The Legend: Veselin Topalov - GM Ben Finegold - 2015.07.30

today's legend is Sinquefield cup participant for the second time Veselin Topalov and i'll admit when I've made a mistake and in fact let's talk about many of these mistakes I made the last mistake I made was in 1986 and I corrected that by becoming a vegetarian and this is my second mistake which I can now correct which is not being a fan of Veselin Topalov which changed last year at the Ziegfeld Cup he's a great guy and he plays great chess and I'm rooting for him topalov unlike a lot of top players doesn't play boring chess he doesn't have a lot of draws and he plays for a win with white and black and his games are very interesting and topalov is a great attacking player so I've chosen three of his attacking games where he was successful first game is against former world champion Ruslan ponomaryov I guess I should say feed a champion he's a world champion like I'm a world champion at hockey anyway so topalov was white in this game this game was played in 2005 in his home country of Bulgaria and the capital of Bulgaria is right and he's playing the tournament in Sofia hometown advantage okay and topalov plays d4 and e4 but not at the same time and he's playing ponomaryov from your favorite country anyone where is Ruslan former world champion pata Mario from Russia was close close yeah the Ukraine very good it's all about the Benjamins today yeah fact when they had the world they had the world championship but from fidei which he won he played another Ukrainian player in the final match and that person was the only other Ukrainian you've heard of Yvonne truck right and ponomaryov one as predicted okay so they played a Queen's Indian which we've discussed endlessly today right Queen's Indian okay and he played g3 which is the oldest move and maybe it's the most common now Bishop a6 now between 1920 and 1975 everybody played Bishop to b7 and now they all play Bishop to a6 notice how Bishop a6 attacks the pawn on on c4 and white defends it White's also tried Queen a4 but b3 is what what they're playing now and Bishop b4 check is the idea and what black is saying is when white plays Bishop to d2 and we retreat that this pawn structure doesn't make a lot of sense normally you would fee and Cattle the bishop if you played b3 and blacks play a little more actively Knight to c3 and black castles in the opening is not too exciting although there's a lot of notes that's good okay and white black wants to play d5 and play in the center he professes it with c6 e 4 and d5 now in my opinion which nobody shares that's why it's my opinion certain players like to play certain style I like to play as boring as possible and wave from my opponents of blunder their Queen that's my style Topalov likes to play very aggressive and attack his opponent and calculate lots of variations ponomaryov plays more like I do except he plays better he doesn't do anything and then he tries to really slowly I'll play you and so in my opinion this may not have been the right choice this variation because this is very complicated White has a big Center and the game is going to get very tactical which black has to do because otherwise White has a big center nothing now you might say why is black giving white a big center well because whites king is in the center and he still can't castle and bike already castled so black is hoping with the center opening up White's King will be exposed on a1 and white is hoping that since he has a big center and black hasn't completed development it's going to be good for Wyatt these kinds of very complicated positions in my opinion will favor Topalov because that's the kind of positions Topalov likes not not ponomaryov if it was some boring position with a lot of trading and the position was equal then ponomaryov might be the favorite not topple ups kind of position okay so Topalov played a five very aggressive move attacking the knight and the night went to e4 and again black black should play aggressively because whites king is on e once we have to punish him Bishop to d3 and this is a very unusual thing I mean if I had had white this game I would be upset that I played g3 and I didn't play busy to g2 my bishop wants to go to g2 but black was all you know playing d5 and attacking my center and white decided he wanted a bigger advantage so he pushed all of his pawns in the center before he castled in fene covered his bishop that could be punished but it requires very exact play and this is the kind of position top lavas going to play better than ponomaryov and it's a very good position for us as spectators because we're not going to see trade trade trade trade draw we're going to see some really nice attack okay he played Knight c3 which the computer says is bad it prefers getting rid of white's bishop with nine takes d2 I mean I like the ships I like this more than Knights so I'm not going to disagree Knight takes Knight rook takes and c5 and again White's King is on e one blacks King is castled black wants to open the center because White's King is stuck in the middle so black plays c5 area of white takes and black takes back and they give a funny variation where black sacrifices upon by playing d4 attacking the rook and now if it was White's turn to move white plays Bishop efore and black is very unhappy or at least he should be because his rook is trapped so they give bishop to be seven takes and whites a pawn ahead and I guess the commentator is claiming this is a very nice