This lesson, what we're trying to do is develop an attacker's nose. We just want to have an idea and an instinct for when to attack. One of the greatest combination players ever was a player by the name of Rudolf Spielmann. And Spielmann lamented, he said that he could play all the combinations that Alexander Alekhine played. Spielmann complained that he just couldn't get the positions that allowed him to uncork the combinations. So how do we learn to attack? How do we properly position our pieces? Well, it's obvious: Experience, practice, study will help us do just that. And practicing and studying the games of great attacking players will be really, really helpful. You'll see the same patterns recurring time and time again. And in some ways this is a really nice, appropriate chess lesson because it comes to us by way of Ding Liren. Ding Liren is in the World Cup finals. He will be playing a tiebreaker tomorrow against Teimour Radjabov; as those two players are currently tied 2 2 in their match, they will play a tiebreak. This game, he was playing from the Olympiad in Batumi, in 2018, and he was playing against Duda. It was the penultimate round and a very, very tense filled round. And I found the game just marvelous. Again, it's not a perfect attacking game or anything like that, it's just a game that I personally found very inspiring and I hope that you will, too. DefeatingtheCactus has resubscribed using his Prime for 12 months. Thank you so much for your support, DefeatingtheCactus. I like the name, DefeatingtheCactus. Okay, makes you think. Are we ready? So, China versus Poland. And let's get started with this beautiful and inspiring attacking game. Now, as we know, Ding Liren is a very big Catalan player, he loves to play the Catalan, but he also mixes it up. If you noticed in this World Cup, for example, he's been playing a lot of English openings. This time, he invites, the Queen's Gambit Declined, Nimzo with bishop B4 and as well this extremely sharp line, D5 takes C4, that has become quite topical. Okay, we're all set. Ready. Oh, I did want to ask you, if you do... Please do participate in this lesson, because I'm going to ask you to make some moves and suggestions. I want you to be a participant, not just broadcast, but to be interactive. That's the only way I learned myself, is through interaction and getting to ask the teacher questions, and so on. D5 takes C4, very topical move. E2, E4, and this move B7, B5. The move bishop B4 is also very, very sharp. This pawn sacrifice has been seen at the highest levels on multiple occasions. In particular, I remember a game that was played in St. Louis not so long ago between Veselin Topalov on the white side and Fabiano Caruana on the black side. Please do look at that game 'cause it was fabulous. B7, B5 is a new approach, as Black obviously is trying to play B4 and capture this pawn. E5 knight takes B5. And again, the vagaries of fashion and theory do fluctuate greatly, and this move knight B6 defending the C4 pawn has become all the rage. Black's structure has been messed up, but he also has very good square for his pieces. You can see that this bishop, if it goes to B7, will be on a good diagonal. And the bishop, if it goes to A6, will also be on a good diagonal. This pawn on C4 is restricting White's bishop. So it's a very double edged position. Bishop E2, knight C6 castles bishop E7. When we're attacking, some people can attack very well on the back foot. Larry Holmes knocked out Leon Spinks going backwards. It's the very, very rare player who can attack while he himself or she herself is being attacked. I prefer to attack when my king is ultra safe. So when I'm thinking about attacking, I really don't want to be in those donnybrooks, sometimes there's no choice, where my king is being attacked, and it's this race between my king getting attacked and my being able to attack my opponent's king. No, I prefer to attack from a position where my king is very safe. You have to determine, yourself, from your own practice, whether you can withstand the stress of having your king attacked while you're trying to attack as well. Such a player is a player I would describe as a gambler, who likes to gamble. I'm not that gambler. I'm the guy... I'm like the banker, I like to add my winnings and total them up. In this position, White's king is quite safe. Sorry, I hit the key. When I stop and I look at this position, and I'm trying to