Paul Morphy is Not Strong: The Refutation | Mastering the Middlegame - GM Ben Finegold

[Music] welcome to mastering the middlegame with me grandmaster been fine goal sort of a misnomer now before we start I have to Yellin to people at home I obviously don't watch the other videos because you know why would I do that but I do read your comments because they're so insightful they incite violence and your comments were done with unusual this week and that's saying something so I'll give yourselves a pat on the back so I watched my last video and I was like moving around like this and I was moving my hands because I'm a magician and you guys didn't say nothing you guys are like this is the greatest video ever so I mean I know you're done but like you know get smart or something another thing you guys did wrong I do the kids class on Sunday the kids class is half an hour then there were complaints that the video was half an hour so your indolence is inefficacious so come down in the club watch them live like these fine Three Stooges jurors kind of people here yeah because they have a good jury okay now I was informed by reading your brilliant comments that the previous Grandmaster in residence Josh freedo who I was rooming with until two days ago said that Paul Morphy was the worst and that's because he hasn't met you at home or any of our audience then he would know what the worst is fact he claimed I believe that not only would Grandmaster Ken West be more for you to match but so it might be more fee in a match but not blindfolded that's crazy okay now then Ben Simon stop crying okay now to refute said you know nonsense from Josh Friedel who said boy he would not be a master today more of these rings they would be over 2,700 and I mean fidei okay not USCF but feed a okay feed a over 2800 and of course you know that I like more Felix showing more fee games etc I like making fun I'm not sure which is easier to do anyway so Paul Morphy I've shown many of his games I'm going to show two games I haven't shown somehow black is at the bottom I blame Ken West because it must have been on the bottom for the last okay Flipboard okay this is more fee versus meek and you can see by his name that you you are what you play he played a meek style so you at home will be very proud okay so this is called mastering the middle game and I chose these two games because they're very good middle games buy more feet the first is a very strange French because meek played and meek fashion here he played g6 which nobody today would play because it's terrible okay and more if he played very strange in the opening and I've seen him do this before instead of putting the Knights on f3 and C 3 he put them on e 2 and D 2 and then he bolstered his center with his CNF pawn so very interesting way of playing Bishop III 92 and Knight d2 that's really cool looking probably at home you're getting your camera out to take a picture of this position so all wait okay good get a picture of whites pieces why does everything perfectly lined up in the center and black is sort of playing like me and Nakamura put together and me and knock I want to put together that's about as good as morphe that's but equal okay so Bishop d7 castles and one of the benefits of white not putting his Knights on c3 and f3 which look a little more logical is that we can defend our Center pawns with c3 and f3 in this particular instance we're not going to play f3 because more if we play d5 blocking the bishop on g7 and blocking the bishop on b7 and White's going to later play either f4 9 f4 now let's go back in this position where I've actually had similar positions with black because I like playing this so-called hippopotamus interesting black is meek and I play the hippopotamus let's not look into that okay so it's good thing they don't get that otherwise it's are laughing at me so normally when I'm black here I put my plums on d6 Knight d7 and my bishops have nice play on the diag and after the move defy v5 I'm not a big fan of blacks bishops so because they're not very active okay so castles f4 f5 f5 is not really the best move but at some point black has to stop white from playing g4 f5 with initiative and probably a more interesting move would be h5 because after f5 black doesn't really have any counter play black would like to use f5 for his Knight so actually by playing d5 and f5 I don't like any of blacks pieces I do like the fact that he's blocking everything up because in 1857 we didn't see these positions now if we take a random Grandmaster Josh freed L ok he would say Oh more if he wasn't very good ok and in this position it's very difficult for someone like Morphy to play a good plan because we didn't see these positions in the 1850s we saw more fee by move nine already checkmating his opponent sacrificing several pieces calculating to mate we didn't see these block positions where he had to try to unblock the position by playing the right middle gameplan and when you have a block centre like this there's basically two plans for both sides white wants to play either c4 or g4 and black wants to play either c5 or g5 and normally we determine how we're going to play this based on where we have a space advantage okay and would you say white has a space advantage on the Kings side of the Queen side okay so White's pawn on e5 which I would call the Kings side you would call it the center because you're correct okay but that's because you're in the center okay and that's why you guys some of you both I'm still going to play on the right over here okay because that's sometimes you get it you got to play the right moves even even when they see wrong okay so in this position since White's pawns