Original subtitles

hi everyone this is Grandmaster Eugene Perelshteyn

and together with Chess lecture.com

I'd like to welcome you to a series of lectures

where I will go over my best games

from a very strong tournament that I just won

the Spice Cup Invitational

this is a very strong tournament

organized by Susan Polgar and Texas Tech University

which took place in Lubbock

Texas

and it's a category 12 tournament

where the average rating is about 25

27 and I managed to play quite well

and even win the tournament

with six and a/2 out of nine

and today I would like to go over my first round win

against a very strong International Master from Mexico

Leon Hoyos and I'm white so let's begin

so I play E4

c 5 Knight f 3

d 6

d 4

C takes d

Knight takes d four

night f 6

Knight c 3 a 6

so as you see

my young opponent is playing an ambitious opening

he is going for the knight or

and if you don't

if you don't really know about my opponent

Leon Hoyos was actually Ivancho's second

during last year's Leonard's tournament

so Leon Hoes has been

actually studying with Ivancho for a while

and you know he's pretty booked up in his openings

so I wanted to take him immediately

in an unfamiliar position

right out of the opening and I play a rare move

a four

so this is the A4 variation of the Nidor

and let's talk

about this move and try to understand why it's idea

so the first thing that comes into your mind is

after black plays a 6 right

he is about to play b five sometime in the future

so the immediate response to a 6 is a 4

which I played

which is with one and only idea

to limit Black's counterplay on the queenside

at the same time b 7

a 6 pawns could be easily fixed with a five

and actually there is a big gaping hole on B6

so you see A4 has a multi purpose

is a multipurpose move

the main idea is to stop B5 queenside expansion

and later on to play A5 and fix Black's queenside

on the other hand a 4 is a bit slow

and it does allow black to switch up the opening

instead of a knight or he now can play the dragon

and completely avoid all long castle

attacks that white can do

such as the Yugoslav revolution of the Dragon

so that's what my opponent does G6

now if black chooses any other move

then we actually simply plays

for example if e 5

White can play knight f 3 followed by bishop c 4

or if black plays e six

white has several ways to continue including bishop e 2

Bishop e 3 or even g 3

in all give white a comfortable game

so but my opponent plays g 6

and I did anticipate this in my preparation

and now I simply play bishop e 2

Bishop g seven

castles

96 bishop e 3 castles

so we have reached the typical dragon setup

except the pawns on a 4 and a 6 in my opinion

this should benefit white because of the b six hole

but really not by a lot maybe a small edge

no more than that

so there is no reason to play night B3

and I simply play Queen d two

just strengthen up my position in the center

and now black has to make a choice

should he play Knight takes d 4

or go after the e 3 bishop with knight g four

my opponent decides to simplify with knight

takes knight

but let's quickly take a look at knight g 4

in this case

white should give up his light square bishop

and after bishop takes perhaps knight d five

and now you could see that it's really hard for black

to get rid of the powerful knight on g 5

because e 6

you know the knight can simply go back

and now the bishop on g 4 is completely misplaced

so I like White's position

in this case white has a small but lasting advantage

so my opponent plays this theoretical move

Knight takes knight

knight Bishop takes and bishop e 6

this all has been played before

and now it's time to fix up the queen side pawns

I play a a 4

a five

creating a hole on b 6 for my artist rook c 8

Rook takes over the half open file

and now the unusual looking move but quite powerful

bishop to d three

this is actually a move that has been played by

a very strong Grandmaster

Mickey Adams against Boris Gelfand

and the main idea of this move is to protect the e

4 pawn

so that the knight on c 3 has a free hand to go to a 4

and b six

so it's quite an interesting setup

with the main idea is to give the knight on c 3

an extra hand in defending the e 4 pawn

so my opponent plays rook c 6

which is actually a novelty in the Adams Gelfand game

black played bishop d 3

and after rook f d 1 strengthening in the center

Queen c 7 I believe was played h 3

Rook F e 8 Adams got a quite a comfortable game

after Bishop takes queen

takes rook a 4 kicking the queen

and after queen c 6 a nice and quiet move Rook b four