develop my attacker's nose and I want you to develop your attacker's nose, there are certain things that you need to look at. You need to look at them in a very, very simplified way. It helps. In the previous lesson, I explained and I emphasized that a knight on F3 is a great defender of the king, just as is a knight on F6 a great defender of the castle king. There's no knight on F6. That should immediately alert us that, well, with a pawn on E5, we may be able to leverage a king side attack, there's no knight over there. Also, we can just see from this position, in fact, Black's has a lot of pieces actually huddled up on the king side, queen side. So with Black's forces, if you want to say, a little bit adrift over there on the queen side, then we can start to look forward to how to plan an attack on the king side. It's always a good thing to know our opponent's address. What I mean by that is as soon as our opponent is castled, we know where the king is living. This moment, Black's king, we don't know his address, but we can infer from the pawn structure, it's not going queen side, it's likely going to go king side. Okay, so to become a good attacker we have to put our pieces on effective attacking squares. And there's a next move by Ding Liren, I really, really like a lot. Because we start to think in terms of a scheme of development, what should White be doing? White can put his bishop on E3, his rook on C1, his queen on D2. Nice harmonious development. How effective is the queen on D2? How effective, in terms of attacking potential, is the bishop on E3? Not so much so. The rook on C1 is wonderful. It attacks the pawn on C4, potentially winning a pawn, what could be sweeter? We're not in attacking mode, we're in a mode of pawn collecting, that's perfectly okay with me, but we're not attacking. Once we start to conceive of the idea that we really need, White really needs, in this position, to be attacking Black's king on the king side, where the pieces, Black's pieces are not arranged, then we think to ourself, "Well, how do we get our best attacking piece, the queen, over to the king side?" We would love to play the move queen G4. Only one small problem with the move queen G4, it's illegal. We could get the pieces out of the way, we could move the knight to maybe E1, and I don't know where we're going to move the bishop, maybe we'd have to move the rook, we would have to move the bishop, this knight would have to move, I don't know, H2 to D2, and then suddenly the queen would make her grand entrance to the G4 square. It takes too long and it looks very awkward. And I really admired this move, queen D1 to D2 very, very much. This is a gift, this is the attacker's gift. Ding Liren is a very, very good attacker, and he realizes that his queen, whether it's behind the bishop that might sit on E3, or the queen sitting on D2 is not going to cut it as an attack, but instead, the queen comes over to a very effective square on F4. And it must not stop there, the queen on F4, now it's not the greatest square. No, no, no, no. The queen needs to go either to the G4 or to the G3 square to allow for the bishop to come to the H6 square, as mentioned on E3. The bishop will be finally developed, but not necessarily effective. Rook B8, well, Black, Duda, he's got his own ideas, including a discovered attack against the knight on B5, and who knows, maybe on a good day he's all set to clip the B2 pawn, sidestepping the threat of knight D5. F5, I like this as a defensive reaction very much as well. If Black doesn't play the move F5, it's very easy for White to get a very aggressive attacking formation. In other words, we can imagine queen G3 with the idea of bishop H6. We could imagine knight on C3 to E4 with the idea of knight E4 to F6 check. The move F7, F5 does two things, from Black's perspective, it both stops the move knight E4, as well as readies the defensive reaction, rook F7. That is to say Black can now defend the G7 pawn after queen B3, bishop H6 with the move rook F7. I think this is a very fine defensive idea. Queen G3, king H8, not strictly necessary. That wasn't an absolutely required kind of move. But it's okay. A lot of times, this move bishop H6, if this bishop ever gets along the C4 diagonal, the king will find itself very comfortably placed over on H8, not a bad move. Rook D1, White reinforces his D4 pawn. Now Black needs to do something. If Black doesn't react, well, I would like