are on f4 and E 5 White's has a space avenge on the Kings side and one of the problem with white playing on the queenside is he's going to help blacks pieces if white plays c4 and we trade do you take c4 the bishop gets open the night gets to go to d5 if we play g4 later I don't see how that helps blacks pieces okay so more if you played h3 I just explained why you're still confused but that's more of a you problem okay hold on a second somebody just went to get a drink I mean somebody at home come on come back okay you're back okay you don't go to the bathroom stay here okay so black played 97 completing development white play King age 2 very calm ski ask ok again more if he wants to play g4 but first he may want to be able to move his pieces to the Kings side ripped g1 maybe get the other rook to the G file the Queen and the King doesn't really belong on g1 the King's very safe on h2 c5 even the class will guess White's move here let's call it a random student Alex Marlar no white will now be a lefty so what would Y do c3 even Grandmaster Ken west got it after you watched as his are your video coming first is it Chiron sir than me this video is not going to be tabled and thrown in the garbage okay so you know sort of like okay so well you got to do some work for once you get paid by the hour right Ben oh you guys man you're in trouble then okay so white plates c3 and actually this is where Star Wars was invented because after c3 black was P owed alright one person got it the Dennis Miller ratio one-in-a-million okay now the reason white plays c3 is he's solidifying his Center black has no counter play I can't tell you what black should do but black shouldn't do what black did do okay normally in these kinds of positions Black's trying to put pressure on the center since white has a beautiful center well black already played f5 so he's not going to play f6 which is good because I would not recommend that anyway and black doesn't have a lot of pressure on d4 white as d4 defended three times and it's attacked once so now that the center is blocked and black doesn't have counter play because of his suspicious opening now more if you can get to work I'm mastering the middle game c4 this is the condom of a lower rated player makes it attacked something okay it's like Oh something happened it's like something was said who they get all excited right okay and it doesn't make any sense but look how interesting it is okay so c4 Bishop to c2 and you can see black was obviously playing on the right because that's the right side for black okay this ship c2 and now black really doesn't have any counter play and the center is blocked so now wife's really going to attack on the kingside a6 some sources say black played a5 this was played 1857 don't ask me maybe Rex would know because he might have been watching the game I don't go well I'll ask Rex next time I see him okay Knight f3 white moves his pieces over to the Kings side where he's going to execute black h6 boo that move is quite meek right and you shouldn't move pawns in front of your king well you're going to get checkmated there he should move his pawns backwards if black could play h7 and f7 and Knight f5 he'd only be clearly worse okay and the reason h6 is bad is very obvious it's because we're weakening the g6 square the pawn on h7 was defending g6 now we got a bishop on c2 we're going to have a rook on g1 I got two other pieces that might go to the G file I could play Knight h4 so you really needed that pawn on h7 and h6 applaud the decisive mistake although some very strong player like Kramnik or Carlsen would say black was already lost I can't ask or fee he was only 2100 strength what does he know okay so King age seven defending g6 rep g1 notice the build-up of whites pieces whites night ISM the vicinity the king is on the same diagonal as the bishop the rook is on the G file and blacks the bishops just can't do anything rook g8 Queen e1 knight c6 Knight age for every white piece going towards the Kings side and after the mistake Queen FA White has a very simple sacrifice that wins Knight takes g6 okay black has to take we play double check got the rook goin we got this goin King edge seven losses to every legal move f6 check Fe check probably the computer would say Fe check is better but so you play King f7 defending his e6 pawn he has an active King stance would be proud f5 check okay this looks like every game I played kokum outside an hour ago this looks like Feingold Kokomo every game okay Queen h4 check f6 and unlike my usual joke where white wins because of Connect four he has Connect 5 so I have no joke I've never seen connect 5 I'm so confused okay so White's down a piece but black should resign but people didn't resign back then so we saw lots of funny end to the game this ship takes f6 giving the piece back getting rid of White's great pawns bishop g6 Bishop f5 check if the King goes to c7 Bishop f4 wins Queen f4 wins Queen g3 wins Bishop h6 g7 and now if I was black I would Castle hoping my opponent has a heart attack it's the most illegal move I can find instead black played 9 g8 and then resigned and according to one of the engines reports I got white has something like 9 from eight in threes almost every legal move is meet in three okay and I'm guessing after Bishop d7 check I wouldn't want to have black but many other moves are made like Bishop g6 check and I it said almost every move was made in three so that was that we niche five is made in three okay obviously these aren't doing so good over here so that was actually a brilliant game by morphe because they had a totally blocked center and he found the right plan of playing g4 first he played c3 defending