My Great Middlegames of 1987 & 1988 - GM Ben Finegold

I hope he walks in with my water so you could edit it out I don't welcome to mastering the middlegame today I'm going to show games that were played in 1987 and 1988 because do Danny Machuca is birth being happening around then okay and they're all pretty short but not as short as the amount of time it takes my comer to bring me some blue water here we go good timing all right wait another hidden I can't find them yeah okay Tsun Tsun coming is Mike my new novel drink like a Grand Master okay so this game was played in 87 against a former Michigan chess president Gary kits also an expert and it was played in the masters experts championship ooh now in all three games that we're going to look at today my opponents made strategical mistakes followed by tactical mistakes tactical mistakes are my favorite as long as I'm not the one making them okay so the first game was a grünfeld which very popular right now fact I had a grin fouled in round two of the tournament that I played in last weekend normally I show you lovely people at home the games from the last tournament nah I'm just kidding you're not lovely and but all my games were end games right away it was move ten move 11 and the Queen's were traded that way I blunder my Queen less often so I had to go back 28 years so I could find a suitable game for this super intelligent audience right Danny okay so when my opponents play the grünfeld I play all kinds of stuff a few days ago we had the tournament I played H for very suspicious okay and normally I play e3 which is also suspicious but this game I played more normally I played the Russian variation okay sounds good right and and usually I reserve that for a blitz tournament when I'm Russian but here I use it anyway so what move can white play to invoke the Russian variation anyone and you want you at home now often nobody yeah you can do it I'll give you a hint it's a Queen move I'll give you another hint it's White's move Queen to b3 that's right yeah now I have pressure on this pawn so they usually take and white makes a lot of Queen moves which usually isn't good but in this particular instance we get this formidable center because we're getting rid of this pawn here on on d5 now there's a player you've all heard of well not all of you but most of you and he had black in this position against a world champion the only time they ever met and that was the game Bob Vinick Fischer exactly right and Bob gonna go Lee played Fischer once and this was the variation that they played and my opponent played a six which is very popular right now although it wasn't what what Fischer played and black wants to play b5 and kick the Queen again okay so I played a five I was aggressive first and my opponent moved his Knight to g7 actually this move looks sort of strange because it blocks the bishop on ca but it's very normal in this variation because the knight often goes to b6 hitting the Queen again Knight d5 would be what we'd want to play but since it loses a knight it's not very good white just takes it okay so I played Bishop e3 defending my center my opponent attacked my queen but I saw it and I played queen c5 now it's hard for blacks to play c5 which they normally play in the grünfeld and if my opponent attacks my Queen again then he's blocking his Bishop on CA it so he played nine see developing a piece and not blocking his bishop and I played rook to d1 and I've said this in many lectures but none of you were listening I always like when my rook and my opponent's Queen are lined up occasionally I get to play rook takes Queen sometimes it happens okay Bishop to g4 pinning my knight and Bishop to e2 unpinning my knight and ready to castle this is a typical grünfeld tight position White has a nice Center black has all his pieces out and a lot of people are afraid to play this variation with white because White's making a lot of Queen moves but I sort of liked it I'm blocking my opponent's Bishop and I have my center pawns sort of up in his grill okay and he played h5 I don't want to call it the losing move that would be for a more advanced class but h5 is a terrible move because you're weakening your King and you're not getting anything out of it now especially on the Kings side that's right now a grandmaster acquaintance of mine actually from around this time yeah about a year later so he hadn't told me yet so that's why I didn't know he said Ben never moved pawns okay because when you move upon you can't move it backwards although I didn't really take his advice with these pawns although I did take his advice with these pawns so that's a good percentage and the problem with h5 is the pawn can't go back to h7 or h6 except with lots of cheating and because you can't go back you've given away a square that square is g5 now my bishop can go to g5 my knight can go to g5 and you can't harass me with age six so that's not a good move h5 weakens the King weakens all the squares okay and I played h3 I'm hoping to get to two bishops my opponent retreated so I can't get the two bishops and I immediately play Knight g5 so 19:5 has several purposes I want to play g4 baby when is Bishop I want to play f4 and solidify my center and I want my knight to be able to go to the e4 square and the Knights really good on g5 it attacks a lot of squares in his position and he played Queen