you to give me two attacking ideas, that if you were sitting in White's shoes, playing White's position, and Black is doing nothing, he's rather dilly dallying, let's say, he's moving his rook, and maybe moving his rook back and forth. I need to know two attacking ideas that you would like as White. Let me know what they are, two. And while you guys are contemplating what you would do, I'd like to thank zaft7198 for resubscribing for nine months. Thank you, Zaft. Chessyspagetti... No, chessyspagett. Did you say... Am I saying that right? Chessyspagett with no I. So not Spagetti, just chessyspagett. Spagett. I know. Chessyspagett resubscribed on the tier one for seven months in a row. 01 2020. I like. Yeah. Okay, thank you, Chessy. Tommyfookinshelby, yeah, baby, with a sub to his sub for 22 months. Thank you, Tommy. Caleb's resubscribed for 14 month, appreciated. Thereosnat has gifted another sub, this one, it's to hydrogan for two months. Thank you, thereosnat. And finally, thedegler has donated 100 bits. Cheer100 ordered the zip up hoodie. "Hope it helps my game." I'm not sure the hoodie is going to help your game, but... Guaranteed that girlfriend and plus 1,000 ELO. That's what we go with. Guaranteed a girlfriend and 1,000 ELO points. That's ELO. That's how we're marketing it. That may be over time, however. It might be an overstatement, but there we go. Okay. So I'm seeing A4, A5. I'm seeing knight G5. I'm seeing bishop G5. I'm seeing A4, knight G5, queen H4, interesting. Maybe bishop F4, king H1, rook G1, move the queen out of the way, G4. Well, losing really badly. I don't know if that's a good or bad idea, but I'm going to give you super high marks for creativity. Nicely... Nice idea. H4, H4, not bad. Exactly. Okay. There were two attacking ideas that I was reaching out for. The first one, funnily enough, was H4. Let's say Black does nothing, I would really like to go H4 and H5. Why? All good attackers create weaknesses in their opponents camp. When you go H4, H5, H6, you get this pawn to H6, suddenly that is going to force the move G7, G6, and then there's bishop... Then there's G5 square really just falls into your mitt. That will be a very, very powerful square that you can launch multiple attacks from, as experience will teach you. When you play the move H4, H5 and your opponent plays H6, aha, you've created a weakness on the G6 square. You maybe able to play bishop takes H6 on a good day, maybe you'll play knight H4 and knight G6. So the first attacking idea I wanted from you is the move H4, with the idea of H5. So that's an attacking move that you're going to want in your quiver. The second thing is when you're developing a nose for the attack, you're always asking yourself the same question. What are the good defensive pieces? What are my poor attacking pieces? If you look at the structure of D4 and E5, you discover very quickly that the bishop on C1 is not ideal. If the bishop was on H6 and the king were on G8, I might have a different opinion, but for now, I'm thinking that this bishop on E7 is doing a really great job at defending two critical squares, the C5 square as well as the G5 square. I'm thinking, as an attacker, it's in my interest to play the move bishop G5. So that would be my second idea. Behind the move bishop G5, I might also discover that my queen could be effective on the H4 square. Alright, two attacking ideas. Black plays the move knight B4, he's got his own ideas, not the least of which is that he would like to cement a knight on the D5 square, usually, purposefully with the bishop on the long diagonal. Lastly, if White gets a little bit too loosey goosey, there is the potential of knight C2 and knight takes D4. So he's trying to keep White on his toes as well. B3, my goodness, my admiration for Ding keeps growing. A lot of players would have taken the approach that these pawns, these double pawns on C7 and C4 are weak and that they should be attacked and won. You want to play a move like knight D2 and knight takes C4, don't forget about that knight C2 I mentioned. But I really like this move B2 B3 a lot. Remember when I said this pawn on C4 was cramping? It is, it's cramping this bishop on E2. Furthermore, after the trade which we saw, this rook on A1 has suddenly developed. I just love that when my opponent helps me get an effective piece. In my opinion, this is where Duda begins to go wrong, right here. He took this pawn, which was very helpful