WEBVTT 00:01.050 --> 00:01.870 Hi there. 00:01.890 --> 00:05.970 In this lecture, we see Aaron Nimzowitsch against Arthur, her Hansson. 00:06.000 --> 00:07.830 This is in 1922. 00:07.830 --> 00:09.240 Their second match. 00:09.360 --> 00:11.770 This is round 1e4 from the switch. 00:11.790 --> 00:18.900 We have the French defense e6d, 4d5, and now E five is played C five. 00:19.140 --> 00:25.050 And instead of trying to maintain the pawn chain, Nimzowitsch plays a novelty move with an idea of 00:25.050 --> 00:30.090 a pawn sacrifice for a kind of positional bind and overprotected. 00:30.090 --> 00:32.040 The central e five points. 00:32.910 --> 00:41.100 So over protection, even when a pawn down can be quite magnificent as we see in this game, we have 00:41.100 --> 00:41.400 the move. 00:41.400 --> 00:42.660 Queen G four. 00:43.920 --> 00:45.880 This is a very, very interesting move. 00:45.900 --> 00:52.470 Of course, computers say, no, this is unsound, but they will know how to deal with it quite early 00:52.470 --> 00:52.800 on. 00:52.800 --> 01:01.740 So we have C takes DD four Knight, our 396 and our Bishop de Fray an already black, goes from being 01:01.740 --> 01:05.830 better here technically to just being equal after five. 01:05.850 --> 01:10.620 This leaves the bind points e five which kind of cramps Black's game. 01:12.090 --> 01:17.430 Better would have been age five and to challenge E five immediately. 01:17.460 --> 01:23.370 Even though it looks ridiculous to allow Bishop G six check, this is a great way for blacks play it 01:23.520 --> 01:26.820 because the king is actually safe in this closed position. 01:27.300 --> 01:30.750 And the important thing is to release this e five bind. 01:30.750 --> 01:38.220 So say White Castles night takes E five, night takes e five check f tanks, Queen takes E, five, 01:38.250 --> 01:43.950 Queen f six Black is getting rid of that E five binds now. 01:43.950 --> 01:51.450 And this position is going to be nice for black blacks establishing central control and is doing fine 01:51.450 --> 01:52.320 here just fine. 01:52.320 --> 01:53.070 Better. 01:53.070 --> 01:55.590 But with f five it goes to equal. 01:55.590 --> 02:00.720 Funnily enough, after Queen G free even engines think this position is equal. 02:00.720 --> 02:03.240 Well, blacks double pawns are not something. 02:03.390 --> 02:05.520 Sometimes they're not acting as a real extra pawn. 02:05.520 --> 02:06.510 That's one thing. 02:06.510 --> 02:11.520 So why is coordinating with that central point? 02:11.520 --> 02:13.920 And it does restrict the opponents position. 02:14.910 --> 02:19.080 We have like g7y councils are now 9g6. 02:19.080 --> 02:25.530 This is only a temporary kind of pressure on e5h6 might be more to the point here. 02:25.530 --> 02:34.200 So after H four Queen C seven Rook e one An energetic measure like G five is needed to try and maintain 02:34.200 --> 02:35.160 equality. 02:35.160 --> 02:39.180 So H takes 96 to try and generate some counterplay here. 02:39.300 --> 02:42.690 This is an extreme way of generating counterplay. 02:43.020 --> 02:46.770 So for example, this position blacks should be able to claim equality. 02:46.920 --> 02:53.100 But with this move, black is sliding down a slippery slope of having no counterplay. 02:53.130 --> 03:00.210 We have H four so Queen C seven rookie one that bind is not going anywhere now. 03:00.210 --> 03:02.190 Bishop D7 and now a friend. 03:02.190 --> 03:04.020 In fact to over protect. 03:04.020 --> 03:09.090 Sometimes you can't add more pressure, but there are clearly two knights which might be dragged away 03:09.090 --> 03:13.440 from e five This one with H five and this one with 4b5. 03:13.440 --> 03:15.570 So it's real over protection. 03:16.260 --> 03:19.290 Example it's a fantastically vivid example. 03:19.320 --> 03:23.520 B b4 we see a6h5 so one's driven away. 03:23.520 --> 03:28.170 So why it's got such a good pressure on E five and our grip. 03:28.650 --> 03:36.240 Bishop D2 and with the king on C eight white can just try and open up the C file at some point. 03:36.240 --> 03:43.920 But first we have A for gaining space and putting Black's pieces more on the back row G five. 03:43.920 --> 03:45.570 Now this is ignored. 