Hi there.
In this lecture, I just want to introduce you to the concept that chess through the ages actually seems
to capture the kind of context and culture of the times.
Now, that seems maybe a completely outrageous concept, but chess is such a vast game and the way it
is played and conducted has been largely influenced by the context of technology, culture, communications,
power shifts.
So, for example, Philidor, in our pawn structure section, believe it or not, who talked about the
--'s being like the soul of chess that was at the time of the French Revolution and --'s and like
the humble foot soldiers of the chess board, and he showed how great important they can be and influential.
Now, you might think, oh, I'm just joking.
I'm not actually, because in the romantic era chess, there was a romantic era of chess also, you
know, because of a lack of communication perhaps that we have today, we take for granted if people
played brilliant games in the cafes like cafes, the Norwegians are often involved gambits to get ferocious
initiatives.
So the king's gambit was all the rage in the so-called romantic era of chess as science, communications
and technology improving.
You have the likes of Wilhelm Steinitz playing in more refined ways with the accumulation of advantages.
Very, and he was publicizing his findings in magazines and becoming a major influence throughout the
world from the start positional play, which kind of started to end the romantic era of chess.
Nowadays, if you look at modern grandmasters, they're playing him very much more solid, almost like
scientific manner games where you can see the powerful impacts of engine technology making variations
which are very, very deep and theoretical kind of sometimes and in and draws quite a lot of the time.
And so they're actually, you know, exploring modern grandmasters, explore other ways of getting advantages
and the shift, you know, from 434 and even like the console and systems where I don't think that I
was the best on the Kingside.
This the shift is a kind of also a kind of reaction.
To the amount of analysis that the game has experienced in one eight four when it was ready to make
a move.
So you do have there's a cultural and historical context, which I kind of called the evolution of style.
And it is evidenced even in the major world chess champions.
You can see the stylistic shifts, especially the unofficial world champions, before the official Bowl
Championship Series that was organized in the likes of Alfonsin and Paul Morphy, the romance around
chess there were much more brilliant like sacrifices.
A lot of the immortal games are actually from that era, the so-called immortal games.
So just bear that in mind that chess seems to capture the context of the time.
So you might either think, oh, that's really logical, or you might think you might be slightly surprised
by that.
But chess is such a vast game, it does seem to capture what is going on at the time.
So just bear that in mind as we look at some of the world champion games as much.