for White. I've always been taught that whenever you're defending, seek trades. So here, my choice is very clear. I would've gone for the move bishop A6 hoping that, or anticipating that these trades, I'm getting rid of an attacking piece, this bishop on E2, and Black is freeing his game. In my opinion, this move is a step in the wrong direction. A7, A6, Black just defends again as rook takes A7. Here is a very intriguing moment. Once more this idea of developing your nose, developing this intuition for an attack. Remember again, again, again, for you to attack, your pieces have to be effective, you have to put them on effective squares. And I think this next move by White is a very difficult move to appreciate, but once you see it, you go, "Wow, absolutely fantastic." We've already mentioned that bishop G5 is most likely a very good move, and if you wanted to play bishop G5, I applaud you, I would too. One question we might ask ourself is, what is Black doing? I think it's clear. I think Black wants to put his bishop on C8, which is currently doing nothing on this B7 diagonal, and then I think he wants to put a knight on D5, force a trade, put his bishop on D5, and everything is good for him. So White plays the move bishop C4. Whoa. And at first, you're taken a little bit aback, like, "Is that really a good move?" And then you think about it more and more and you come to the conclusion that this is really a great move. It's not a good move, it's a great move. This bishop on E2, it's okay, it defends the rook, it defends the knight, hits the pawn, but it's not a really great attacker. On the square C4, it definitely attacks this pawn on E6 and it crosses up the opponent's plan, the opponent's plan of being to play bishop B7 and to utilize that D5 square. Furthermore, if Black were to give to trade, this pawn on B3, that really has not participated, is suddenly like a great zwang in the position. And now, White is thinking, "Oh my goodness, I've got this huge central break as well." Duda played the move knight C2, rook A2, knight B4, rook A1, knight C2, rook A2, knight B4, kind of offer of a draw, quite clearly so. Now, as Ding Liren explained after the game, reminding you that this game was played in an Olympiad, the penultimate round, China versus Poland, Duda was looking across... Pardon me, Ding Liren was looking across the tables at his countrymen's position, and he didn't like what he saw. And he thought he had to rescue the match and play for the win, and so he played the move rook on A2 to E2, bringing his rook into the game. It's kind of a funny way of developing, but he had to foresee the following sequence, that after the move A5, Duda would be threatening, knight takes C4, D takes C4, followed by bishop A6 and his rook and his pawn on C4 would be vulnerable to a scare. Indeed, Ding Liren had seen very, very far, and he played a pawn sacrifice, a pawn sacrifice that I really, really like, and I'm a big pawn lover. So pawn sacrifices, they've got to be really, really good in my estimation. And this one really is good. Why? Take a look at White's rooks. The rooks are centralized, D1 and E2, this move D5, boom, powerfully utilizes the central ranks. It forces Black to occupy the D5 square, a square that he wanted to occupy with a pawn, he won't be able to do any more. The move, the pawn sacrifice, opens up a very nice square, knight F3 to D4, the knight could jump to D4. It would be looking at both the E6 as well as the C6 squares. Pawn takes. And now a very important follow up to the entire pawn sacrifice, which is the move E5, E6. The reason I like this move is because it opens up two attacking ideas. I would like you, the audience, to tell me what these two attacking ideas for White it could possibly be? Doesn't need just two. There's many attacking ideas, but I want to see two of them. And while you're finding them, I want a big shout out to Nicola, who... Nicola, who has been such a great supporter. I just want to say thank you. Thank you, Nicola, so very much, you've just gifted 14 subscriptions of varying months, and thank you. That puts this back at 5K, I think, Yasser, that's why it was 14. Okay, we're back to 5K. Promised land. We're back in the promised land. For chess streamers, by the way, this is just a fantastic record, I mean, Aman and Dan and Eric, very, very proud that they were able to achieve this level of success, and thank you Nicola, wow. Great, now