Original subtitles

hi everyone this is Grandmaster Eugene Praveshtin

and together with Chess lecture.com

I'd like to welcome you to another of my lectures

today we wanna talk about the recent game between uh

Ivan Shuk

and Topalov in round 2 of the Moralia

Linars tournament

and this is a beautiful game in the knight of Sicilian

that I want you to won so let's start

e four

C 5

9 of 3 d six

d 4 c d takes this is all theory

knight of 6 knight of 3 a 6

so topela was playing black

he chooses the knight of variation

and I want you to place Bishop E3

again still unclear what white wants to do after E5

either night B3 or night F3

so top of plays E5 and now I want you

plays a very solid and positional move night F3

so not long ago everybody used to play night B3

and of course

this could still transpose to the English attack

after Queen D2

and Castle on

but recently in the couple years

everybody started to play night F3

with a positional idea of Bishop C4

so this is the main idea of night F 3

so let's see what Apollo does

Bishop E 7

now some of you might ask

is night g 4 a threat

well if you look at the position

black has made only one development move with his piece

the knight

and now he's about to trade it off for the bishop

whereas white just made three development moves

so really any move for white is good

Bishop g 5 hitting the queen

queen d two

preparing to recapture with the queen

and that night g 5 and Bishop c 4

and maybe Castle along so yeah

night g 4 is not a big deal

and black should develop his pieces as fast as possible

Bishop e 7 is the right move

and now Bishop c 4

castles

castles

and now Topalov plays bishop e 6

he really wants to trade the light square bishop on c 4

and now Ivan Shuk takes

and pawn takes

so let's stop and take a look at this position

for a second

black has very powerful center pawns d 6

e 6 and e 5 the e 6 pawn is covering the d 5 square

so white can't play the typical 95 but in reality

these pawns are also a weakness

because of various ideas

such as night g 5 or doubling on the d file

and the d 6 pawn is weak so

let's see how Iwanchuk takes advantage

of this awkward pawn structure

night a four

xclam

you might ask well

isn't he just giving up the point e 4

well let's take a look

Knight takes e 4

knight b 6 hitting the rook

rook a 7 and now a very powerful move knight d five

hit in the rook and at the same time

if pawn takes knight queen takes check

and then the knight's gonna be hanging

and if rook back now bishop b 6

another temple move on the queen

and now you can see that after queen d 7 or queen e 8

simple 94 gives white at least the next rook

so let's go back

now let's take a look what's the idea behind night A4

so night B6 is the main idea

and how we can black defend against that

so what if you might ask knight b d 7

well now the problem the e 6 pawn

knight g 5

and you see there is no way to defend the e 6 pawn

so Topalov

decides to attack the e 3 bishop with night g 4

which is a possible idea

and now I want you to simply place Queen d 3

defending the bishop

now Knight takes

Queen takes

so let's take a look at this position

the main thread is still 9 b six

and now there is another threat looming in the air

queen b 3 hitting the two pawns on e 6 and b 7

again black is faced with unpleasant choices

how to continue his development

and at the same time protect against these two threats

so Topalov chooses the active plan of B5

and really there is no other

move that would do justice to Black's position

and now night B6

hit on the rook and rook a 7

now during the analysis of this game

an interesting idea

occurred to me what if rook takes f three

temporarily using that

the queen is defending the knight

pawn takes and bishop g five

but if you look at this position carefully

especially with a computer

you notice that a very powerful move

f 4 is present here

and the main idea is to lure the bishop to f 4

and open up the queen to h three

and now after queen h 3 Queen takes knight

queen takes e 6

King defied simple move

Rook d 1 gives white overwhelming advantage

if not winning position right away

there is no stopping Rook stays at g 6

the king is wide open

the knight is still on b 8

the position is just dead lost for black

so as you see this nice little trick

Rook f 3 doesn't work because of f four

so okay rook a 7 that's a total of plays

and now is where we really see the genius of Iron Shuk

he plays 95 hitting the rook

rook b seven and now a quiet move and a very

very powerful move queen d 2

notice that you can't take the knight

because of queen takes

