Hi there.
And this nice shot.
I would like to introduce the idea of advantages in terms of the ones which are easiest or hardest to
accumulate.
Accumulation is generally easier for the more permanent aspects of a position.
For example, -- related issues like -- structure.
If you can inflict damage -- structure to the opponent in a closed or semi closed position, you can
build on that.
You can intensify pressure and that could eventually lead to material being won or a good, strong attack
against the king.
So in general, positional play is easier.
The more the position is closed, if we look at the situation in the center, if it's a wide open center,
often the game is much more tactical and your idea of accumulating advantages might have to take a backseat
to concrete calculations.
When the pieces are in direct contact with each other.
So sometimes there are issues in accumulating advantages.
Sometimes there's a paradox that the opponent might, for example, have double pawns, so you might
actually need to double them to make advantages which are more exploitable.
And that's part of the beauty, in my view, of the whole idea of accumulating advantages.
It's not as straightforward as you might think.
There's a creativity to it.
So sometimes you need to play a positional exchange, sacrifice to increase the advantage you've got.
Your piece is quite optimal, but there needs to be some sort of breakthrough.
So again, there's a creative aspect quite often to increasing advantages.
It's not just a kind of accounting exercise.
You need creativity to be able to accumulate advantages.
And also, of course, the opponent is going to give you a hard time.
So sometimes not playing the absolute best moves in the position, but rather just good moves is a very
practical thing, which we see some of the best positional players in the world, like Karpov or Adams.
They often playing moves fairly quickly, but they're pretty good and they have this common theme that
they don't allow counterplay.
That's a big theme.
It makes any planning much easier if the opponent hasn't got too much counterplay.
Otherwise you can have to calculate all of that.
You don't want to end up getting checkmated or losing all your material.
So ideally finding moves which minimize counterplay but let you accumulate without too much hassle from
the opponent.
That's the ideal quite often.
So there's also a pragmatism as well as creativity.
We need pragmatism.
So practical pragmatism as in not using too many resources on the clock, not having to use too many
resources to navigate through, very difficult to calculate variations.
So these are brought together.
So it really is an art form, the accumulation of advantages.
Capablanca would also, for example, simplify even with small advantages, and that was a way of reducing
counterplay, making things easier, carrying the advantage even to end games and winning end games
quite often.
So long term goals and logical reasoning about the position as opposed to calculation brute force calculations
about the position.
They require more permanent features that you can rely on more, and then you can accumulate advantages
as opposed to just being involved in tactical calculations all the time and even seemingly insignificant
aspects.
If they're permanent in nature, then they're candidates.
For you being able to accumulate those advantages.
For example, a weak square that you've secured on B six or seven, it's accumulated all you can build
on it, it's more reliable.
So, yes, the pawn structure in chess is almost like a virtual storage device around pawns, which
are the slowest aspects of the possession or other aspects which are not going to change that significantly.
We can base plans on more reliably in general, and we can achieve small wins, which will further boost
our capability for improving advantages.
Further, like an outpost, a nice night outpost, or a past pawn or the bishop pair generally in the
right situations.
So these are small wins which we can use to get even more advantages later.
They might actually be leading to a win in their own right in some way.
Now, once of temporary advantages, there's a creativity there to act quickly on temporary advantages.
Otherwise they'll just disappear.
So I'll give you an example now of converting a temporary advantage.
This is a very, very famous example from Steinitz.
It's a classic.
So Steinitz was playing against Kurt von Bodman in the 1895 Hastings, round ten.
Now, this isn't a totally detailed analysis of the game.
I just want to give you the general gist.
Black's play here played C six, which is a time waste.
Now, if Black gets a chance, King of seven.
And our advantage for the king being in the center is going to be.
Pretty much minimized.
So Black should have played King f7.
They wasted a bit of time.
And this possession, for example, is going to be about even.
In fact, Black has a nice night out post on D five against the isolated Queen's pawn.
