Akobian vs. GM Fressinet | Mastering the Middlegame - GM Varuzhan Akobian

[Music] welcome everyone to the class Tuesday night mastering the middle game and we're going to go over one of my games and I will kind of go through the opening without spending too much time on it because the class is on middle game so and then we'll focus on the middle game a little bit more one thing I can tell you my opponent is a very serious Grandmaster 2664 frisina and this was played in a last round of the national open big tournament in Las Vegas so this is one of those games where winner takes all so big big money game because winner takes first prize so a lot of the guys made short rows so they didn't want to go for the first so they just made quick draws and so this this was a big game d4 d5 c4 e6 name of the opening [Music] declined the client yes but then he switches to c6 now let's change the name now it looks like it's going to be a qgd but now it's a different opening what is this called same is love same is love if there is a 6-pound we call that a semi Slav if there is no c6 pound that's a pure Slav so I played III I didn't feel like going into this d takes e4 and b5 all this you know by all you know all this you know complicated variation so I figured I'll just play easy 390 f3 Knight f6 so this was very fashionable actually in 2009 this was very very fashionable this system it just came out and guys like Aronian some top-notch players they were playing this and becoming more and more fashionable I use this at the u.s. championship 2009 a couple of games with some good success there and so 2009 was a you know pretty good year for me actually I had a good showing at the US Championship then you will say this game turned out to be very well also which helped me to win the tournament anyway there was some good results overall so this is still theory again I just can kind of get to the main point here and somewhere around here we are still in the theory a little bit but from here on let's say you don't know the theory here let's say you just saw this position first time in your life here and looking at it what it's block trying to do here what is the typical idea in this kind of positions do you know block has two plants in this position and that starts about it if none of the plants would work then he's just clearly worse in this kind of structure where you have a default punish this so how can you do that yeah excellent thinking yes so he wants to play a six and c5 or he wants to play e5 okay so now I play the move rook d1 which actually prevents both ideas c5 and e5 it stops it okay stop c5 and e5 so it was Queen b8 now it's trying to do queen bee eight and now putting pressure on H two H two pawn is under attack now what to do with this pawn huh make a lift well let's think about it lift there are other things we need to do first so don't have time for lift okay lift is the German word for air when you push one of your pants this that's lost yeah this loft creating the escape square flight square you know that's what they call it lifts its I think the most proper way that they often use in the books escape square you could say so no but no time for loops here there are more serious things needs to be done another thing we have completed development and Quimby it might look strange to you but that's actually the best move and this guy I'm playing resume if you're not familiar with him he actually was on 2008 he was the second for for Vladimir Kramnik in a World Championship match against Vishy Anand so very serious theoretician he's not just making moves here this guy's analyzed this position but I've had a good preparation myself in this line so it was kind of interesting battle and I think I I somehow yet think I got a better gain that hit it here so what's the move here I need you to play logical yes absolutely absolutely you know if what is your most natural move and remember my concept usually the natural moves are your best moves so you go for it that gives you a threat everybody sees the threat I assume if I've trying to fork it trying to fork it yeah so he has to do something to God so that's why he had to do something so he played a move e5 he has to do that that's a typical way to stop it because otherwise there is no no good reply so he played here now what to do here you need to make a good move here this is not easy a moment here to make a decision so let's I'm going to give you time to think on this because there are several moves you can play here but which one would be the best you're trying to obtain a small opening advantage and try to improve that opening advantage to more so what move I'm talking about here G take C correct he played Knight xe5 and now if you take if he just takes back with the bishop and it's not it's not totally clear very subtle move here you have to make to create threats you make this move and then suddenly you have some threats Bishop f4 that loses a piece Knight takes Knight check and then he wrecks your Bishop so that's a discovery yes Bishop f4 would have been nice but if that King wasn't here then I would have been excellent move but unfortunately here that losses to discovery who is going to be able to find a subtle move here that will without it no advantage we need that move if you want to have some type of advantage yes g3 is a move that actually some other grandmasters played in this position so that's a very decent showing right there but how about the best move g3 is not a bad move actually computer probably suggested g3 it's the top to move my move is the first move but the other one is not that GM's play g3 here that's good move g3 shuts down the dark square bishop that's the positive thing about it King h1 no good night h4 a little bit dangerous on the brim how about this you know going to the side you go to the center with that night right remember night on the rim is dim right why are we going there Danny why here why not centralized centralization remember we talked about that before now what is the threat who is going to point out a threat one two one two one two remember that is a serious threat how about this beautiful square for the night to go - I think you might be interested in that