hitting the rook with check

so queen d 2 is a multipurpose move

first of all

you're preparing to play rook d 1 hitting the bishop

and then within the d 6 pawn

at the same time

it's really hard for black to make any useful move

so what could black try to do well

taking the knight is impossible

moving the queen the king maybe

how about moving the king out of check

well that's possible

and now white has several choices

probably the easiest is simply to take on E7

Queen takes

and then play either rook f 2 d 1 or rook a 2 d 1

and simple plan of queen b 4 double up

and this six pawn is really backwards here

so let's see what Topalov plays

he plays Nighty 6

he has to get out with the night somehow

now after 96 let's take a moment and see how white

can continue his attack

well

the easiest move is rook a d 1 follow up with the plan

and that's what I want to place again

notice that you can't take the knight on d five

if pawn takes knight queen takes check

king gets 8 Queen takes his 6

and now Black's position just collapses

because not only he not only he's

he's down a pawn but after rook's his 7

his whole queenside pawns fall

and why just has a couple extra points and easy win

so what to do for top of

well not an easy choice

but he plays Rugby 7

he's got to defend against 97 somehow

and again here is when most players would finally say

OK now is the time to take the bishop

but not iron choke

he's very good with keeping his position

and keeping pressure on his opponent and keeping make

keep making this very powerful

small pinpoint like mistake

uh moves with his queen

so queen see three killing the knight again

pawn takes knight is bad because queen she's six

takes e 4 Queen takes or even better

knight e five

immediately closing the game down because if takes

then rook takes d 7 simply wins

or queen takes d 7

if rook moves then queen d 5 and I have 7

the game is over

so you see the squincy 3 is very powerful move

and again what to do for black

so notice the lesson here

with every move that white does

he's creating threats

so it's not so easy for black to defend

so Topal finally decides to put his knight back to B 8

and now is the perfect time to take the bishop

so knight takes e 7

Queen takes e 7 so we reach this position

that we can basically

evaluate it as slightly better for white

because white has a very simple plan

double up on the d file put pressure on the d 6 pawn

and then create a second weakness on the queen side

with a four

so let's see how the game continues

so queen takes e 7 rook e 3

rook d 3 simple continuation with his plan

H6

trying to create some kind of window for the king

now Rook F d 1 of course

and top of plays Rook F d 8

really

his position is so passive

and the weakness on d 6 is so apparent

that it's hard for him to create any kind of play

whatsoever

so now white did exactly what he wanted

he doubled up on the d file

he pinned down all of Black's pieces to defend

in the d 6 pawn

what's next

here is when you really understand the position

you have to sort of look at the whole board

not just the this specific one

notice it that white just has a lot of space

a 6 b

5 pawns are gonna be weak

after a 4 knight on b 8 is misplaced

so really

all of these are long term weaknesses that black has

are not so easy to get rid of

so that's why I want you to place very correctly

and very prophylactical move H4

this is typical grandmaster move

in positions like that

it basically shows to your opponent look

I can do whatever I want

I can make all the best moves to better my my pieces

where is your position just sucks

and so let's see what Topalov does after h 4

he has to play king h 7 not has to

but he doesn't have that much choice

he has to do something and now

after king h 7 let's take a look

at the position and see what I want you does

this is not an apparent move and only very strong

players can see this move rook 1 to d two

the simple idea is to keep the pawns protected

on the second rank in case black plays rook to seven

now you can play either queen b 4 or queen a 5

and now the rook is defending the c 2 point

now of course

there are other helpful moves besides rook d 2

but rook d 2 is the kind of quiet

tough move that black

doesn't really know how to react against

so Trofolo is looking for counterplay

so let's see what he can do

he tries to activate his queen

queen f 8

he's gotta do something

and I want you correctly

now the queen on c three doesn't really belong there

I so I want you correctly places on the right square

queen b 3 at the same time

he has to pin the other queen to e 6 point