come on, where is my two attacking ideas? Knight E5 to F7. Fantastic, tommyfookinshelby, you're right on the button, knight E5 and knight F7, knight E5, very, very good. A lot of people are seeing the knight E5 idea. I need to see one other attacking idea, if you please, besides knight E5. Thank you very much to another annoying account. Love it. Bishop B2, why not? Of course, this bishop could go to this incredibly sweet diagonal, which is only possible because of the pawn sacrifice that was executed. So that's two. Very good, I asked for two, I got two, I'd like a third. Thank you, diggerduck. On the money! People, you gotta understand who's running the class here. I'm a pawn grabber. How could you not help but realize bishop C1 to F4 is a monstrous, simply monstrous threat. You could go bishop F4 take C7, it's kersplat! And Black can't even defend with bishop D6 because the E7 pawn would go right up the board. So three really nice attacking ideas, and they're all going to be interwoven, as we will see. Bishop D6, in order to stop bishop F4 and simultaneously that rook on D1, which was pinning the d5 pawn, is no longer pinning the pawn. Queen H3, queen F6. Now, we have to stop for a second, hold on, wasn't the idea of bishop D6 to break the pin? And if it was indeed the idea to break the pin, could you tell me why Black did not capture on C4. I need a rationale, why didn't he capture on C4? Thank you, lyncher3000, as well as xstorm59. Woof! Right up the gut! E7 is very, very strong as the bishop's independent of the queen, and White, wouldn't it win material? So the move queen f6, so what white is also threatening is an idea like knight G5, as well as knight G5, oops, sorry, to F7. So queen F6, in anticipation of these types of attacks, but also Black is throwing patties of his own, he's looking at that knight on C3 and he's side stepping consequences of knight G5, F7. Boy, the battle is really raging and both players are on the precipice. You've got to play really precise and good moves, pieces are hanging, pawns are hanging your material down, I mean, every move could cost the game. Knight B5. A fantastic move. Here, in my view, Ding had a really, really difficult problem. There are quite a number of attacking options and it wasn't clear for him how to pursue the attack. For example, it looks good to play the move knight G5. How many of you would like to play knight G5? That looks like a pretty good move, doesn't it? I mean it threatens mate, it defends the pawn on E6, is a potential for knight F7 check. What do you think? Is knight G5 a good move? Looks like a pretty good move to me. No, says Require, H6 wrecks it. Why does H6 wreck the idea? Why? It works. It works. The knight is now in a worse spot than when it started, not so sure it's true, you can go knight F7 check and maybe you could take this bishop and go E7, that's pretty darn scary. The problem with this whole attack is that Black can give back some material as well. In this case, he's dropped in exchange, but he's got two pawns, he's covering a lot of the business squares. This bishop is being attacked but maybe this pawn can rush to F4. The move knight G5 will end up in an unclear position. There was another move too, just as effective. There was another move that Black... Pardon me, White needed to consider. How about the move bishop G5? What do you think about them apples? You're offering the knight on C3. Would it be a good idea to capture that knight on C3? What do you think? I see. A lot of people are saying it hangs the knight. Are you sure? What happens if Black were to capture the knight? Queen takes C3. Could White trap Black's queen? Well, if you play E7, the rook moves to E8. I'm a piece up on the... Holy smoke, says slumpka8 rook C1. You're absolutely right. Rook C1 traps the queen on an open board. Look at that. Okay, there's some compensation for the queen. You can take the rook, you can do other things, but the knight is not... Is poisoned. So Black would have to play queen G6, developing the bishop on G5 with a tempo. Isn't that a really good idea? We could follow it up with E7 and rook E8. Look at what we've done: We developed a bishop, we've pushed a pawn, and we could go, I don't know, bishop B5, attack the rook C6, but after all of these gyrations, have we really accomplished something? Are we breaking through? Black, it seems to me, is ready, I don't know, to play rook, maybe to play H6. We're