Original subtitles

hi everyone this is Grandmaster Eugene Perelshteyn

and together with Chess lecture.com

I'd like to show you a very

very interesting tactical game

between myself and another grandmaster

Mark Paragua from Philippines

which I played at the recent Marshall Open

and this features

actually quite a popular line these days

the A6 Semi Slav which you're gonna see shortly

and which results extremely

extremely tactical and very interesting game

so hope we're gonna have a lot of fun today

so let's begin I'm playing white d 4 d 5

c 4 c 6 so we are moving along the sloth path

night C 3 night F6 and now to avoid the main line

which is night F 3 d take C a 4 and so forth

sometimes white deploys the smooth order

and then plays e 3

so that the pawn is now defending with the bishop

and now the semi slav after e 6 is very popular

knight at 3

and we are in one of the most popular lines

of modern theory

and now my opponent plays the recently popular A6

now what is the point in this weird looking move

doesn't black just completely ignore that

he has a light square bishop

and puts his pawn on a 6 c 6 e 6 you might ask

so this is the product of modern theory

this is a very flexible move

the idea of white plays c 5

trying to take advantage of the bishop on c 8

Black immediately changes his strategy and plays g six

so you see the bishop is now going to g 7

and white loosen control over the d 5 square

it's gonna be much easier for black to play for e 5

push so in the future

e 5 pushes coming

and the c 8 bishop will have plenty of play

once the diagonal opens up

so that's why I didn't want to close up the position

on the other hand

if I play a normal looking bishop d three

well black immediately equalizes

we d take C Bishop takes

b 5 I have to move my bishop

it doesn't matter where d 3

b 3 or e 2 for example bishop d 3 and now c five

and so Bishop is gonna go to B seven

and again

black is gonna solve all his opening problems

quite easily

so

what to do for what

and I play B3

so this is the correct way to play these positions

to prepare

to take with the b pawn in case d takes c bishop b 4

pin my knight bishop d two

and so bishop b 4 is actually quite a good idea

because ideally

white wants to develop the bishop on b 2

whereas the bishop on d 2 doesn't feel quite at home

so ideally the bishop should be on b 2

but the problem is I can't play bishop b 2

because immediate knight e 4

and if rook c 1 then queen a 5

so you see all of this pressure

is really unpleasant and now a 2 pawn is hanging

and the c 3 knight is hanging

and it's just really bad position

so this is all theory so far

Bishop d 2

Knight b d 7

well now I can develop safely with Bishop d three

castles castle

so going into this position

both myself and my opponent

played these moves quite fast

because this is very

so to say very basic theory in the A6 semi Slav

and now he has two options he played in the game

Bishop d 6

again a weird looking idea

he plays Bishop b 4 then Bishop d 6 back

but he already wasted a temper with a 6 in the opening

so again

there are a lot of questions that have to be answered

why black plays such you know

weird strategy

another normal looking move

queen e 7 but this leads to slightly different play

after knight e five and after night takes d takes e 97

it is now white who

will take control over the initiative

because of the e 5 square

and typically white plays f 4

or queen c two

followed by f four in either way

this is a little bit different play

but white has a little bit more

initiative than in the actual game

now

the reason why bishop

bishop d 6 is played is to stop knight e 5 of course

and the bishop on b 4 doesn't really belong there

so here is a big question

why did black play bishop b 4 to begin with

and if you think about it

what is the point on a 6 now doing so

the answer is actually quite simple

the bishop on b four

made a very important move by putting

White's bishop on d 2

you see the bishop on d 2 doesn't belong there

ideally the bishop should be on b 2

where it would control the long diagonal

especially after white plays e four

now after I play e 4

this is not as good as what the bishop won't be to

because now d takes C this would happen in the game

and now if I take with the bishop

very easy quality after e 5

and the bishop on d 2 and upon b 3 don't really

play such an important role in White's development

does the pawn on a 6 and bishop on d 6

even though it's a loss of time

it's a loss of time

there is really no way to punish black

after Bishop takes c 4

so the main line is B takes C

and now again E5 is the correct way to play

so this gets really into very active

and powerful central play

now let's just mention d takes E

night takes night takes Bishop takes

well this position is actually very easy to play