03:45.750 --> 03:52.620 White can take on basins but won't play B5 taking on Bison's rook gab5. 03:52.620 --> 03:54.360 This is also going to be good. 03:54.360 --> 03:58.560 You know, this kind of position is going to be very nice for white but. 03:59.220 --> 04:06.720 This looks great from an over protection perspective and not giving the opponent any active pieces that 04:06.720 --> 04:07.760 kind of policy. 04:07.770 --> 04:13.830 So B5 we have F4 and our Queen G4 might be eight. 04:14.070 --> 04:17.850 I now see three just wanting to open the C file to expose the Queen and king here. 04:18.060 --> 04:23.280 So rookie ain't if D tanks C free 910 C free. 04:23.550 --> 04:25.830 We can see how dangerous this C file is. 04:26.040 --> 04:26.580 This position. 04:26.580 --> 04:28.590 Black's going to have to give up a piece. 04:28.620 --> 04:34.350 Things are getting out of hand on the c file, so this is absolutely no good for black. 04:34.350 --> 04:37.350 So rookie ain't C takes the fall. 04:37.500 --> 04:41.970 We have the king scrambling ta da to get to avoid the queen being lost. 04:41.970 --> 04:43.620 But in a way, the queen is lost. 04:43.620 --> 04:46.440 Now, after Roxy won, the Queen is put in a prison. 04:46.770 --> 04:48.960 So a five queen 87. 04:48.970 --> 04:50.240 This is ridiculous. 04:50.250 --> 04:51.060 B six. 04:51.060 --> 04:53.670 You don't usually see this in modern Grandmaster Games. 04:53.670 --> 04:54.600 Very amusing. 04:54.600 --> 04:56.390 Anna Rook on the seventh. 04:56.400 --> 05:01.350 So Rook on the seventh features again in Nimzowitsch game, lots of juicy targets. 05:02.250 --> 05:04.890 So niter 590 C free. 05:04.890 --> 05:08.910 But the overarching theme is the early over protection of E five. 05:08.910 --> 05:14.190 We have Bishop e seven just to show how bad Black's position is. 05:14.190 --> 05:22.410 If 9794 is even possible to try and checkmate the Queen, believe it or not, of the D text Bishop takes 05:22.410 --> 05:27.480 e four We'll be fretting Bishop He's seven kind of chap mating queen. 05:27.870 --> 05:31.290 If Bishop c6 D five opens up things. 05:31.290 --> 05:33.320 And this position, for example, Queen size. 05:33.330 --> 05:34.170 Checkmate. 05:34.500 --> 05:40.050 So we can see how dangerous the king is not safe as well as the queen being in prison. 05:40.980 --> 05:43.560 A dire state of affairs. 05:43.560 --> 05:48.240 If 9065 this position d six this is miserable. 05:48.360 --> 05:55.920 White can just play Bishop St C six here and a 9/10 g five Fretilin 9f7 mating. 05:55.920 --> 06:05.610 And if rookies seven this is just hopeless this position the black king is in huge trouble and we can 06:05.610 --> 06:07.380 soon chat mate like this. 06:07.710 --> 06:11.010 So we're chat mating funny stuff, really funny stuff. 06:11.010 --> 06:15.210 So in fact the knight is left as a target on five. 06:15.210 --> 06:17.130 So a simple tactic now. 06:18.640 --> 06:19.930 Can you see five points? 06:20.560 --> 06:20.980 Yeah. 06:21.010 --> 06:21.970 Nine takes the five. 06:21.970 --> 06:23.670 Just undermining the knight on a five. 06:23.680 --> 06:25.300 We have night takes the fall. 06:25.390 --> 06:27.130 So if E takes, we're simply going to play. 06:27.130 --> 06:28.390 Bishop takes up five. 06:28.720 --> 06:30.430 So 9/10 D four. 06:30.760 --> 06:34.710 But now note takes D four, he takes the five. 06:34.720 --> 06:39.910 If Bishop F eight, then F six is huge for white. 06:40.450 --> 06:41.200 Ouch. 06:41.230 --> 06:44.980 It looks so painful, but this is funny. 06:44.980 --> 06:46.210 The game continuation. 06:46.210 --> 06:47.890 Guess what Nimzowitsch plays here? 06:47.890 --> 06:53.290 So he's an excellent tactician as well and does spot a nice tactic for ten points. 06:53.290 --> 06:54.400 What would you play here? 06:56.940 --> 06:57.190 Yeah. 06:57.210 --> 07:02.700 Queen takes these seven check, and this ends the game after nine, takes the seven or Black resigned. 07:02.700 --> 07:05.460 But if nine takes the seven, 96 is checkmate. 07:07.680 --> 07:14.970 It's the ideas of limitation over protection actually have pervaded my own French defense. 07:15.270 --> 07:16.110 Start opening. 