getting the night out - so well of course he knew this so he played them of 96 I wasn't very familiar with this move at that time I had analyzed the move Knight eg4 before so 96 he attacked my pawn on h2 so now I need to protect it I have two ways to do it how you going to do it huh well you have to protect upon either you can play g3 or you can play h3 so the best thing is g3 to shut down the bishop I was rookie eight now he is putting pressure now he is starting to play B for attacking your night and pick up the pawn so you have to play it smart okay to defend against a threat you don't want to allow this okay you got to stop it yes better 83 he will play a 5 so you got to do better you got to do better it's better not to start immediately defending you know always remember defending yeah that's the natural instinct it creates a threat we start defending how about we try to do some attack perhaps because you know we can try to make him to get passive right what else nokton No okay who's going to find the right move here best defense is a good attack are you trying to attack go how about Bishop g5 developing the bishop and creating a serious threat to eliminate that night from f6 because that's what you want to do you want to eliminate that attack got it was that where you will create weaknesses cause Bishop to e5 he's protecting it now if he had played this move as a beautiful line you take he takes you take if he takes back 9f5 check picks up the dishes so he takes you take he takes double check checkmate see how that works when your piece is placed on the good squares and you're paying proper chess good things going to happen to you so you make sure you do that put your pieces on good squares okay don't do anything too unusual okay every piece should be placed on a good normal square nah goes here and he's got some threads now he wants to take and play some c5 ideas so what could be done here what could be done here yes Knight to f5 MN Knight me belongs where Martin in a Center on an active square 9 f3 again you playing retreat moves no go active ok now you may think wait a minute this loses a pawn no it's not if it takes with this how about that C always be on offense ok he takes no problem no problem Knight h6 mate so if it takes come in ok so what to do in this position so he goes rookie 6 is trying to play some defense moves now what to do this was very important move here to make as his you know he's defending his position and getting ready to such questioning my bishop now what do you think is the correct move here absolutely for attacking that bishop that bishop is a very powerful piece what do you want to do to it move him away if it takes on c3 again I just take back with the Queen I'm happy there so he retreats here now it looks my king is exposed here and in particular this point is now very vulnerable what are you going to do now to defend this vulnerable pawn push it risky risky solidify the position first so now what are you going to do now you got to solidify the position yes Bishop f3 first he goes check because before attacking you now he is attacking your night and when you move away there could be some danger here so what are you going to do here 94 I wasn't so sure I could go 94 but you need to do something better here 94 is a little bit weakening the position maybe you can do something better to reduce the tension there is too much tension right now in the center I think you might want a little bit reduce that tension so of course we should take subsea to reduce that and now 94 by the way when they play before in this kind of positions your 94 is the typical square to go with the night okay so try to remember that typical square to go is a 4 because then you want to go to c5 now you played c5 and now you need to make a decision what to do it looks like he opened up his light square bishop and there are some ideas for you here to take the bishop on b6 but we don't want to do that because he takes back with the pawn if we take on c5 he has rook c6 ideas so we are not too sure what to do rook d7 but then Bishop c6 I'm not sure what you're going to do if I right away check hmm oh yeah yeah check check takes now this guy is hanging III g6 and you lose the night and there might be some consequences you might not lose right away but it's not winning formats for us yes smart in question you will I don't know so but your idea is correct that's the good news so we will need to protect this guy we need to protect this guy and with same idea ok so how are we going to protect and we got two ways to do it Rock f1 or rook d3 ok Saiga Rukh f1 now protecting it nine goes Queenie eight attacking this attacking this he's trying to put some pressure now do I have complete development here specify which rock you think should come on rook 81 he is thinking clearly the last piece into the game is the rock he should come in now I'm threatening very powerful 96 attacking this attacking that so he has to go here Bishop c6 putting my knight on a four now he's putting pressure here what are you going to do specify specify take the bishop this do we want to take this bishop because he takes back with a pawn he will have a good structure and then his rook will be actively attacking you you can also take this pawn but then it goes through c8 okay let's think let's gentlemen let's think okay the most important thing is not to rush okay whenever you're going to make a move that you're rushing it might be a mistake so take your time you don't have to you know make decision right away here so what is the right move here we have three choices here Knight takes pawn Knight takes bishop or b3 just to protect it so which one is the right decision in your opinion Martin and he's got the correct answer b3 with idea Knight B 294 see that's how you master the middle game when you can find good positional ideas in the middle game like this that means you're slowly mastering this part of the game rook D it comes in now he is trying to exchange the pair of the rooks what you're going to say I know okay your plan is to play e5 right and you know my strategy when you choose a plan you stick with the plan let's go attacking the rook and attacking the bishop he takes rook