the center we treated his Bishop and it was a very slow build-up most low rated players like to play as quickly as possible sacrifice on move one might come ER and played too aggressively and not build and use all of their pieces morphe used all of his pieces every game he taught us to do that and if you watched my lecture from a couple of days ago which I saw Ben Simon put up today I had a game that I played in Atlanta a few weeks ago and i checkmated my opponent and I also used all my pieces because I learned from morphe and generally when I'm trying to improve my chess I find somebody about 2100 nice to tell you their games and then I get really good oh wait you forgot that that was sarcasm okay yeah sorry I forgot who my audiences okay now the next game I like even more I save the best for last okay sort of like he'll he'll you know he'll show something he'll get huge huge okay ah I resign what did you do Ben Simon I know I know I'm half kidding okay now the next game was in a blindfold Simon the reason Wharf he gave blindfold Simon's is very simple almost everybody I know rated around 2100 they give blindfold Simon's that's all they ever do right every Twitter play you know gives blindfold Simoes and plays perfectly they all do right and when they're not given blindfold Simoes they play even better than perfect it's just amazing okay and this was played in Paris more if he was given Simon's against the as players in the world and he was like he got anybody better and they were taking so long they didn't have back then he would actually go to Starbucks between moves and he was it was like you know come on man let's go okay so more fees why he 45 and his opponent played the Philidor which was very common in the 1800's d4 and when I play the fluid or 'the black which is pretty rare I'm not the expert like ken west when's the Philidor a lot I play d6 on move one and I play e5 on move three all right so tanks and you could take with the knight or the Queen and taking where the Queen is actually more interesting and that's what he did Knight c6 Bishop to b5 in fact I was making fun of Kokomo earlier because it's so easy to do and I actually had a game with Kokomo today and a double King pawn opening where my queen was on d4 he played knight c6 and I played Bishop b5 pinning his knight and actually in a similar position Kokomo we did trade and I won almost as quickly as more fee but not not quite okay Bishop g5 and the point of Bishop g5 is actually quite funny it doesn't seem like black would wanna play Knight f6 or 97 and pinhas Oh Knight the logical move Bishop e7 hangs the g7 pawn so that makes it less logical of course knowing what I know I think I would play something like 97 here which I don't want to play because I want to play like Knight f6 and Bishop e7 so Bishop g5 shows that more if he was thinking early a lot of players maybe some of the audience just develop their pieces looking around castle seeing if Starbucks is open and then after they develop their pieces they start thinking so Y could play Knight c3 here black would play Knight f6 and then they would just play normal chess here if black plays Knight f6 he's going to have some bad pawn structure so he played the move f6 Oh terrible and more if you saw the bishop was attacked Knight h6 Knight c3 Bishop e7 short Castle you surely when they take with a queen they play a long castle but sometimes they're playing g4 h4 and playing for mate it's hard to play h4 yeah you have to take your own bishop it's terrible now the reason more if he's not playing long castle and g4 and H form playing for me other than the fact that it's illegal is that black made a concession black did something bad black played f6 weakening which Square that's a little too hard for this class E six and more fees like oh you weakened east six and you got this week diagonal here I don't have to check me you I can just win positionally okay just like a typical 2100 strength player winning all kinds of different ways okay so you just short castled Queen c4 check not to play check but he wants to get his Knight to e6 okay and obviously Knight g5 is too risky so he played Queen c4 check and then he played the obvious Knight to d4 because he wants to play 96 also Knights a c6 winning upon it isn't bad not so bad okay and that's the problem with playing f6 is you can't put the pawn back on f7 unless you cheat cheating wasn't very popular in 1858 Queen to d7 rook to d1 Morphy always uses all of his pieces these pieces are out he puts his rook opposite his opponent's Queen a typical idea rook f7 trying to get as other look into the game f4 f4 is another common IV and E for openings Sicilian double King pawn because the nice line on f3 anymore and we can gain more space if white does play f5 and 96 which famous game played 60 years later does this remind you of Alex Marlar if white plays f5 and 96 what game does that remind you of played about 60 years later you're not aware of Laster kappa blanka come on man and the exchange ruie where he gets 600 k so f4 was played a 5 that makes a lot of sense again more fees opponents don't have a lot of counter play more view is known as the sec set made kind of player but he played a lot of games we just outplayed his opponent his opponent couldn't move and then they crumbled now I said it before but it was like 20 minutes ago so you've all forgotten this was a blindfold Simon ok because as I said earlier lots of 21 hundreds give blindfold sandals it happens all the time we would 2100 right here you give blindfold Simoes every once or twice a week right yeah and you play just like this ok I remember a blindfold sign will you you were at you were involved in