07:16.110 --> 07:22.170 Sometimes I do sacrifice a pawn on D4 to try and protect E5 and sometimes that really works a treat 07:22.200 --> 07:24.180 to try and get a positional binds. 07:24.180 --> 07:28.080 It's like a positional pawn sacrifice in the opening. 07:28.080 --> 07:34.770 Sometimes, you know, you can get this from various variations, but the advance variation where Black 07:34.770 --> 07:40.500 is trying to attack your pawn chain, just having a positional pawn sacrifice like this is a fascinating 07:40.500 --> 07:40.710 thing. 07:40.710 --> 07:46.950 I mean, you could also just play night free to positioning, sacrifice, pawn and try and leverage 07:46.950 --> 07:48.930 the E5 bind. 07:49.470 --> 07:53.840 But ways and methods have been seen by black example games. 07:53.850 --> 08:01.680 For example, some botvinnik games where later where there's an early 697 to g six trying to hit E5, 08:01.680 --> 08:06.390 but Black made real really no attempt to undermine E5. 08:06.390 --> 08:09.120 It was kind of left there as a positional bind. 08:09.120 --> 08:17.220 And this is bad news and these points are just prone to be kicked later to kind of in effect increase 08:17.220 --> 08:18.930 the E5 bind. 08:18.930 --> 08:23.450 So it's a really interesting example of protecting a central square. 08:23.460 --> 08:28.220 You can see that it's a central square, so the pieces are pretty well placed. 08:28.230 --> 08:33.850 You know, if it was as example, say it was a two, he wouldn't really want to protect a two with our 08:33.870 --> 08:34.650 pieces. 08:35.310 --> 08:38.040 You know, if everyone was trying to protect eight, it would be ridiculous. 08:38.040 --> 08:42.720 A nice central square like E5 means the pieces are well coordinated. 08:43.860 --> 08:48.390 And also there's a battle to decentralize, in effect, the opponent's pieces because that's a central 08:48.390 --> 08:49.050 square. 08:49.260 --> 08:55.080 So over protection, increasing our own pressure on the central square, reducing the opponent's pressure 08:55.080 --> 09:00.210 on the central square, it's a battle of, in a way, centralization as well. 09:00.420 --> 09:02.130 And it's worth four pawn. 09:02.130 --> 09:04.710 It starts to be definitely worth a pawn. 09:04.710 --> 09:08.550 And also we have elements of king safety creeping in as well. 09:08.550 --> 09:13.050 But black, you know, devoid of counterplay here in this position. 09:13.050 --> 09:18.810 And Nimzowitsch didn't even give black any any rook play, really. 09:18.960 --> 09:26.580 So yes, wonderful example where black's in such a binds, he must have felt very strange about this 09:26.580 --> 09:26.910 game. 09:26.910 --> 09:28.500 Not being able to do something, anything. 09:28.500 --> 09:32.640 And having his queen on a is is just comical really. 09:32.640 --> 09:36.870 This is just a comical game as well with the queen queen on air. 09:37.620 --> 09:42.330 So yes, a wonderful tactical finish crowning the positional play. 09:42.330 --> 09:44.340 So beautiful example. 09:44.340 --> 09:46.680 That's one of the beauties of the older games. 09:46.680 --> 09:53.310 You get to see bigger mistakes and it's kind of more emphatic and instructive than the modern positional 09:53.310 --> 09:54.960 games between grandmasters. 09:54.960 --> 09:57.030 Often you need a contrast between players. 09:57.030 --> 10:05.460 So in terms of Ich clearly superior to hack Hansen in this game positionally on a different level. 10:06.060 --> 10:10.950 So I hope you enjoyed this and got the basic idea of over protecting a central point. 10:10.980 --> 10:16.950 It provides coordination, centralization and kind of decentralization strategy for the opponent's pieces, 10:16.950 --> 10:23.910 and that can lead to big king safety issues, the concrete fruits to be had from that a great of course, 10:23.910 --> 10:29.370 after if the opponent really has got no counterplay, you can start building up and get a very strong, 10:29.370 --> 10:31.770 successful attack with little resistance. 10:31.770 --> 10:35.820 As in this game, it was just made to look extremely easy. 10:35.910 --> 10:39.600 Okay, I hope you enjoyed this as much as me and so much.