takes see why I brought the rook here so I can take with the rook now by playing g5 what I accomplished is I take away his two bishops he no longer has that advantage and he has a very how to say not the best not the best looking bishop here so to speak so here I probably should have just gone boom put the knight here and this would have been a little cleaner but I played here which i think is also not a bad looking move centralizing and trying to obtain the control of D file so he goes Queen e8 now 25 I suspect he might try to play the move f6 I suspect that you know so that's why I played them of 25 in anticipation of that so I can go 96 okay so he was 97 trying to exchange that pair of the night I take he takes and now what is the plan correct okay let's stop here all participants today I want them to think a little bit and each of you mentioned something about this position okay you have three minutes to think and tell me what are the pluses and minuses you can see for this position for white and tell me the proper evaluation of this position is it a small advantage big advantage for white maybe it eco maybe it's even winning so what is the evaluation here let's take a good look at this position because in order to find the right plan you need to be able to evaluate the position correctly so evaluation is very important all right raise your hand who wants to start okay what's the evaluation first question okay Knight is dominating the bishop that's correct d-file more space move the tree okay so that's good what else you can mention yeah block has weaknesses correct c5 is weak light scores a week that's strong here so white is better who else wants to add there are a few things you can add here actually one very important thing you must add here yes in the back ah yeah but let's structural something structural you can mention if 6 squared is weak could say that yeah passed pawn well not quite a passed pawn but yeah it's a good point definitely but something fundamental you must see here white King is exposed but I have total total control here I have a total control you cannot he can never attack me here so right now material looks eco correct but is it really equal is it really equal the material try to see where I'm trying to go with this question that's true he is very passive we should be totally shut down we still have to win it what I'm trying to tell you is he has three pounds on the queenside here right I have to let thanks to my knight here versus bishop I basically have an extra pawn on a king side here because my pawns are mobile they can moosh push forward but his pawns are not so technically I'm playing actually this game with the extra pawn because the pawn on c5 or not doesn't really change too much okay so that's why my advantage is big here not small because of that extra pawn that I have you understand so now he played I pay queen a Czech threatening to take the pawn but Knight 8:28 if he had taken g7 out of gladly take the pawn but now it's late here my question to you is what you're going to do my question to you is what you're going to do yes I think if I prayed Queens are basically walking into a draw what what think you think well if you take the pawn he goes Queen c6 and then I get Lilia annoying actually because he peen yo and I don't know if you realize your queen is actually a little bit trapped now on a seven that's not what he mentioned f6 f6 is now coming very quickly the Queen actually is going to be in trouble here so this is very important for you not to rush it okay so that's why you don't want to play Queen II a queen a seven but endgame actually don't be afraid you're looking at the material wise that's why you think it's a draw but actually it's not now who is going to get the D file here yes so if it puts the rook in front of you right that's a very simple way because swap swap and you walk because you have this nice entry with the king okay so he cannot afford to do that so it's going to go to key six now what are you going to do rook d7 attacking the bishop now goes rook c6 protecting it and now what are you going to do you get up - you get up - okay now he goes King f8 King g4 now he attacks you rock detail protecting protecting now he goes here I played rookie to second protective now I need you to find a plan what is the correct plan here excellent thinking h3 threatening to play g-force and now if he played King g7 I was just going to play g4 and f5 so it played f6 and while I was thinking to play my next movie actually resigned but let's try to understand why he resigned the reasoning okay so I think this King can be improved a little bit more right now I can actually click this and take couple of pounds and probably win but I wasn't going to do that I just really enjoy my position advantage here it's a static advantage here I have so now I just want to play what I'm stronger at what does that mean where am i stronger here getting side so let's push let's get some open files for our rooks all rock it takes I take now ready to go here if you move the way I'm just going to take this with a check so here let's say does something like this group belongs here check check it goes background mate check and you just keep taking the pawns win the game okay that's the reason he resigned after the move f6 you know because then position is just going to be difficult g4 alright this was the victory against Grandmaster frissina I want to bring one example to your attention here and this is a very interesting position again the opening pay phase just finished here and you have this position as white that requires to play very precisely if you want to have anything here okay so we can say that opening maybe didn't go quite well for block okay yeah this is a cup of lanka game Capablanca game against zoo but if so this is the position so let's try to understand what's going on here if it was black to move black would instantly castle and then he would actually have a slightly better position because he's got a good blockade then he will put the knight on c6 rook 88 and pile up on it and white white will be the one who needs to find a way to secure a defense and maybe make a job what can you do here as white your