a way to man you weren't giving this honorable oh wait never never mind yeah ok so f5 and now black has really good pieces except for one thing black doesn't have really good pieces ok White's getting a space advantage he's moving up up up because black played the move f6 and not only weakens the e6 square which I've said a few times the bishop on e7 if not the best bishop I think it's the second best bishop like this is one and then this is two okay f5 rook goes back to F a 96 rip goes to G a a for a force probably my favorite move of the game he's playing a blindfold sign wall and instead of playing for mate with like rook d3 rook h3 or something involving g4 g5 you know a for stopping counter play at my pulsons looks Wan ok after a four black can't really move anything maybe black could have played b5 if you didn't do that ok Knight g4 going to e5 Queen e2 and it went to e5 Bishop g3 and he takes the knight Black's only good piece and this is a really good example of two knights really crushed to bishops takes work f3 rook h3 now you all see the threat rib takes h7 so h6 Queen d2 threatening rook takes h6 which leads to mate right Canwest and threatening Queen takes Bishop winning a bishop and thread in Queens x h6 now notice more if you didn't play Queen e3 with the same age six threats because then you're not threatening the bishop on d7 so even though the blindfold sign will morph you saw like good patterns around the board okay black doesn't want to get checkmated into so King age 7 yum yum yum yum yum okay and this is a really funny part of the game because almost any 2100 player especially low rated players would trade Queens and win a piece up obviously White's King is much safer than blacks King so you don't trade Queens you check nature upon it rook takes h6 check he also could have played Queen f7 and tried to mate that way is he playing it safe because he's playing a blindfold sine wall no he sees to me pawn takes is obviously illegal so King takes again Queen f7 seems pretty obvious to play queen g6 mate what would black do if white played Queen f7 Queen EA so Morphy instead played rogue to d3 see if I was blindfold I wouldn't be sacking a rook and sacking my queen I'm a piece of for nothing because what if I don't know where something is oh that's not me I'm done a lot of pieces okay but he knows where things are more if he was playing blindfold chess when he was 9 so he pretty experienced it playing blindfold okay so Ricky's three mate is very easy to stop ken west will give all the ways to stop it the silence is deafening anything can you stop me Rick King age five attack okay well quit Queenie AI with the edge of Queen h5 but but if I trade Queens you can't take back and the truth hurts alright so King age five check and he resigned why what's that what's the problem what only only Rick g3 yeah and King H one and beat be three solid right so again more fee always used all of his pieces when he attacked even when he didn't okay remember what what Fast Eddie Felson said I'm the best and if you beat me I'm still the best okay right you hear me talk it over there all right now black he was really well protected on the Queen side you got to give him that the boy I couldn't do nothing over there okay the King was a little different so that was a brilliant positional game a brilliant strategical game followed by winning material with an easily winning game but he didn't want my lecture to go too long so he made it the guy pretty quickly if he had taken on CA I would be like and now he has an extra piece and he's advancing his majority on the Kings side but instead he just checked me in his opponent and here black resigned I think one of the sources gave this as the final of the game that's pretty cool right will say the game ended that way okay because it actually may have you know 1858 eighty simultaneous some of those notation sheets work good the men wise were just weren't working then which is funny because the game was played in Paris so they could really get the French going but they just couldn't you know they were like manhua c'est pas ball and crab it like wasn't that the internet wasn't working that day right no really it wasn't I'm serious there was no internet that day it was out and said come back in 130 years and we'll fix it right and you know what happened in 130 years Al Gore invented the internet right all right I hope you like this revenge refutation video of Donnell I mean of Josh free Del's Wharf he wasn't very good Morphy was the best Morphy the greatest player who ever lived except for my fine well wait a minute I mean you find people at home and oh now I'll be making videos for the next couple of weeks some of you guys are confused at home shocking you guys are like where's Ben Feingold where's of arico be aware like in our homes okay we're we're not here at the Chess Club 24 hours a day that's that's like Ben Symons job okay we have lives outside the Chess Club so you could actually call the Chess Club get a very confused employee and ask who the resident GM is and they'll say what's a resident GM okay but they might tell you the right answer you could ask for a supervisor okay then you'll really get in trouble all right so when there's a resident GM they make the videos we don't have like 20 guys sitting around it's not like Grand Master Feingold and Grand Master Ken Westar here every day you guys are just lucky all right thanks for coming to the lecture see y'all on Thursday [Music]

Channel: Saint Louis Chess Club

Views: 275,659

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Id: eLVnWGP3KRg

Length: 27min 54sec (1674 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 30 2016