because you don't want to activate the queen

going to f 4

g 4 any other square

so now queen e eight

he's pinned the queen

the two rooks and the knight is not replaced

then what well

then the typical example in these types of positions

you gotta create the second weakness

and the second weakness comes on the Queen side

a 4 very

very strong move

and now Black's position is on the verge of collapse

again after a 4

it's not so easy for black to play

because if you take on a 4

notice that what happens

we just created a second witness to an A6

one of the six is really weak

and now white can do whatever he wants

he can play b three c four and then v 4

so many plans and black position is just very

very bad

and Topalov knows that he's gonna suffer through

and eventually lose

without any counterplay so what he does

he embarks on a dangerous plan

but at least there's some counterplay with queen to g 6

so let's see if queen g 6 works

so iron choke just takes the pawn

and it turns out that taken on E4

maybe as the Paul originally anticipated

doesn't quite work because queen takes e 6

pawn takes b 5

and now very beautiful move where the rook on d 3

queen on e 6 and pawn on h 4 play play part of night

g 5 check

takes takes and now Black's position is lost

there is no defense against rook h 3

if g 6 for example

Rook h 3 check king g 7

it's simply mate queen of 6 and then rook h 8

you see this very beautiful mate right out of nowhere

but yet very deadly

so Topalov realized that whatever he did

doesn't look that great

so he can't take on E4

he's got to do something so he takes on B5

again very quiet and very strong move Rook e 3

the pawn on b 5 is not going anywhere

and Chuck is right

because rook b 7 simply loses to knight e 5

so how do you defend the b 5 point

well you don't and that's what Topalov actually wanted

he wanted to activate his knight

although he has to give up the b 5 point

he plays knight a 6 so queen takes b 5

and now knight c five

alright so he finally activated his knight

but it's at the cost the cost is the pawn

and notice that white has two passers

b 2 and c 2

and soon

it's not gonna be easy for black to stop this pawns

at least the b 2 pawn

so now after night c 5 simple move queen c 4

everything is defended

Rookie 7

so Topol was creating some kind of counter playlist

and again very calm

and simple move rook e 1 defending the first rank

just in case of any invasions

now what the knight on c 5 is activated

Rook on a 7 is activated

but all of White's pieces are defended

white has no weaknesses and still he has an extra pawn

whereas Black's pawn on d 6 is still weak

and has to be defended

so Topalov

decides to play Queen E8

to transfer his queen over

and now before finally pushing the points

94

and Queen Beefer

no I will see it

actually sorry first he played Night Bizzy

and after night b 6 rook F d 1 rook E d 1

and rook a 2 d seven

so now I want shook did the phone

he tied up the rules again

he misplaced the night on B6

so

part of his plan now is to push the pawn and get over

get the a file as well

so queen d 3

with idea to play queen b 5

and put even more pressure on that knight

on b 6

rook c eight

simple c 3 everything is defended

Rook a 7

now

taking the d 6 pawn is just bad because of knight c 4

of course

but queen e 3

very powerful move using the pin to his advantage

rook a 6

queen e 2

hitting the rook knight c 4 and now rook a two

finally

winning the a file fight

so rook a C 6 top of us tries to struggle on

tries not to exchange pieces

and now rook a seven

really really powerful move

Rook is gonna be a menace on the 7th rank

so Topel can't really take that

rook there for a long time

he has to change it so he plays rook 6 to see 7

now just double up

and here where Topalov makes his final blunder

or the final mistake

Queen f 7

this is really beautiful

because now Queen takes c four

completely finishes the game

if rook takes

then rook takes and now you see this beautiful

Rook versus queen and rook versus queen crossfire

and black is completely lost

so you see

this game showed us the brilliancy of Ivan Shuk

how in a quiet opening

he maneuvered his pieces so well to completely

limit Black's counterplay

and at the same time win a pawn and then simply

you know defend all his pieces and maneuver around

win the a file and Topology's blunder

so

this is a very good example by one of the top players

against the former or you can say

the No. 1 ranked player in the world

or the former world champion top of

alright thank you very much

and I hope to see you all next time here bye bye