to d7 and I played f4 the reason I played out for is I want to play d5 what's wrong with d5 something wrong with it yes well said d5 looks good well the truth hurts I can't argue with that dad no matter what it was I couldn't argue with it so okay d5 attacking the knight but there's something wrong with it does anybody know what's wrong what's wrong with it unprotect something what does it unprotect you with the right answer what the Queen all right so Knight takes e5 and I would lose a pawn and then I would certainly lose to this guy all right so I protect my pawn with F 4 and now I can play d5 which I did he played a rook g8 and I play d5 now that's the center I'll take a sip of water so you guys could take a picture of that position yeah you two at home take a picture isn't that beautiful Center okay so my opponent saved just night and now I played four tricks this game was played many years ago when I was a kid and tricks are for kids I played g4 and after g4 probably in a super grandmaster event black would resign but this was a super Grand Master man this was the Masters experts in East Detroit which no longer exists they changed the name of the city I can't I can't make that stuff up it's now called East Point that's one word instead of two okay now this is the g4 is a tactic many of you are familiar with but you haven't had a chance to accomplished yet and that is why laughter the trade the best move is actually Bishop c2 and then after rook c1 or rig d2 I guess she should resign but he played Bishop takes pawn and now we do an interference tactic okay I would like to take the bishop for free but unfortunately as Queen's defending it if only we could do something about that I think I should do this lecture in French close enough yeah but he's so close he gets credit okay f5 is close but it's actually II 6 because II six attacks the Queen and attacks the bishop okay and for those of you who have played white or black in the Albin counter gambit which is not many of you we see this theme happen in this opening also East sixth with interference now again resigning is reasonable because you're going to lose a bishop and get checkmated instead my opponent made it worse within resigning he took pawn tanks and after Bishop takes now a referee came up and actually stopped the fight I couldn't believe it my opponent was quite woozy at this point okay because down easily not only is he down at peace but I have a lot of threats okay but his Knights well-suited to take care of it yeah so in that game which ended now my opponent gave me the center I was able to advance all of my pawns and then he mistakenly thought his Bishop was safe on f5 but it wasn't because all of my pawns were surrounding his Bishop and I made an interference movie six after which it's completely over without the move g4 and e6 whites should strategically be winning it's way too hard for this class okay extra piece now this class does what I'm talking about you might not win but you know what I'm talking about right then you went home keep taking a nap okay so you'll get it eventually okay so that was my game with Garry kits and then it all disappeared well that was hard to understand okay now this game was played the same year in the u.s. junior championship in 1987 1987 Bronxville that was 86 I'm not sure where wasn't 87 late a bit in Bronxville okay this is against Berta's ooh mikawa now you'll notice one thing if I'm playing in the US Junior Championship that means my opponent probably doesn't play chess anymore okay I'm from the generation of chess players who quit chests except for me okay and the only one who plays occasionally is Alex Fishbein it's also Grandmaster but players like Patrick wolf ins two arrayed shows Ilya Gurevich who won the US Championship and the world junior championship they work in finance so either they're somewhere this suburban home make it money or they're in jail where they belong I'm not sure I just saw the big short so I assume they're all in jail okay well and trust me I drew them as juniors and they belong to jail then too now I I haven't seen Patrick in a long time but occasionally the Chess Club here has big events like the Ziegfeld cup and and Patrick came out to watch the sync feel comforted one Shandor dinner and he looks the exact same it's been 20 years but he doesn't change okay and somehow not in jail even though he recently ran a hedge fund so you would assume okay so this is my game with Bert now unlike Mike comer who doesn't know what the Queens gambit declined is I do guess that's a good thing I was at the last lecture where he called the Queens gambit declined the Queens gambit accepted he was close he was only one word off okay now this we sort of transpose and okay what happened was in the cupboard lecture white Chuck so he thought that was accepted okay but actually black taking is accepted okay I think white taking is accepted with an e alright and I play the boring variation because that's what I do and my next game is also in this line and there was a game played in the Karpov because smart off match around this time probably 85 or 86 and Karpov played Queen to detail and nobody ever plays Queen to d2 so I started playing it and Queen d2 has a couple of ideas one idea is to Castle queenside and then checkmate your opponent which I did the next game the other idea is to stop your