really not hitting the targets. And it's really funny, but in this position I really did love this move, knight B5, very much. As we will see, this is an incredible move. Takes on C4. Now, right now it's crunch time. It's absolutely critical, you have to analyze and calculate precisely. You have Ding Liren's position. You're a piece down, but lots of things are happening. Black's pieces: The knight on B4, the knight on B6, the rook on B8. They're all on the queen side, so you have to hit while the iron is hot, and you have to calculate the best move for White. There are a couple of good moves, but you've got to calculate the best move. Give yourself a little bit of time to analyze, because there's a lot for you to analyze. For example, bringing the bishop to B2, that looks like a really, really cool idea. Knight to G5, a threatening mate in one, forcing maybe H6 and knight F7 check, and that also looks really cool. There are ideas of capturing the bishop on D6 and playing E7. So give yourself some time. If you have a notebook, just write down what you might think are some really crucial variations, and then I want you to make your best guess at what is the one and best move in the position for White. I'm going to give you till 10:14, that means two minutes, my time. Two minutes, two minutes, your clock's ticking. I'm going to thank, rigatonicappuccino? Rigatonicappuccino. Rigatonicappuccino, thank you very much, you jumping in there, saving my patoose, he donates 500 bits. That's what I'm talking. That's the love. Thank you so much. And pawnspotter. Pawnspotter has gifted one sub, and he has also gifted a tier one sub to faith1266. Ooh, lyncher, rook takes D6, C takes D6, E7, and knight C7. Did anybody tell you you're a dangerous man? Very, very dangerous indeed. My goodness. Okay. Let's think of some other stuff. So imagine knight G5, can't move the pieces. Knight G5 threatens mate. We're going to see H6, right? Okay, H6, knight G5 H6. Now imagine knight takes D6. You can't take the knight on G5, you gotta recapture, okay? Then imagine E7 attacking the rook. Yeah, baby, we're talking a tempo and everything, the Black's going to go knight G5 H6, knight D6 CD6, E7 rook E8, queen H5. Ooh, queen H5 is a real visual. Rook takes E7, queen E8 check. Ooh, rook takes E8, rook takes E8, queen F8, rook takes F8, checkmate. Ooh, maybe it's knight G5, or how about another variation? How about a variation like E7 immediately? E7, how simple it is. Bishop takes E7, bishop G5. Oops! So let's go E7, rook E8. How about E7, rook E8, bishop B2, queen G6, rook takes D6, C takes D6, knight C7. Ooh, a world of wonderful, wonderful possibilities. Okay, time is up. And I need to see from yourselves the one move that you're going to make, E7, bishop G5, knight G5, rook D6, knight D6, bishop B2. What move do you think is the best move? Knight takes D6, knight G5, knight takes G5, bishop G5, bishop E2, knight E2, rook D6. Bishop G5 is best, theduckonthequack says knight G5. Bozotheclown, king H1. Bozo, you're wrong. Knight D6 is really spicy. Yes, it is. Rook takes D6 looks spicy. Okay. What's very, very interesting about attacking, attackers and attacking positions is you never ever forget that knights are the short range pieces. Queens and rooks, man, man, they just open, they're open positions, they just blast their way through, as do bishops. It's actually the knights that you need to make sure they're in the game, that you're going ahead. The best move, and the move that Ding Liren did not play, the best move is knight G5. Congratulations if you found this move and you intuited that it was the best move. After the force move H6, knight takes D6, C takes D6, we actually transpose back to the game. Duda made the wrong move. Duda played knight takes D6. He needed to play knight G5 first, because after knight takes D6, bishop takes E6 was a great defensive opportunity that Duda has missed. After knight takes C4 takes, takes, Black could sacrifice his queen... And sorry if I went too fast on that one, Black could sacrifice his queen for a minor piece, rook and two pawns. In my estimation, Black's chances of drawing this position are simply excellent. You move the rook, you take the knight, and the chances of a draw are very high. And had Ding Liren played the correct move first, White would not have given Black this opportunity. He took on D6, pawn takes D6, E7, rook E8, knight G5. All of these moves were