the Alekhine's gun on C7.
We're just going to smash through on C7.
So it's an epic game in my view, a really iconic game.
And just show sometimes you're getting the king to have to be involved.
That's that's a disaster in its own right.
There was no need to even go for a king attack when the battle was so absolutely enormous.
But yeah, batteries are really important elements of tactics and combinations.
They're a great way of coordinating pieces as a team for killer common squads.
And this is like the immortal Battery game in a way.
So I felt I had to show you it, even though it's not a direct attack on the king, the enormous positional
pressure here generated means we didn't even need an attack on the king.
And it's just a highly celebrated, iconic game in so many people's collections for good reason.
So I hope you enjoyed this game.
Ten so much.