opponent from playing c5 by playing rugby 1 and making the d5 font a little bit weak this pawn can be a little tender so in one game I did one of those and the other game I did the other and now you get to see them both okay my opponent took on c4 so now my comer is is right it's the Queens gambit accepted okay and I took back and taking on c4 is usually not a good idea unless White's already moved his bishop and he has to take back and lose another tempo and when you play the Queens gambit declined or accepted that's a good thing to know you don't want to take on c4 and so White's already moved as a bishop so I get to go there in one go and he played Knight d7 it's going to play either c5 or a five and I play Riggs e1 dissuading him from playing either so for example if he plays a five and I take and he takes it looks like I'm winning material but probably I'm not because if I take this he could play Queen takes Queen check and then take tonight and if I take his queen he could psyche on f3 was check first and then take my queen so he could still play e5 well it's pretty risky and my opponent did play e5 and I remember yeah in this position a couple of times I've played Bishop takes f7 check okay somebody get Machuca a handkerchief he's slow he's foaming at the mouth he's like Bishop f7 check I've waited my whole life to play this move okay and the reason you play it is if King takes f7 takes and you try to do this now Knight takes Knight is check when the King was on g8 Knight takes Knight was in check and black played Queen takes Queen check now Queen takes Queen is double check which is not allowed in this position and after it takes then white is up upon is that right yeah and rook takes is even worse because now the Queen on g8 isn't defended so you can't play Knight takes because black loses all of his pieces and if you move your bishop away then I have a fork so actually in the games where I played Bishop takes f7 and takes my opponent's just retreated and then white has compensation for a piece I think I played a six check and then it's a safe King but it's not too safe okay not the safest okay and I won those games though they were very suspicious okay this can I played more positionally I played d5 okay and the idea is I don't want this pawn to go away I want that pawn to stay there forever that way his Knight can't go here and his Bishop is blockaded okay Lisa Simpson would approve okay my opponent played rook e8 which I think just loses a tempo and now I play Knight e4 one of the reasons in chess it's very rare to see me have this pawn structure with my pawns on e4 and d5 which looks good is because I like my pieces to go to e4 maybe my queen maybe my bishop maybe by Knight hopefully not my king but you know it's solid okay it's not like 95 is made okay so I like to block eight on e4 if I put my pawn on e4 my pawn on e3 isn't controlling these dark squares that my opponent might put a piece there eventually okay so 94 and he played a6 why did he play a six stopping Bishop b5 and preparing to play b5 attacking my bishop and feein Catalina's Bishop okay now if I remember this game and it was only 28 years ago 29 years ago so I remember it pretty well I think I was pretty proud of this move okay assuming it's Bishop b3 okay what do you know I still remember the move I made a long time ago because now my opponent plays Knight b6 to get his Bishop out or plays B fight against Bishop out this way I don't lose the tempo my bishops safer on b3 because it's protected and if I want to checkmate him on the diagonal give me a few moves I don't want my bishop on d3 because it blocks my Queen and rook I'd rather have it on c2 then I can play queen d3 and checkmate them so that this was better on b3 that on c4 my opponent played Knight b6 not attacking my bishop so I can play d6 rar okay now my bishops opened up that's why I don't think rookie it was a good move and my pieces are all really nicely placed he played pawn takes letting my knight come in and Rookie 7 and I castled finally finally you want me to knock castle might be right something take the plot this pawn this one this one yeah I was right let that joke worked out well I could take the pawn but then he would take all my pieces he would play Queen takes check or he wouldn't that he would take my knight that he would take my bishop and then he's got two bishops for a ruck very suspicious okay and my knight on d6 is so good I don't want to trade it for anything so I castled and he played Bishop g4 pinning my knight and I played Queen b4 and my Queen looks like it's doing all this stuff but it's actually doing this stuff attacking his bishop on g4 okay and I expected he would take my night and then he has to watch out for discovered attacks okay fact every night move was a discovered attack and I didn't really mind having the G file open because I could put my rook on the G file and I could attack his king my king is actually pretty safe so he surprised me he played Bishop to d7 so he saved his bishop but he also stopped me from doing this discovered attack on his queen that wasn't nice of him okay but his faeces are all terrible the bishop on f6 really can't move this rook can't move he just put the bishop here to stop all these tricks and where's this night going to go c8 boo so his pieces are all terrible now I have a knight on d6 and a bishop on the long