played, okay? So if White had played... Sorry, knight G5 first, queen G6, knight takes, pawn takes E7, we would have transposed to the very same position, but knight takes D6 gave Black an opportunity for bishop E6. To takes E7, knight G5, queen G6. I think I rather gave it away, but why? Why didn't Black play the move H6 here? Why not H6? Queen H5 and rook B6. Absolutely right, both queen H5 attacking the rook, like this is a very... This was the nasty one, ooh, that's a visual, and the other nasty one is this rook takes B6 in the position and anything like this gets a royal fork. So queen G6, and now, and now. Well, I rather gave it away as well. Rook takes D6. Ding Liren is ready to do the royal fork business, but now, Black has his own shot, F4, attacking the queen, attacking the knight, okay? Queen H4 defending the knight. Now, let's try, in this chaotic mess, understand what's going on. White is attacking literally with his whole army, both rooks, the queen, the knight. This bishop is just waiting to get into the fray and is actually participating after you see a move like queen B1. Ooh, queen B1. Black is a piece up, and all Black is trying to do is defend his besieged monarch. Not a lot of pieces, however, around Black's king. Now, queen B1. You're in Ding Liren's shoes, you're playing for your country, medals are on the line, you've sacrificed a piece, you've got ideas of queen takes H7 and rook D8, but you're facing a back rank mate as well. Queen takes C1 check has got to scare the bejesus out of you. What's your best move, what are you going to do? I see a lot of players have immediately found the best move. Indeed, queen takes F4 was the best move. It defends the bishop while also creating a back rank mate threat. So imagine that Black defends the back rank mate threat with the move bishop D7. I should just boldly point out the obvious, that you can't defend the mate with your king, oops, that or that will mate. So Bishop D... Oops, excuse me. Bishop D7. Oops, let's get that one back, Bishop D7. Bishop D7. I really want you to think for a moment now. Bishop D7. You've got ideas, so many cool ideas. This... I don't know, what's a great move, queen F8, rook? Yeah, rook B6. Look at that, rook takes B6. Rook takes B6 as an idea. Somebody just mentioned rook H6, oh, my goodness, what a move! Rook H6, but mattiedeperene has hit the nail on the head, what a fantastic move. Again and again, what we're trying to do is develop an attacker's nose. The attacker is always, always, always trying to use everybody, not only do you get invited to the... Not only do you invite everybody to the party, but you have to utilize all of your trumps. The pawn on E7 is actually a very, very big trump. The move, rook H6, is kind of a good move. I admire it, I like the move. But the move rook F6 utilizes the trump of the pawn on E7. You can go rook at 8 check. Baby, that's a back rank mate. After rook F6, pawn takes, queen takes check, king G8. Let's see. Wait a minute. We would love to develop some checkmates, but whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, be careful, there's a back rank checkmate that you have to deal with as well yourself. This position, what's a good move for White? What's a good move for White right here? Sorry, I wanted to... I apologize. I wanted to say, in this position queen F7 check, king H8. I'll explain in a moment why it's important to make that check, but what's a good move for White now? Knight F3, rook C2, queen C3. Mattiedeperene hits the nail on the head with the move rook E1. All this move does is solve the back rank mate, and that was why we wanted to play queen F7 check and put the king on H1, after queen G6, oops, we bring our bishop to the long diagonal. Notice that this bishop joined the fray instantly. It's a long range piece. The short range piece, the knight, was the one that needed to move to G5. So after rook E1, Black's best move is the move, bishop F5. Why? Well, if for example, takes we'll go bishop B2 check to the king, you'll have to capture, and there is a simple mate on H7, which is why bishop F5. Now again, I would ask you to take a moment, look at the position, and tell me what is White's winning move? And this was a combination of experience and pattern recognition. There's a checkmating pattern that I want you to show me. G4, not bad. Aduckonquack hits the nail brilliantly. Perfect, don't forget that you can't play bishop