as white

and we're not afraid of knight of 6 for couple reasons

one we can play bishop g 5

or we can simply back bishop c 2

and now it's really gonna take black much longer

than he wants to activate the c 8 bishop

without any kind of play whatsoever

so this position is very easily plus or equal

if you're white

slide edge

and d take C B take C

E 5 and now we got ourselves into

the sort of complications of this main

A6 semislash

okay so

white has three central pawns c 4

d 4 e 4

and black immediately

challenges white in the center with e five

so if white is not careful

if white is playing too slow of moves

then black can easily get advantage

because of the weaknesses that the pawns create

because pawns can never move backs

so for example if white plays d 5

there is a permanent outpost on c 5 for the knight

if white plays d takes e again

after knight takes knight takes bishop takes

the bishops on d 3 and d 2 are very passive

where is black secure

it quite a comfortable position for his pieces

and actually simplified

which is good in the meantime as well so again

hard to get any advantage at all if you do d to E

and the only correct way to play for the advantage

is to take into account the a 6

pawn move

the a 6 pawn move together with c 6

weaken the b 6 square

thus c 5 is the right move

and why is not afraid of E takes d

C takes d takes the night

simply because bishop takes

and now we got ourselves two powerful pawns

e 5 is virtually unstoppable

and two powerful bishops this is a huge

huge advantage if you are white

so this is all theory if you believe it or not

and Bishop C 7

so now so far

all of the moves that both sides made

sort of make sense

and my next move

it is not as easy to guess

and the correct move is knight a four

so this is actually my willingness

willingness to give up the d 4 pawn

so after night a 4

really black has nothing better than e takes d

and now I will play without the pawn

so if you really think about this position

the knight on a 4 together with a 2 and c 5 points

I really doing quite a good job of holding black down

on the queenside a 6

b 7 c 6

d 4 is a little bit you can say fixed the structure

and the only way for black to freeze to play b 5

but again it's not very easy

because white now has a free hand on the king side

since the E4 point can start rolling at any moment

and this is exactly the position I was

trying to achieve

and the first game that ever happened in this line

was played

way back when by Castro

against Boris Gelfand in 1991

so this was even before all of the computer analysis

so you see

this pawn sacrifice is actually quite positional

if you think about it the

the pawn on d 4 cannot be taken

simply because of knight takes c five

or

night e 5

either way black gets extremely good play

so what to do

for white

so of course the plan is to push for the e 5 break

and now rook e 1 is asking to be played with idea e 5

but the problem of rook

e 1 is that black has a very strong counter punch

night g four

transferring the knight to e 5

so h 3 knight g 5 knight takes knight takes

and now it's really hard for white to justify

his pawn sack

and you can see that the bishop on d 3 is really

uncomfortable

so white has to play this position precisely

and I think the move that I played is the correct move

h three stop in night g 4

and now we're not afraid of night e 5 at all

because takes takes f 4 bishop back

and this is a perfect example

how to get your toe crawling

now white can even play slow move such as rook b one

because the B7 point is fixed

can't go anywhere and all of a sudden

black is lacking any counterplay to begin with

whereas E5 is coming up in the future

so now it's Black's turn to play this position

precisely and my opponent plays queen e 7

which is quite rare move

but on the other hand it makes sense

black is attacking two pawns

c 5 and e 4 at the same time

and I have to really think carefully what to do next

now before we look at queen e 7

let's just mention the rook e 8

which is the cast of the Gulfon game

after rook e one

white got a quite a pleasant position and

main idea of course here is that black

I think ended up playing h 6 is to play rook b 1

and with possible rook b 4 in the future

so you see rook on b 1 is really slowing black down

and whereas

white still has a lot of useful move to make

such as rook b 4 queen b 1 or so forth

black is really running out of good moves

night e 5 is bad because it allows f 4 after night 6

and I think Gelfand ended up playing something like

night h five

and really Gary got a good position

so let's see what happened in the actual game

he ended up playing

he ended up playing Bishop to C4

I believe putting pressure on the f seven point

and now why just has a very active play

Rook can go to B 3 defend the knight in the future