diagonal and my queen is pretty threatening I played 94 of course I could take a pawn I could play four tricks but I like the move 94 because I wanted to take this bishop and then once he takes back I'll check meet him which is actually what happened so everything I wanted happened and this position is so good for Wyatt it reminds me of a saying from Grandmaster Roman ginger Hashmi Lee the only thing harder than beating him at chess is spelling his name and Roman one set of such positions I'm looking but I can't find a move that doesn't win okay so he'd really like White's position here Knight 6b7 is good 94 is good Knight f5 is good h3 is probably good okay so I play 94 and he played a5 attacking my queen like I'm nobody and we played an intermezzo Knight takes f6 did he take my queen oh wait this isn't the one o'clock kids class nevermind right so he took and now you'll notice my Queens attacked and this is my chapter on the psychology of chess if your opponent has a queen and you did not attack it and they moved it you might be worried because they move their queen for no reason maybe that queen is doing something when you attack your opponent's queen and they move it your leg well of course they moved it I attacked it so now you're not so worried about their queen why well the guy who does queen I attacked it however it could be the place that I moved it to threatens everything which was the case here and I played Queen e4 and most people are looking at this free pawn over here but if you've seen the game where I lectured on the win and against Doug Eckhart and that was a lot of lectures let me tell you then I have a much much more important better threat and even though my opponent was rated over 2,200 he missed this tactical idea which costs him the game of course I could also take a free pawn and win the game so he was less worried about that and instead of stopping my threat he made it even stronger very nice of him he played a for attacking my bishop okay that doesn't really prevent what I want to do you'll notice my bishop and his King are lined up on the diagonal okay because of that White has a very strong threat Danny Queen g6 is correct so he should move his king somewhere so that he's not in this in this pin but instead he played a four thinking my bishop would move I must admit Bishop C choose a fine move but queen g6 is even stronger since you suggested it and now not only is he in Shak and both of his pawns are hanging and pawn takes is illegal the computer won't let me do it because of this pin and now you're going to lose all your pawns would check and get checkmated if I had an engine which I'm sure I do but I the way I could ever find it they would say something like +10 even though the material is equal it really likes white because white has a mating attack for example let's look at some funny variations that's the best variation because now black already has three pieces set up for the next game now me what am I going to do how am i got the pieces up my queens on h8 I can't even reach it that's the one bad thing about dgt boards I'm trying to set my pieces up and move my King really far away and now I can't set it up anymore okay and if goes back to g8 okay then I can do it again Queen g6 and I could play something like Queen f6 also threatening me and now you're down to pawns and I'm threatening mate 9595 etc okay it would be checkmate soon so here my opponent resigned and now you know why he quit chess f5 that would be better than losing everything yeah after f5 I don't know I could take the pawn and lose my queen that's interesting or I could play Queen h4 h4 is probably safer although losing my queen is tempting yeah I don't even think I lose my queen I probably could just go here and went upon although I like my Queen over here because I got Queen h6 I got Queen f6 I got Queen h5 and I got this pin going on here f5 definitely the best move yeah a4 that's the worst I'm assuming my opponent's intention was I would go here and then you apply f5 he was one move too late yeah these things happen but yeah f5 makes a lot of sense still losing for him but makes a lot more sense because his king is too exposed okay now the other one is much more brutal okay and oh this is even the game I was thinking of this is this is even better yes sir I changed my mind okay so this was also played in 88 this was not a Queen's Gambit although I had a Queen's Gambit game prepared and then I deleted it okay and instead I show a Carol con Carroll cons always have good middle games okay and actually this was at a world chess festival where all the leading players were there and we even had some celebrities for example this was played in st. John New Brunswick which is in what country Canada and one of Canada's - actors is William Shatner of course and when I showed him my this game he was at the tournament I showed of this position and he said Khan okay me about half of that was lies but someone was true the shandur part was alive but the Khan part was true okay so I played the Carroll Khan which I play occasionally now now this time I was playing the Colombian master Fabiola Roda he is no longer a Colombian master he's an American master and he lives in Florida but this was a 1988 okay and he played the advanced variation and nowadays I sort of flip-flop about whether to play c5 or Bishop f5 all the world's