So sometimes we need to act quickly.
And this was a great example of acting quickly and dynamically when there is a temporary advantage.
So on C six can you guess what style is played, which is a great way of playing it here.
Okay.
For 100 points.
Yeah.
He played a pawn sacrifice.
Sometimes when we have temporary advantages, we need to invest further material.
Okay, so here, play See 25, F king F seven.
We can play D takes B takes in Quincy for Shaq, and now 94 and Black's on the great scrutiny at C six.
So this position 90 9c6 and here we're getting a nice advantage.
So we've actually won that pawn and we're on the way with a great position to win.
So C takes was played and this gave white.
Now the default square we have 94 and our King F seven here.
So the temporary advantage seems to be it has been transformed as something else.
Issues for black 96.
We have rook he ain't black has to be careful about which rook if rook AC eight Queen G four is dangerous
looking at G seven and let's say Knight and five queen size are five Rook, take one.
This position is not doing well for black after rook C seven check and we're winning the Queen as example.
So Rook, though, was played.
We have Queen G for now.
G six.
And here.
G five check.
So this hits the Queen on D seven.
The king goes to E eight and again, starting plays brilliantly here to convert the advantage into,
you know, to accumulate it.
Well, we're in the realms of tactics, combinations and attack now.
But can you guess what he plays?
Yeah.
Beautiful move, Rook.
Takes E seven check.
Now, White's back row is weak here, so it has to be careful as well.
We have King of eight.
Being played.
If Queen 67 White will take on C eight, and that's just winning.
So here we're going to be exchanging off winning.
So king of a.
So it's tricky.
Our rook is hanging on C one and that would be mate potentially but we have now brilliant move rook
half seven trying to drag the Queen away from King's King G eight.
And now another brilliant move, Rook G seven.
Check.
Trying to make it check for taking the Queen.
We have King H eights.
And now an absolutely amazing game ending move.
Well, pretty logical, perhaps.
Rook takes H seven check and Black resigned.
In fact, Kirk just let his timeout time run out.
And yeah, Steinitz was happy to demonstrate to the audience why this was winning.
So basically, if King Rook g seven check and here White can now use that H file with Queen H four check
and it's a false checkmate sequence.
So Queen H a Queen G seven as an example here, Queen F seven, Queen F eight, nine of seven.
Check and queenly six.
So anyway, this is a classic game example where sometimes if we have temporary advantages which don't
fall into our easier to accumulate, we need to sometimes act dynamically.
So here from the opening, Black was aiming for white to have a weak d pawn and just was trying to play
to secure it down with a reassuring, just one reassuring move.
To many this moves C six.
So we see that sometimes in order to convert temporary advantages before these upset or even we're going
to be slightly worse sometimes with no counterplay, we've sometimes got to as well as securing our
own counterplay, it's it's the way to increase advantages.
So in a nutshell, the accumulation of advantages, I would argue, is a beautiful thing.
It's a beautiful scientific theory of the game, and to achieve it actually requires often huge amounts
of creativity and transformations, paradoxical transformations, sometimes to have more exploitable
weaknesses.
A weakness is only a weakness if it's exploitable.
So what I mean by that, you know, if the opponent has treble pawns but you can't exploit them, there
may be untroubled them and then you have some concrete targets with your pieces.
So you've got to think creatively.
Sometimes you need to play position or exchange sacrifices, and we'll see lots of examples in this
course of the accumulation of advantages and the issues faced.
But generally, the positional players, they don't like too much chaos as part of their openings.
They want to have positions which are more stable in nature generally, which they can more easily reason
about the position in terms of the more permanent aspects of the position.
So that's a common trait we'll see with our positional heroes in this course generally.
But this is a dynamic example showing that even temporary advantages, we can sometimes emphatically
convert them into more permanent ones if we act quickly and dynamically.
Okay, I hope you enjoyed this little introduction.
Food for thought and so much.