B2, check, queen takes B2, queen takes F5. The queen will quickly come back. But this is a beautiful idea, and it's a pattern we absolutely have to have in our attacking repertoires. Knight F7, very, very, very simple and a beauty. The knight on H6 is checkmate, Black must play the move at H5, check, and simply captures. Game over, Black is out, it's completely finished. Unfortunately, Ding Liren missed this. He saw ideas like this, and he saw that in many cases he was going to need... He needed to play the move rook E1 instead of playing the winning queen takes F4, he played rook E1 at once, which means the masterclass can go on because now we've got more to look at. After rook E1, bishop F5, now we've got to win the game all over again. What to play? I almost feel like a fiend over here, Aman. I mean, I've got that... What do you call it, that laugh? Yeah, the evil... The evil laugh. I almost feel like I've got this evil laugh going on here. Queen F4 doesn't work now. Why isn't Aman streaming? Well, Aman is... He is the man in the back, he's the man behind the curtain. Yeah. He's the wizard here. And I'm seeing a couple of people coming up with the right answer. Very, very nice. I kind of let the rabbit out of the hat there when I said, "Utilize the E7 pawn." For those of you who found rook D8, a very, very, very big bravo indeed, White now simply threatens to capture and to promote winning on the spot. Bishop G6, the only way to stop White's E pawn from going up the board. And now, White to play. Whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do? Queen takes H7. It's almost too good to be true. And it is too good to be true. In other words, it's wrong, but we appreciate the idea, queen takes H7, bishop takes H7, and rook takes, hoping for a mate. Something like this would be really, really nice. Oops! Does this feel like one of my combinations? Splat. Splat. Wrong guy wins. Oh, no, no, queen takes H7. Oops! Not mate, not mate. Okay, give me a good move, give me a good move, guys. Bravo, Captain Terrific. Living up to your handle. Justy moving up to... Right move. Bravo. Rook takes B8. Rook takes B8. Queen takes F4 with the threat of mate. Rook G8, knight F7 check, bishop takes F7, queen takes F7. Rut row. This is really, really dangerous. Now, queen takes... E8 equals queen. Two enormously powerful threats are on tap for White. Duda played knight D7, E8 equals queen. Knight F6. And Ding Liren played a move that, for me, is really amazingly, amazingly powerful move. I thought that this final move of the game really almost deserved its own diagram. It's so pretty. Nose knows all. Bishop H6. You know what? That is a really, really, really cool move. Bishop H6. He didn't do it. I'm wondering why. I hit... Wow! Bishop H6. Looks like a really, really good move. We'll look at that in a moment because, like I told Aman numerous times, no matter how badly I teach, I always learn something. He, Ding Liren, played this terrific move bishop G5, which wins a tempo, it threatens the queen, winning the queen. It threatens to take the knight, which then opens up the checkmates, and after bishop G5, Duda resigned, probably a very wise decision. Now the question is, was bishop H6 even better? I mean, you are threatening two different checkmates at once, but mate... Oh, no, knight takes, rook takes, that's pretty simple. But then GH6, right? It's a little too much. Knight takes, rook takes, then GH6. And in the other case, I kept the bishop. Right. Okay, bishop G... Ding is a genius. Ding is a genius. Thank you, Aman. Bishop G5 won the game. There are many, many, many points about this game that I really loved, that I thought that Ding played extraordinarily well. Queen D2, queen F4 to begin. The later moves, knight B5. The later moves, knight G5. It's a pity he missed the winning idea... A winning combinative idea with queen takes F4. You're looking for perfection, don't look at the games of the humans, go ahead and look at those computer world championship games where they play 300 moves of technical chess. No, no, no, no, no. What we're trying to do is develop a sense of ourselves on how to attack, and learning to become better player is as simple as practice and studies. Study games of the great attacking masters like Ding Liren, and practice your own attacking games as well. Learn to put your pieces on effective squares. And I promise you you're going to become a better and better player.