leading players play which one of those moves somebody yelled out very quietly Bishop f5 so I played that and now my opponent confused me which isn't tough you played h4 putting it in H ok and grandma Esther's today still argue about whether to play h6 or h5 but to me there's no argument at all h5 and now my opponent decided to win my H pawn he played 92 then 93 then Bishop e2 then take my pawn so he's going to waste for Tempe taking my H blonde I'll play take his H pawn later so so you can do that ISA --xe Bishop e2 and when they attack on the flank you have to counter-attack in the center so I played c5 c3 Knight c6 Bishop e3 and now this is a typical move in this position but you guys don't have the title to make it luckily I'm a grandmaster though then I had no title and I want to play Knight f5 right because that's a good square for the knight Knight f6 not as good because he'll take it so most of you would maneuver your Knight to f5 but I went there in one move and actually the arbiter allowed it hey here's an arbiter right you've got me play Knight f5 see ya okay III hope Andrew doesn't know the rules okay so I just played Knight f5 and one move is that what I did not kidding because I wasn't a grandmaster then I was a fede a master so I played 9h six like the rest of you okay I did it later I forgot the game because it was 30 years ago okay I traded and played Queen b6 it's coming and now my opponent made what I would call the losing move although I'm not good enough to say that in 88 I want to take his be pawn and my opponent wanted to trade Queens in this opening white wants to checkmate black because White has a lot more space especially on the Kings side and Black's not really ready to Castle kingside maybe Queen side okay once the Queen's are off black attacks d4 mercilessly okay and then there's no counter play for white so black wins so Knight h6 to f5 and white of course traded Queens activating my ruck very nice of him okay that's why he later went to the US he could play me some more okay and I see three Knight f5 everybody trades and these end games are always very favorable to black now some of you have a different favorite lecturer than me maybe you had brain damage as a child okay I know at least one person this room has and oh my cover is not here never mind and those people like yes or Sarah one they said wow what a great lecturer and if the answer was here he would really really really like black the reason is yessir for a lot of his career plied the French defense and he always suffered in these positions with his bishop on CA so this is a super French defense because the bishop isn't locked behind the pawns and in the French defense and Carol Kahn one of the things you're worried about with the black pieces is getting checkmated and here I'm not worried about that the end games are almost always favorable to black and this there's this is the same because this pawn can be attacked and if he takes this pawn that would be very nice for me because I have a pawn defending it so with the D pawn week with my a file open with my bishop being beautiful with my other bishop being gray and I can't get checkmated this is a very good position for black in fact in a strange coincidence I had a meeting attack who would have thunk it not me okay he played King d2 in the end game a lot of people don't castle they want their King walking up the board but I would call this a middle game the main reason being the name of the class is mastering the middle game if this class was enhance your end game then this would be an end game but yeah that's the middle game we should checkmate our opponent I played King g7 and Bishop to b4 and he played Bishop d3 trading pieces and I took okay now we're going to vote because voting is fun you can vote for King takes c3 or B take c3 if you vote for another move we have a one o'clock class on Sunday that you would enjoy you'd really enjoy it okay because you'd be one of the better players and you can email and and YouTube comment your vote for this move very suspicious all right who votes for King takes c3 one two and a half four and a half and who votes for pawn takes five five ok pawn takes is a slight slightly better more people my opponent played uh King takes yeah but his Kings nice and safe until I made it him all right the problem with pawn takes is that when we trade bishops this is what we call a good night versus a bad Bishop my Knights on c4 forever even thirty years after the game ends my knight still goes to c4 on this computer that's when you know the Knights pretty good and as a pawn is weak I can double rooks on the hay file and White is struggling for a draw which he would not achieve against the player of mine well actually back then okay but he took with the king better for his pawn structure now my knight can't sit on c4 because he has b3 now as the young gentleman and the audience pointed out check meeting the king is a good idea if you're taking notes at home write that down okay and I played rook c8 threatening all kinds of discoveries okay and my opponent prevented every discovery by pinning my knight now all Knight moves our double check I would be checking him and he would be checking me this was before Barney was even a cartoon let's not a cartoon anyone now Bueller okay could I still move my knight move your king up yeah if you can't take