with the main idea that you put the rook on 1/2

open b file

and now knight takes pawn is no longer good

because knight takes queen

takes bishop takes bishop

the rook on b 4 is defended by the queen

and so really Gelfand got himself into bind

and really hard to defend

and Adams won the game in a nice style

so let's

go back and take a look at what my opponent played

rook c 6

in a way this move does make sense

why would you wanna exchange

a bishop on d 3 which just looks like a pawn

it really has no good moves

and in the meantime he is ready

getting ready to triple up on the c file

Quincy 7 and rook c eight

so I have a few ideas but I think it's just

okay for white to simply build up his position

with rook F d 1

strengthening up his control over the d file

and now my opponent plays queen c 7

I play a very useful move

h 3

again notice that once the black queen side is fixed

it's very hard for black to get any counter play

in the dragon because really

the queen side is where black has to play

in these types of position

and now rook f c 8 and I simply make a very good move

useful move Rook a four

the rook is playing quite a few roles

it's playing an active role on the 4th rank

as well as

you know possibly preventing bishop c 4 in the future

controlling the c 4 square

in reality white doesn't have that many threats

you know white has a containment type of strategy here

basically my plan is to limit

the counterplay of Black's pieces as much as possible

and that's the goal of this line

it's not very popular line

but you know if you're not looking for complications

if you're looking for a solid strategic plan

this is the line I like

so there is no reason to force things if you are black

and my opponent correctly

simply retracts the queen to d eight

so we have reached this critical position

and now I played the move which I don't really like

after I played it during the game

I didn't really like it

because it gives black a chance to simplify

into much easier to defend position

I play Queen e three

I think stronger move perhaps is rook before

and the exchange for the a of the a for the b pawn

I think favors white queen takes

rook takes and now the e 7 pawn is hanging

and most importantly after 97

White has a nice jump

95 hitting the queen and the pawn on e seven

and if queen takes d 2

a move in between night takes pawn with check

king of faith and then bishop takes bishop with check

and now white is almost winning

so followed by rook takes queen next move

so very nice little tactic that I had

so Queen takes a 5 is no good

and now rook b 8 is possible

but probably the best move now is simply rook a one

defending the a 5 pawn

and keeping the pressure on Black's position

I can now play Bishop a 7 sometime in the future

and I just simply like

white's pressure on the queen side against black

so let's take a look what happened in the game

I play queen at 3 and 97 is a very strong move

allowing a very simple exchange of dark square bishops

Bishop takes king takes

and now all of a sudden

the pawn on a 5 is gonna get weak

because the queen just left the d 2 square

a knight c 5 was coming up or rook c 5 was coming up

so let's try to figure out how white should proceed

in this position

again it's hard to recommend the best move for white

because position is quite static

you know

white doesn't have that much of an attack going

white just has to maintain his positional pluses

and now the bishop on d 3 looks a little awkward

and I decided to play bishop f 1

which again might not be the best move

perhaps I could just continue with

double up on the a file

and simply exchange the bishop for the knight

after knight goes to c 5 you know

I can play either rook b 4 or rook a 3

and if knight takes simply pawn takes and again

white continues to have a solid position

most importantly applying pressure on the Queen side

but I decided to kind of save my bishop for a while

and play bishop F one

and now I think black takes over the initiative

with correct move that he played

rook c 5

I really have nothing better than first I gave a check

and then I simply doubled up

and now knight comes to e 5 with the tempo

because knight c 6 is gonna attack the a 5 pawn

so you see how black correctly demonstrated

where his pieces should go in this position

so I think black has a more of initiative now

although white position remains very

very solid and now I play Queen d two

with a simple idea if 96 to move my knight

such as 95 protecting the a 5 point

and now black has a couple of very

interesting choices one of the choices