Bishop so black has compensation for a pawn again if I can quote akaru can I quote akaru there was a game played in the u.s. championship this year between Nakamura dacovian and a Cobian sacrificed a pawn in a French defense and the computer said it was equal the position was equal and then after like five or six moves of Cobian was just losing and a cargo won and when he did an interview he said yeah it's equal but this is Ana Kobe ins kind of position Akopian doesn't want to sacrifice a pawn and then have compensation a cobia wants to be a pawn ahead and have compensation a cobia wants everything he wants to be better you have no chance so a Kobe and sacrificing upon was an unusual event he didn't get the right counter play and he lost because he was down upon and I think Ponte Mario is not going to do this because as I said earlier Ponte Mario that's he don't like this Ponte Mar I would want to have white here because White's upon ahead so even though maybe the computer says it's okay it's not ponomaryov style to sacrifice a pawn for unclear compensation so he didn't sacrifice a pawn he just took back on c5 and Topalov played h4 because he's topalov topalov wants to attack the black king because because he sees the black pieces over here and he sees blacks King over here so his bishops are pointing towards the King his H pawns coming he now has the g5 Square for his Bishop and his Knight and he's going to attack the black king when blacks pieces are over here and I guess his king is going to stay on e1 okay and now as you can see whoever rode notes to this game I mean I know who it was we don't want to know who was they wrote all kinds of variations and most of their variations white is sacrificing his Bishop on h7 and so autumn re off played the move h6 to defend the g5 square let's go back and look at one of the variations so you guys are happy rook to e8 so the king can escape that doesn't seem like a lot of escaping this ship takes h7 Knight g5 check now we know why the pawns on h4 Queen h5 are you scared yet if you're playing Topalov you would be now whites threatening all kinds of checkmates everywhere and again these pieces are not defending Bishop takes Knight pawn takes threatening checkmate I assume King f8 and well I would assume g6 here okay they say g6 and rook f3 okay and my bishops coming here and my rook is coming here and my queen is coming here so I I like white look at all those zeroes okay so instead of getting checkmated ponomaryov preferred not to get checkmated no wonder he was the world champion and he played age six so he's like you're not going to put your knight here you're not going to put your bishop here you're not going to sacrifice your Bishop just leave me alone already okay but he didn't realize I would be lecturing on the legends class showing topalov if he had maybe he would have played differently and he played Bishop to be one somebody in the class tell me why white played bishop to be one was he scared yes he's going to play Queen c2 and that way he has pressure on the cfl right Archer what's the real reason because going to play Queen h7 checkmate okay now the problem is when your pawn is on h7 like it is here if your opponent plays Bishop be one Queen c2 checkmate you can play g6 then they're not going to jump over your pawn and check me I mean I would however after h6 now if black ever plays g6 to block the mate this pawn is going to be hanging so that's unfortunate okay so ponomaryov plays the move f5 which blocks the bishop on b1 we have a call in voter okay and white took on Poisson if white doesn't take on Poisson I don't think this Queen c2 Queen h7 idea is going to happen because that point I'll be on fi for ever so white takes the pawn and now he's ready for his checkmating attack black took with the bishop Queen c2 there's no way really to stop queen h7 although queen h7 is in May the King can run away that seems pretty safe right no he played d4 and they give a variation where he takes the rook let's look at that this ship takes rook this ship takes bishop now when the Queen goes to h7 we have a double attack on g7 also that doesn't seem very good for black so black plays d4 stopping the bishop check check and then Knight takes d4 and the idea is if you take my knight I'll play Bishop b4 check and I guess you'll go here and I'll play this check and yeah looks like White's going to be about 300 pawns ahead and check reading black okay so instead of taking the rook he kept his Bishop which is a good defensive piece and play the move d4 attacking the rook again Knight to g5 threatening Queen h7 me he could have played queen h7 right away but then the King would run away so he plays Knight g5 and the knight is taking away the escape square Black has two ways to take the night he chose with the H pawn if he takes with the Bishop then we play check and we play Bishop takes Bishop and we play rook f3 check again to show an audience you want to show like a checkmate but when grandmasters are playing they they stop looking around here they're like hey the guys check baiting me taking all my pieces but we can continue but the guy wouldn't even continue so if King if King yet for example we could play Bishop g6 check and we could play Queen g7 check and then we're going to take the rook and Black's going to cry a lot again I've said it twice already third time I can claim a draw when I say it these pieces aren't doing a good job defending blacks King okay so black took with the pawn and