my King as it would weaken his pawn structure yeah pawn takes King terrible okay so I could move my King out of the pin but instead I said get your Bishop out of the way and if as Bishop gets out of the way then I can make my knight discovered checks okay if he takes my knight check then I can infiltrate on c2 or c4 depending on where his King goes okay for example this would give black the advantage opposite colored bishops always a draw except here and every other position okay so my opponent played the obvious move maintaining the pin on my knight so he played pawn a for right now my Knights pinned and I can never move it so we agreed to a draw thank you for coming to my lecture oh wait that's not what happened what happened was I got medieval on him and that was before was it before after Pulp Fiction 88 I checked that all right what do you think what's called fiction 94 yeah so even before pulp fiction I got medieval here okay and you'll notice if my knight could move it has a lot of good moves but my knight can move Danny Machuca foaming at the mouth waiting to sacrifice the whole class plays Rigsby five and now I have a lot of night moves and this was 1988 so Night Moves was out right my son actually went to the same high school as Bob Seger but 40 years later okay true story if you want to know where Main Street is the one in the song it's in Arbor not the other 5,000 main streets in the US go left to the right okay how's that oh this way even your right stage right or your right alright so in this position I made a move so good even day Machuca will like it yeah I knew you'd like it Knight takes d4 check we can vote again you take with the bishop oh wait this isn't the one o'clock Sunday class nevermind okay for some reason that class isn't recorded darn okay then you'd see some illegal moves all right why not you because this is better yeah 1995 is good for Black Knight d4 is very good for black now we play the ditions chest because White's pieces disappear okay he could of course walk into me also good okay but he decided not to he could play kings of b4 and then I would play Knight check and then I would have a very difficult decision about which piece to take probably my flag would fall or I could play for me because King would be sort of suspicious but I want to take the king yeah okay so he played King 2d2 then I played Knight b3 check now if this King goes to the back row and back row wasn't good in 88 now that's pretty complicated joke for you guys you know big French Grandmaster back row okay Adia was he alive maybe might not have been now he was alive okay if you go to the back row I'll take your rook for free because this rook is defending this rook notice all of my pieces are active so you can sacrifice material when you're taking everything back and you've calculated that your opponent is while King is terrible okay so he played what move no I just said how he didn't go back because he'd lose his rock he wants to keep his rooks protecting each other he's seven correct that's that's that's the distant opposition now King E - yeah a mirror image of my king okay now most of you would take the rook and you would win because it's also winning but what's that castles Castle c7 this one yeah I know rook C - correct now if the King goes to the back rank once again the rook isn't defended so even though he was Columbian he retreated like a Frenchman Bishop - D - okay I took and he played King e1 now King e1 is excellent if he resigns those pieces are already set up all of them or in he's prepared to castle either way now okay yeah unfortunately the one o'clock class believe me now again I could take his rook but my rook would then be attacked so I played rook to be - now I'm going to take your rock and you can go to this safe square or you can go down down the file here you go down the file I'm going to play rugby one check and win this rook so probably don't do that so he played rook to d1 and his rook is trapped on d1 very suspicious also I don't know you got to see if your other rook yes isn't good okay and as they say on The Sopranos there's good and there's not good that that's not good for him okay that's good for me though mmm yeah don't you sing soprano yeah now very suspicious okay when he tells the truth it's crazier than my jokes the next move is white resigned that's good yes yeah white gave up and then this game he was crushed so badly they kicked him out of the Columbia and he landed in Florida so we could vote on that too but that's tough okay that's 5050 okay I would pick Columbia Missouri okay unless I was remember his name for the joke who's that guy who said miss miss world wrong mr. numerous yeah he also had the wrong Columbia yeah he spelled Columbia like the Missouri one so maybe he meant that though that well yeah but that was too hard to spell correctly okay so in fact I have a plan which I've worked it's works to perfection that involves Steve Harvey if the wrong person also known as Donald Trump when is the election we're going to have the election results read by Steve Harvey then it looks like we're okay alright and again as ji welder like to say class is dismissed

Channel: Saint Louis Chess Club

Views: 108,092

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Id: MgtyCTKTbKI

Length: 41min 17sec (2477 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 12 2016