white to move here this is an opening stage just finished and it was a successful opening stage now you need to take control from here on rook e1 absolutely now he plays f6 stopping your uki v he wants to simply go king f7 tuck it in put the rukon e8 and say again i am the one who is slightly better because you have the isolated pawn what you're going to do here how are you going to change things around yes Queen a4 actually you're going to help in go King f7y what do you want to go King f7 anyway so check will actually help me because I will go there and bring my rook in yes better Queen e2 that's right now you're threatening mate now he goes Queen d7 just protects it the texts check protects that again if you go skiing if someone puts the knight on d5 guess what Bach is the one who is going to be better here so you're actually one move away from making one mistake here and then he's gonna yeah he's going to get a decent position in fact block position is not that bad here he actually just sort of misplayed it in a little bit I mean it's it's it's still risky but so now kappa blanka decided to bring his best you know his piece into the game rook c1 rook 81 was also very interesting with idea to push now black plays his six he wants to control that and then heat up okay i go king f7 next move seasick turn out to be innocuous he should have a king f7 right away and you know it's not a king at seven it's not so clear why this may be a little bit better still but he played this more c6 now now white is that advantage of the development but if you don't play this move now I will put my king on f7 put my knight on d5 and I will enjoy the advantage so what are you going to do do we want to exchange Queens when we are attacking and here okay and yes but the problem is now there's no attack anymore and I will move my knight next and we'll swap the rooks and it will it will be about about equal because I mean you have a weakness but I don't think black and black should win this but but yeah you got to be careful exchanging Queens because that's not what you want to do here exchange your Queens will reduce the material huh Quincy for you can but maybe he'll go long castle or something that's not out of question you know better the player with the advantage must attack mm-hmm if he now hesitates his advantage will demand diminish here now think about it what can you try to do to try to open up the position so you have some space okay keep working hmm d5 CD which piece now we'll have an excellent square to go to there you go there you go that's how you attack okay d5 threating these six ideas or open up the position so he takes 94 perfect superb square superb square for the knight now he goes here again it's trying to bring the pieces in so now you must play this move what is the idea excellent now you want to go rook c7 very powerful idea so he goes here to defend against a threat now now good move here you have activating your pieces and creating threats think about it thinking it true close there you go do you see that you're threatening now to take this pawn with the check and then mate him on f8 that's a very serious move okay so he has to play this move to stop it and now this is the beginning now how are you going to try this combination now that is going to check King here not so evidently not so evident yet now night what no no it's not hanging but I'm not sure that's clear that line Sakurako excellent now he cannot take with the Queen because we just take on c8 right that's that's clear we have to make sure we understand why this is losing because of the check now he has to go let's say d8 check and discovery check wins sure but what if it goes here this now gets a little bit puzzling now it's a little puzzling because you got some background issues can I get made it here don't rush don't take anything you're going to get made it now Hey excellent if it goes kill creation so he goes here should be g8 you mean g7 or yeah check I can't take with the Queen you take on see it I can with King you think of this seven so I have to do something so if I go here then this check is nice here Knight f6 here just check ok so it has to go here and now check and now keep doing what you're doing check again there we go now now if you go see it 9 8 7 and take with check so it has to go here and now correct if you go here you just take this and it's made and now checkmate in three one two three come on IAE in ninety six Queen takes c6 and you got background problems check correct f7 is better how about that okay calculation calculation that's what it requires okay long calculation let's do this again you are in command in this position kappa blanka vs. subaru f 1925 moscow they just got out of the opening block felt safe you know it Athena is playing a world champion or future champion so he's you know happy sort of by one move that one move can change the position the character of it so what's the idea show me the win keep going keep working to go skiing F knocking afraid now nine eight seven is good okay beautiful let's look like why he couldn't just take back if he takes with a queen we just go rook c8 win so if takes with this what are you going to do check check winning the Queen yeah so that's why you couldn't just that okay all right so that's a very very good example of the game Capablanca versus abraeve okay excellent so very important this tells us you know when we have initiative out of the opening when we are just getting in that middle game stage this is a good example that you have to play energetically especially if opponent King is in the middle of the board you have to do something to put pressure on it to create threats okay and once you do that then you're going to have a good position so always remember to put pressure if you want to win games put pressure more pressure you put upon it it's more likely he's going to make a mistake okay so remember that to put the pressure alright very good everyone [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Saint Louis Chess Club

Views: 126,920

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Id: -Fw1L3gj1kE

Length: 41min 42sec (2502 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 15 2016