that's what I would do if somebody's checkmating me I would like to take a free piece that I'm least I'm a piece up okay and he takes now the rook is coming in the queen is coming in very scary for black pawn takes rook and you play Bishop f4 now people who are watching the game we're very excited because they wanted white to play rook h8 check and then Queen h7 checkmate that's pretty good for white right checkmate is good so why didn't topple off do that the king would go to f7 which is also good for Wyatt but topalov just saved his bishop you play Bishop f4 and this is a good square for the bishop because when the black King is running away there's much less running away because the bishop on f4 is defending the runaway squares okay now White has a very funny idea this idea with rook h8 check and queen h7 checkmate if it was White's turn here white could play Queen g6 then the King is not going to f7 and then I'll play rook h8 and Queen h7 mate okay so black I think started running away here yeah he played king f7 because he's got to run away from the white pieces Queen g6 check do you think he went to e7 or GA what do you think yeah yeah gee I wouldn't make any sense because he's running back into checkmate and then checkmate okay so you went to e7 pawn takes check rook takes Queen takes check well Black has two legal moves that I see King here doesn't look very good unless you're white then it looks pretty good and so I assume he played rook f7 or he resigned plane wreck f7 Bishop g5 check King d6 if you play King to d7 Queen takes rook check Plus attacking your queen so King g6 queen takes rook Queen takes bishop rip h7 white is threatening Queen c7 checkmate some would say black is a piece up here I would say black as a piece down because all these pieces on the queenside are useless so basically white has a queen of rook attacking a king and there's nothing defending it now what's blacks only chance here how does he not lose it's got one chance yeah queen c8 moving in a funny line well you're suggesting a move for black I'm saying in the long run blacks only chance at defense is by checking this King forever if we check the King forever we'll draw but you can't check the King forever because like I figured that out so he played Queen e5 check if he plays Queen c1 then he's out of checks he can't check with the bishop because I just take it okay so he played Queen e5 check and he played king c6 and now his queen is defending c7 his bishop is defending b7 and his knight is defending d7 that's why he's the world champion I mean he was the Fijian world champion okay now unfortunately where the Queen can't stay at e5 and white played Queen e8 check the king went to b6 Queen went to d8 Shaq what do you think black did here where does King go yeah King c6 okay now neither one of you has heard of the term overworked you've never heard that term before right exactly in this case not only am i overworked but the Queen on e5 is overworked it's stopping Bishop Eve for mate and Queen c7 mate don't you hate what that happens also if you count how many times the rook and the knight moved and you count the same as I do the answer is still zero right normally you should move your pieces normally okay so white played Bishop efore check and most of you think black has one legal move what's the second legal move what's that Queen d5 not not a good move okay and so okay grandmasters usually don't play to mate but we do in this class so the only way out of checkmate that's not Queen d5 is queen takes bishop and now Queen c7 mate and we call that a king hunt the King castled white sacrificed and forced the other King out now if you're playing somebody rated 1100 you may do that occasionally you might check make their King on a king hunt whoever you're playing ponomaryov who is the world champion and considered one of the most solid players in the world it's hard to checkmate them and also making them look silly in the process you may think that these pieces don't make a lot of sense here and the reason you think that is your right so not only did white win white really crushed black again that's why topalov our legend was also the world champion although unlike ponomaryov he was a real world champion okay all that also a fake one okay so that was good now this is a very strange opponent arc arc I denied itch night itch played for Germany and this term it took place in Germany in fact it was in Dortmund and I used to play for Dortmund and the Bundesliga not to soccer Bundesliga the chest Bundesliga and Natick about two weeks ago changes Federation he did acara wanna except he didn't change it to the US now what most of you don't know is that when there's a super duper grand master tournament usually the organiser invites somebody local so they invite grandmasters from all over the world then they say okay you can play to your our club champion and then that guy gets the beatdown right and this is what happens in Dortmund it's in Germany so they invite five or six very good foreign players then they invite one or two good German players although the German players are pretty good so usually they don't do too badly so native lives in Germany and plays for Germany although not anymore but he used to and so when they had tournaments in Germany they invited him and then he would get crushed but he got experience against the best players in the world and he got better at chess although this game he got crushed okay so topalov is white against Arkady nade it