and participate in the attack as well

so this position is really good for white

now if knight doesn't leave the f 6 square right

this doesn't make knight h 5 doesn't quite make sense

it's too early

um there has been games where black tried knight f 8

or rook b eight

well in these cases Rook b 4 is the right plan

of course with putting pressure on d 4 pawn

and again white should be with slight edge

the position is still very complicated

and you need a lot and a lot of

intuition

and kind of gut feeling to play this for either side

but Queen E7 is still a good move

it's a different move

and now I really got myself thinking it

do I really wanna play the slow looking queen c 2

or an entertaining idea came to my mind

who cares about the c 5 pawn

let's just play rookie 1 on e five

and slowly this idea really took off

and I ended up calculating a variation

and I went for this so really

my opponent could play knight e 5

and still get away with it

more or less slightly worse position

or

take the pawn and just go for the tactical craziness

so I took queen takes and e 5 so this was my plan

I got two bishops Knight on F3

I'm getting rid of his last defender

and here I thought I have a good chance of attack

although I'm down two points

but you always remember that tempo

or time in the attack

is sometimes more important than material

so N G5

by the way this classic

you can say classic uh bishop's attack on H7

doesn't quite work

simply

bishop at 5 and everything is defended

so this doesn't work and I play an I g 5 first

so now I think my opponent Earl's

Earl's first you can say he could play G6 or H6 or F5

he chose the latter

and actually got into this crazy tactical battle

where I think white has better chances

where is G6 would have been a very good alternative

as a matter of fact I saw that I can take on h 7

but I didn't see more than a perpetual in this line

so now king g 8

if king g 7

I can play queen h 6 first so it's transposes

and now of course I have the perpetual of my queen

but really it feels like why should have more

if he get if he can swing the rook or with rookie four

but black again

is more than enough resources to defend here

probably he can just go queen e 7

just keeping an eye over the h 4 square

the g 4 square is covered

and he's not afraid Bishop h 6 rook g 8 at all

so again this position is really

hard to play for a win I might have to take the draw

but I wasn't

I wasn't quite sure if there is anything better than

just repeating the position

but I think there is none unfortunately

but that's okay

at least there is a draw for down two points

and the promising attack so that's at least good

another idea he could play

simply play rookie 8 and try to play for a win

because my knight is kind of stuck on h 7

and my e 5 pawn is loose

so this was really interesting possibility

which computer finds immediately

and really hard to find at the board

and h 6 was another possible move

and now I would probably play Knight e four

well the main idea that when the queen moves

or actually

I might throw in queen h 5 first

because now he cannot take the knight

and with the main idea to play knight e 4

and knight f 6

check in the right moment and try to even attack

or knight a e 4 and bishop takes h 6

so all of these ideas are still on the air

okay

so at least there is a lot of counter play still left

and my opponent chooses probably not as good of a move

f five

so I take night takes

and now to keep the fire going

I have to create another threat

I can't move my queen to the king side

but there's a beautiful a 2 g

a diagonal that opened up queen b 3 check

perhaps my opponent missed this check now if king h 8

well now I can just play knight of 7 check

and he has to take otherwise he falls down to

uh well not a perpetual not not a uh

smothered mate

and I don't want to give the perpetual check

and of course

smothered mate doesn't work because night takes

but it's simply bad due to Bishop before okay

and now all of a sudden uh

the rook and the f is gonna fall

so that's bad and he has to play 95

so after queen b 3 95 give up the h 7 pawn

I took with the bishop and now king h 8

so now we got ourselves into this tactical mess

which I evaluated that white should be better

just look at the king

the king on h 8 is completely opened up

all I have to do is bring more pieces on the king side

and the game is over

on the other hand black has active pieces

and I have a little bit of weakness on F2

and again in terms of pawns

well in terms of pawns

we got 3 against 1 on the king side

and 4 against 1 on the queen side

so it's a complete mess if an endgame arises

so hopefully

I'm not gonna allow any endgames and finish my

opponent off if I have a chance early on

so okay how do you continue the attack

you can't bring the queen into the game