Bishop takes h three

of course I'm not gonna lose my queen to the fork

after G takes H night of 3 check

and there is actually this nice little force line b f 4

Bishop d 7 x clamp hitting the rook pawn takes knight

Bishop takes rook

Rook takes rook Rook takes e five

so black has two pawns

but white has two pieces for the rook

and it's really hard to evaluate this position

because after night d 5

you know I still have all the squares

such as the b 6 square

and the d 5 square for my knight

but two pawns is a lot and I think after rook c 5

keeping an eye on the b on the a 5 pawn

black gets a small edge

but the position is still quite complicated

so I think this is the best

what my opponent should have played

instead he decided to play a slow move

so rook a 8 rook a 1

knight e 5 queen d 2

and in this position he decided to play it a bit slow

and he plays bishop c four

with a simple idea that if bishop takes

to exchange light square

bishop knight takes queen moves anywhere

and knight takes b two

wins a pawn and Rook takes your 3

so now this is his plan

but again I simply play Bishop D3 back

keeping my position

quite solid and good

so what to do for black

well he decides to play queen to sound

it's really unclear what the idea of this move was

perhaps

he just wanted to get his queen out on a better square

but now I have a good move

f 4

forcing the exchange of knight for the bishop

night takes pawn takes

and he simply retreats bishop b 5

and I play rook d 4

so this position is quite hard to evaluate

probably it's about even

but you have to keep an eye that all of a sudden

if white plays f 5 queen h 6

knight d 5

he can get a powerful attack against the king

because there is no longer the light

the dark square defender on g seven

and immediately my opponent blunders

with e 6 he simply blunders an exchange

so

let's see if you can find how white wins an exchange

in this position

and the correct move is e five

he plays d 5 trying to defend the pawn

and knight e 4 hitting the rook

he can't take the knight due to the pin and the fork

knight f 6

so he has nothing better to do but to lose an exchange

so after e 5 d five

white is now much better if not win

so he plays Rooksy 2

night check King G7

and now first I have to take the rook

because if I take the queen

he can take on d 2 himself

so I had to take the rook

rook takes and I take the seven bishop the seven

okay so white has just won an exchange

and you might say well

white is completely winning and it's just a simple

simply matter of technique

but as it turns out it's not so easy to win

because it's hard for white to connect his rooks

and to exchange Black's powerful active rook

so I play rook before heating the b 7 pawn

bishop b 5

rook a 3 defending my pawn

and now my opponent finds a very good move

d four

temporary pawn sacrifice for the opening of the dark

sorry of the light diagonal

a 8 h 1 for his bishop

so I really have nothing better than to take bishop c 6

hitting the g 2 pawn g 4 and rook takes b 2 again

White's rook are rooks are very passive

one has to defend the a 5 pawn

the other one the f 4 pawn

and white king is kind of passive too

and really

it's hard for me to defend my king side pawns

so I think

black does have some compensation for the exchange

and it really makes my job quite hard

to win this endgame

but I think this is a very instructive way

how to win endgames in these types of positions

so let's take a look g 5

since I'm gonna lose my h 3 pawn

I wanna create e 5 f 4 g 5 pawn structure

to completely lock down the four pawns on the king side

so rook g 2 check king f 1 rook g 3

so you see he is going

well actually I think I played the first move

I played rook d 8 trying to activate my rook

and now we have this rook g 2 king with one rook g 3

g 5

Rook takes h 3 position

okay now I play King G2

and my main idea is to activate my king

because the only way I can win this game

is if I activate my king and breakthrough

not on the king side

but on the queen side okay

this is very important and we're gonna see shortly how

so after king g 2

rook check king g 3 rook check king g 2

so my king is running away on the queen side

rook h 4 rook d 4 back

so white has a very simple plan king c 3

king b 4 king c 5 king b 6

king a 7 once the king gets to a seven

one rook is gonna be cutting off his king

the other one is gonna come over

and win the b 7 point with rook b 4

and rook takes b 7

and try to convert it into one rook ending

so this is very important lesson

you have to think not in variations

but in terms of plans