she's a good player but he's not one of the top ten in the world he's one of the top ten in Germany okay so Topalov like every other super grandmaster nowadays plays everything on move one just like you efore d4 you don't hear okay he played Knight f3 and c4 and we transpose to some kind of Queen's Gambit noun a ditch I like him I can't play like him but I like him he plays a wild and crazy he's the Steve Martin of chess okay the difference is you've heard of nature you haven't heard of Steve Martin that's the difference okay now you haven't heard of either one all right now a boring player like ponomaryov would play Bishop e7 here okay and then he would read a book the boring world of niels bohr while he was playing chess okay Natick plays wild and crazy Topalov plays wild and crazy that's good for our class and natives has beaten many good players for example cramp up for example magnus carlsen the last two times he played him that's pretty good again magnus carlsen doesn't like to play wild and crazy he likes to bore you to death okay thank his last two opponents did die court case is pending alright so natives played D takes c4 and Bishop b4 which is some kind of Vienna ragas and I don't even know what it is I guess it's the Vienna and okay the knight is pinned so we're going to take this pawn - now the problem is for black black is upon ahead and black is threatening a pawn but again the development of the queen side occasionally lakhs of these positions although sometimes black is a pawn or two ahead okay and topalov played Bishop to g5 Bishop takes c4 s also move pinning the night and then c5 the most aggressive move and this is like the mean one the Vienna variation it would behoove you to know 20 moves of theory and about seven variations to play this that's why these guys are playing it because they know all that okay now Y can play e5 or Bishop takes c4 here that's like the extent of my knowledge and he played he five I think black plays C takes d4 although I wouldn't bet my life on it okay good okay now I give up so I've seen this position but as you can see both Knights are pinned and attacked so if I was either color I would resign okay because I this too complicated for me and that's the kind of positions the top 11 a ditch like where they can prepare at home calculated the board and they don't have very many drawers now sometimes when you're watching a movie you sort of know what's going to happen because somebody in the movie is really famous so like George Clooney's not going to get killed you know what I mean so since this is a legends class and it's on top love I'm going to bet on white okay top love was black are they bet on black okay and Topalov played Knight takes d4 and now he's eliminated the threat to his night but he's attacking the other night Bishop takes Knight and Queen a5 now black has many threats Queen takes c3 check Queen takes e5 check and some of you are probably scared of pawn takes knight but then the Queen could take the bishop on g5 now if you were like some random I am who walked into the room and didn't know this position you would be like I don't know too complicated probably both players are still in their preparation and they know the position hopefully okay when you play very complicated variations where there's a lot of checks and pieces hanging and material is different normally you have it already normally and it's surprising how much these guys know actually because for some reason their professional chess players they study chess all day and usually in complicated variations like this the first 1015 moves if they can remember their analysis that's good okay so white played pawn takes Queen takes bishop and again Naida isn't going to back away and say oh no I ain't playing Topalov okay what B if you do ask teacher this class he would but he's playing for a win with black against a higher rated player and you may like white because as usual black hasn't developed anything but you might like black because black is upon ahead okay and theory probably says it's equal ok took on g7 and Queen g7 so black has six pawns and white has five although this pawn is pretty loose on the other hand if you take it and this pawn could be loose but probably the overriding factor for the reason topalov won the game is this Knights on d4 and pretty strong and again and a lot of games that topple off is winning he's sacrificing material because his opponent's pieces aren't very active then the last game which somehow you missed I don't know how terrible right his opponent will had an extra piece but they were all trapped on the Queen side so okay so Queen to d2 this protects the pawn on c3 so there's never going to be any Queen takes here the Queen's on a very nice diagonal and strangely white my even Castle queenside because this King's pretty safe over there there's no black pieces that can attack him and I would be I would think that their preparations ending about now okay castles Bishop takes c4 materials equal a six does anybody think Queen's g2 is a safe move that wins upon yeah Queen g2 why didn't he take the pawn free pawn what's the problem okay castles now you've taken a pawn that was sort of blocking this file now most good players like whoever this gentleman is would prefer white because black is getting in a lot of trouble on the G file Black has his usual development against our hero today and whites all ready to go White's pieces are all out white as the G file white as an attack if I turn