F3 and g 3 squares are covered

moving the bishop back

I think is a little bit too slow

and also keep in mind that queen d 6

with idea queen h 2 is really unpleasant

so I decided to play Rookie 4

this looks like the most active approach to bring in

the rook into the game and going for the attack

and now I think d 3 is a a little bit of mistake

by my point

queen d 6 might have been a much better alternative

with a simple idea that I cannot play rook h 4

check

king f one

and now

black and choose

probably the easiest bishop g three

and all of a sudden

I don't have any good discovery check with my bishop

because my rook is hanging

and f 2 is hanging and really I'm in trouble

and queen takes g 3 loses due to queen takes g 3

we got ourselves a pin so this is really bad

so after queen d 6

I was probably going to play g 3 and hope for the best

so

this results in tactical position is very complicated

but again rook h 4 is coming up

and I think after rook h 4 white should be okay

if not maybe winning

but still the attack is there so after rook if 4

he plays d 3 which is another good looking move

because it opens up the queen

blocks my queen and the f 2 is now weak

so I play rook if one

Rook h 4 loses due to queen takes f 2

and the queen takes rook

so I have to waste the tempo of rook f one

and now rook h 4 is really unpleasant

so he plays bishop g 3

so just look at this position

everything is either pinned or under attack

or just crazy

so what to do

well important thing is not to lose your composure

keep making strong moves calculate variations

and I calmly took the pawn

it turns out that rook takes f 2

is really going nowhere

I can even take on g 3 and give up my queen

why well

rook at 3

I can even play king h 2 because of the back rank mate

so all of a sudden white is doing quite well

if Bishop takes f 2 this is what happened in the game

then I completely calmly move my king to h one

and my threads are still wide open

whereas Black's pieces are a little bit tied up

the rook on f a the queen on c 5

the bishop on f 2 they're all tied up

and it's really hard for him to make the next move

so he plays knight of 6

with the idea to defend all the key

squares and attack my rook

and now

it's very important to find the next move for white

which I think seals the coffin in Black's position

rooksy 4 xclam

since the queen is defending the bishop

the queen has to go back on this diagonal

which is really unpleasant completely

out of the action now the rook on f 8 is unprotected

and then I swing my rook over to f four

and now it turns out that black is completely hopeless

and my opponent

was actually in severe time pressure by now

and he resigned

and really this is already completely lost position

just to show you how beautiful

possible finish could have been

let me show you this line

so Bishop c 5

and of course my plan is to play rook h four

with all of a sudden

all of these threats with the bishop

retreat and rook takes f 6

but what if my opponent now plays bishop f 2 back

hitting the rook

how does white win

and it turns out that I had a fantastic opportunity

for a brilliant combination

so let me show you this combination

which could easily end up in any tactic book of a day

so the first move

is to play bishop g 8 check

okay so black has two possibilities

take the bishop with the king

with king take g 8 or capture the rook

well bishop takes h 4

simply loses after rook takes f 6

and there is no defense against queen h 7 mate

so we can eliminate this possibility right away

so king takes and now the real beauty

of the sacrifice queen c 4 check

now we have to move the knight out of the f

6 square to d 5 so we lure the knight to d five

and looking at this position

can you see the quick tactical finish

if you see it you are a great chess player

the move is rook h 8 check xclam

king take so you open up the way for the queen

then you sack the queen queen take h 4 check

bishop takes and now rook takes and f 8 mate

so this is simply amazing that such

forced and beautiful line could happen in the game

and if you think about it really

when you have so many pieces around the opponent's king

these ideas are always always in the air

so again bishop here check

king takes so you go up the bishop

then 95 then you give up the rook

queen h 4 if king g 8

queen h 7 mate then you give up the queen

and then a little finish with rook takes

f 8 with the back rank mate

so I hope you enjoyed this game

and you Learned quite a few important lessons

in terms of the attack and how to play

you know tactical positions

the key here is always always create threats

make sure you your pieces are well coordinated

like in this game and sooner or later

the tactics will come your way

so I hope you enjoy this game

and I see you all next time bye bye