five moves from now where do you see white pieces

where do you see black pieces

and think like that because black has a weakness on b 7

and the only way white can win this endgame

if white penetrates with the king

attacks the pawn with the rook

exchanges the rook for the pawn and bishop

and goes after the weak a 6 pawn

and converts into one rook and pawn endgame

so let's see how I could achieve that so after rook d 4

it's black to move

and he plays rook h 2 check king c 3 and I rook f 2

so basically he kind of locked down both of my rooks

I cannot play rook b 3 due to rook a 2

I cannot move my d pawn my d rook too much

because I have to watch out for the f 4 pawn

so really not much I could do

so first I decide to activate my rook a little bit

so at least it can move somewhere on the first rank

and he simply moves his king closer to the center

I actually think that h 6 was a better idea

try to exchange as many pawns as possible

but then again

it leaves a lot of files open for the rooks

and white still has a good chance to win

well now I simply execute my plan

king b 4 remember I simply wanna play king c 5

king b 6 king a 7

rook b 4 and go after the b 7 pawn

let's see how black can stop me

so he plays Bishop d 5

and I continue with my plan

king c five

and he plays Rugby too

alright so

you could see that black is doing something

to prevent my king from going too far

yet I'm not afraid I'm not afraid

because I can simply offer trade of rooks

and he can't really take it

because

it's much easier to win

once one pair of rooks is traded

so that's why he goes rooksy to check

I continue running to the corner with king b 6

Rook c 3 and again no rush simply defend my pawn

if rook b 3 check well king a 7 and the king belongs

on the A7

so he plays king g 7 trying to activate his king

okay so now it's time for my other rook to play a role

I play rook a four

Ruxy 6 check this is kind of desperation attempt

now let's try to figure out if white sorry

if black simply doesn't

play

Rook sees 6 and tries to kind of keep an eye on the b

on the b 5 with rook b 3 check

okay if rook b 3 check

I could simply play king a 7 and if rook b 5

I can play rook b four

if he tries to avoid the exchange

this is a perfect idea

Rook takes check

Bishop takes king takes a 6 is gonna fall and so

well the game black is completely busted

so this is my principal idea

and if he plays rook c 3

I can kinda continue the same plan

I can even give up the d 3 point

takes takes takes and again

a 6 point falls and so does Black's position

this should be easily winning endgame for white

so RFC 6 is kind of a desperation attempt

and I didn't even calculate king takes B7

because I simply play king g 7

I think king g 7 wins as well

but I already saw my my main plan

I play king g seven

and really hard to prevent my my next move

which is rook b 4 going after the pawns

so he plays king rook c 7

and I simply play rook b four

so this position is already very critical

probably maybe lost if rook c 5

I can sacrifice my exchange

takes rook takes rook check

then I take the a 6 pawn it's a quite easy win

if he takes with the pawn

same thing

Rook takes followed by taking on a 6

and again should be an easy technical win

and he simply plays

bishop f 3

alright so stopping Rook takes d 5 plan

because if he doesn't play that

rook takes d 5

and rook takes b 7 is a big threat right away

well now that all of my pieces are standing very nicely

his rook on c 7 is actually misplaced

I simply decide to play rook c 4 and offer the trade

once he trades off rooks the game was lost

so he has to play Bishop c 6

and now the nice finesse in b eight

so you see how white skin came all the way from g

1 to B 8 for the win

now he has to play Rook d 7

there is no defense

Rook takes king takes

and now the final touch

Rook b 4 he can't prevent me from rook takes b 7

simplifying to one pawn endgame

so he plays for a couple more moves

Bishop d 5 just to see that I actually take that pawn

bishop take king takes

and this is quite an easy win

and there actually several ways I could win that

but my favorite is this line takes to stale mate black

alright now black is completely stalemated

he's gonna play either F6 or H six

I take G5 H7 and now black gets mated

just like that a very nice technically one game

this gave me a comfortable lead in the tournament

and I will actually continue looking at my next round

round 2 game in the second lecture

which I won with black against a very strong

Irina crush

so thank you very much

and I hope to see you all next time bye bye