the engine on it'll say some really big plus for white something very scary you don't want to take the G to pawn because you're going to get in trouble over here okay so natives played that move a six and he wants to play b5 attacking the bishop and put his bishop on a beautiful diagonal he wants to and white castled and he played d8 which the computer says is bad and it says he should play b5 i guess he changed his mind then after b5 maybe black is okay but again one of the reasons people lose especially at the top level because the top level there's a lot of draws but when they do lose a lot of time it's because there's a lack of development okay and they're busy doing something else like well I'm pinning the Knights of the Queen I'm going to play e5 and win the night my rook is better in the center I'll develop my pieces later okay so he plays Queen f4 I'm pinning his Knight sort of walking into this fork scary okay and again top who loves the kind of player who likes to play native a next reminds me of another matchup which will totally confuse Greg and that's good smart oven shear off there's no question oh yeah I just said the match up top 11 a ditch reminds me of Kasparov sheer of you see why yeah he's like no topple off in a ditch have the same kind of style except top allows a much stronger player much higher rated much more successful so when they're calculating and playing very calm placated chess he can come out on top so he allowed this fork with E 5 and black instead played b5 which and of course the person imitating the game recommends e5 ok and now you'll notice that these two were attacked and I was thinking but don't believe what I'm thinking that this should takes f7 is interesting and the reason is if you take it which you probably wouldn't I would play Queen Shak attacking your ruck although black doesn't have to take the bishop black and play King h8 ok so instead the recommendation is Queen h4 attacking the rook on d8 and then when black saves his rook white will save his knight and black just did something very bad ok this Bishop wasn't really crushing the black King but after a 5 now that Bishop is looking a lot better that's black Kings looking very dangerous on g8 okay so natives played b5 attacking the bishop and white played Queen c7 attacking the rook would you take the bishop and lose your rook No so he played Queen f8 defending his rook Bishop to d3 and so there's another person who gives lectures here while there's several the one I'm talking about is yes or Sarah wine and yes er has a name for this kind of position which I think he invented he calls it a free attack so sometimes you have an attack and often at the very top level when you have an attack you've given something away like in the last game Topalov sacrificed a piece he got an attack and he won here white has an attack and white didn't sacrifice anything so it's a free attack but that's okay he'll sacrifice all his pieces later so don't worry ok so he played rook to d7 let's look at one of the crazy variations do you think white wants to trade Queen or black black wants to trade queens that he will get made it so one of the variations is Queen to d6 now it's very difficult for white to avoid trading Queens because the Queen has nowhere to go however why can't avoid trading Queens by playing what sacrifice Bishop takes h7 check and if King takes h7 Shack the King moves it says a what gives a lot of moves but we'll play King h8 rip d1 and our plan is to play rugby 3 were caged 3 May or rip d3 rep g3 or move the knight threatening maid and the Queen and just like in the last game blacks pieces are all here they're all on the Queen side being terrible okay so natives didn't do that he played rook to d7 kicking the Queen out and play Bishop b7 developing and and rook to e1 now this is the first time in chess history there have been a thousand arrows on the board and I didn't put them there whoever annotated the game put those zeroes there Wow and it's rib Lee who's very strong player now everybody knows who Paul Morphy is right then you know you know who he is okay and when Paul Morphy played chess he usually had an attack because he was usually about 700 points stronger than his opponent and he used all of his pieces so this is a very more the--like move the rook is on a1 and he moves it to do the attack it tells you what he's going to do and black played Queen g7 which rib Lee doesn't like Bishop to e4 and they give all kinds of crazy variations I like this variation 'if I've forking the knight in Queen this ship takes bishop and if pawn takes Queen rook e8 check wins the Queen and then you win the rook in the corner and you'll notice that White has an extra bishop that didn't happen because black saw that he would be down a bishop okay so he played King h8 rookie three the rook wants to go to g3 but black out his King off of g8 pretty quickly Bishop takes e4 Queen takes e4 attacking the rook in the corner he played work to d5 and Knight takes c6 so white is better by just playing natural moves but that's not top a lot of style if Topalov sees a win he'll sack apiece 96 attacking the Queen and the rook Queen e6 okay I like the annotator of the game is saying white wants to play rook g3 if I was drawing arrows I would draw the arrow Queen takes rook but that's me so white wants to play Queen takes rook that's a big threat okay so the rook went to d7 rope to g3 attacking the Queen and just like in the last game these pieces haven't moved if the Queen moves away from g8 we have all kinds of checkmates everywhere Queen f8 rook e1 another Morphy move this is attacking this is attacking the rook on f1 is not attacking let's play rook e1 now black would like to play 96 and get his knight into the game but your knight is hanging on c6 and you can't move your dye anywhere else so again even though white is down at Pease he's not really down a piece because these pieces aren't playing over here and obviously blacks king is in a lot of trouble rook a to a7 defense not a good defense and which one of you brilliant tactician in the audience can find the final coup d'etat I'm going to you to comments will I get for that joke three two okay yeah somebody said it very quietly Queen f6 check I hate when that happens unless I'm Wyatt then I really like it okay so obviously I'm threatening the King and I'm threatening the Queen so probably black should play Queen takes Queen and then you get checkmated again good defense over here no not really okay and somebody like ponomaryov if he was doing a puzzle book and that was the answer he would solve it in less than one second and go to the next puzzle but when somebody is attacking you and attacking you and attacking you and you have to watch out for every threat it's easy to miss stuff so white was threatening Queen f6 check here and black either didn't see it or he'd already given up in his head because he's getting beaten so badly that's a nice finish Queen f6 sacrificing your queen and if the guy takes that you made him and these silly world champions super grandmasters they never let you make them they just resign but let's pretend he took the Queen and then he has to play Queen FA and then mate also forking the King and Knight very important okay so Topalov pretty impressive let's see the last game and this is my favorite of the three because I can't flip the board that's not why because he B Kramnik with the black pieces and 20 moves just like you would do and because of this game there was a big meeting at the Chess Club between the higher-ups and kramnik was not invited this thing feel Cup that's why right Danny there you go but talk LA was invited now I said this earlier in the lecture and now I can prove some of what I said in my opinion people have certain styles and they're good in certain positions kramnik is good at slow boring technical positions he's the best Karpov was known for this Botvinnik was known for this Petrosian was known for this and Topalov is good at sacrificing and checkmating you well therefore kramnik by making the game very boring with the white pieces should have a good record against Topalov but for whatever reason kramnik played wild and crazy chess and did did not do a good job that's not his forte now kramnik as you all know is a d4 player he plays d4 he plays Knight f3 he plays the Catalan he plays sort of slow and boring and for some reason he played efore this game now this game was played in 2005 I wonder if kramnik has played efore since this game and top left with the Sicilian of course and kramnik played just the main shock lines of the Sicilian what's funny is Kramnik used to play the Sicilian with black almost every game and now he plays whatever the most boring is an a6 which is called what variation loud the night of' and this is the most common variation at the super Grandmaster level almost everybody in the world over 2700 has had this position with black and some times with white - and Topalov I'm sure has had white and black in this position just not at the same time ok so already kramnik is in trouble because it's a position Topalov is going to play well in no well and even if kramnik has special preparation like homme playing Topalov he won't expect efore I'm going to look at this line he plays and I'm going to have some new idea once they're on their own it's the kind of position Topalov likes the creme Nick's not used to and to make matters worse there was opposite side castling terrible even though top lob didn't castle amazing so Bishop III these so-called English attack v6 I think II five is probably more popular now Knight g4 is popular ok e6 and they play the sharpest line ever now if this was shear off top along that you could flip a coin because either side could win but this is Kramnik topalov and if there was a super grandmaster who didn't know this game and I told them Kramnik was white they wouldn't believe me they would say creme Dix not playing this position man are they right I'll bet you cram dick forgot about this game ok this is a very complicated sharp difficult position in topalov is always playing the knight off with white and black and kramnik is never playing either side of the night wharf so you just don't do that and it's a very complicated position where both sides play for checkmate there's sacrificing there's attacking the King not good for Kramnik ok Queen d2 B for attacking the knight and he plays Knight bt7 sacrificing the be pawn and Kramnik does not take it and then he changes his mind and he takes it well normally an opposite side castling black's not going to Castle a queen side you don't want to open files to your own King but cram mix not used to this kind of position Kramnik is used to a position where he takes upon and then beats you up upon an endgame and he's like I'm pulling up I win ok and this is still theory but it's just not good for for white ok Bishop to d7 now black is going to attack the queen black can attack the Queen this way blacks putting pressure on the knight also the Queen and Bishop are lined up on the same diagonal so d5 is going to attack the Queen so White's gonna have to make a lot of Queen moves to get his Queen out of there he can't move his Queen away right away because black just played Bishop to d7 attacking the knight on a4 okay so Kramnik made the losing move I move 13 Knight to b3 if you put this in an engine and I did it says Knight to c3 and it says the position is equal which means if two supercomputers were playing maybe the game went in a draw if two humans are playing everybody would take black because black has these open files to White's King and white doesn't really have an attack on blacks position 9 b3 is a terrible move because it unde offends the F free pawn and Kramnik was probably very interested in blocking the B file but Knight b3 and the knight is no longer in the center f3 is no longer protected there's a lot of variations in the Sicilian where black will lose the tempo attacking the knight on d4 forcing it to be 3 and here kramnik does it voluntarily Kramnik doesn't play a lot of Sicilians so now cream mix idea is that he's unblocking these two pieces his knight on d4 was blocking his bishop in his rook so if black ever plays d5 to attack the Queen he could block with the bishop or with either Knight that's what he was thinking ok Topalov played rook to b8 attacking the Queen and Kramnik made a very ugly move on the other hand his Queens attacked and if he moves it away he's going to lose his knight on on a4 so where did Kramnik move his queen yeah you said it quietly that was good yeah well you like said what you were kidding yeah he's like laughs he's laughing at Kramnik I know yeah Queen Queen a3 the best move was Bishop to b6 which pins your own Bishop Kramnik is not going to do that ok as he played Queen a3 yeah I'm sure Kramnik was regretting his opening choice this has nothing to do with any kramnik type of position Queen's trapped F one's hanging knight on the side and to open fire - his Kenya however he's a pawn ahead now Knight takes f3 now he's not upon ahead and both of these pawns are attacked h3 defending his Jeep on and ninety-four now not only is white have a bad position he's down upon and white hit Black has two Center pawns and white has zero although he does have a queen on a three that's bad yeah Bishop to e2 that's a funny variation the commentator gave Bishop to g2 95 and night c4 wins the Queen it's only funny if you have black otherwise not funny okay so he played Bishop to e2 95 well he stopped Knight to c4 cuz there's a bishop there but the commentator thought it was funny that blacks Knights were in the center and White's Knights were not and black is up upon he played rook 81 Queen c7 Bishop d4 Knight c6 and d5 attacking the Queen Knight c5 Queen to a 7 so this Knight is attacked three times the Queen on a3 is trapped black as a pawn ahead and the commentator said the only move is b4 and instead of playing b4 what did Kramnik do he gave up some grandmasters I'm actually not one of them they don't give up early because when they lose if they lose in 30 40 50 60 moves that seems sort of normal if you lose in 10 15 20 moves that seems embarrassing especially if your kramnik and you're white but he resigned anyway if he had played b4 the only move that Knight takes bishop you take the knight on c3 with something Knight takes b4 black is two pawns ahead and threatening Knight a to check and black has two bishops and black has open files to White's King so instead of that he resigned and then they're like why are we inviting this guy to the sing field cop don't invite him no that's not way so that was what probably crammed Knicks worst loss of his life with the white pieces losing in 20 moves and playing an opening that he's just not suited for and I think since then either never or very rarely as kramnik played an open Sicilian with Wyatt it's not something he plays so if he ever does play it again he'll have four or five games experience over the last thirty years and his opponents will have 30 years experience you don't just start playing open Sicilians at the end of your career so that wasn't really a good choice on his part but it was good for our class because Topalov showed when he has an initiative and he has an attack and there's calculation and there's attack for both sides he's a tough guy and he'll be here next month planning the Sinquefield Cup and he was here last year playing in the Sinquefield Cup and he had quite a good tournament I think he came in third I think so yeah so well good lucks have Esalen in the singh field cup and well is the careers not over yet but he's still one of the lessons of chess I believe he'll be the second oldest player of the tournament after Vishy Anand and well both have been world champions and they've even played a World Championship match against each other so it'll be very interesting tournament and well that was a great legends class because topalov basically in every game sacrificed material and got it back with interest either with a mating attack or winning all of his material back so great games for Veselin and we're going to see more great games in the Sinquefield Cup which you guys will see in about three weeks

Channel: Saint Louis Chess Club

Views: 167,712

Keywords: Veselin Topalov (Chess Player), Ben Finegold (Chess Player), Chess (Game)

Id: N1XfJP63NIc

Length: 49min 57sec (2997 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 05 2015