Tactic in Najdorf Sicilian

In a rapid game played a few days ago, I missed this chance:

Chigorin Club – UBC Club, 2013

 White to move 

I took on f6, played Nd5, and the position got murky, as both kings lost the chance to castle.

12. Bb5+ ! gave White a great position. After 12… Nc6 13. Bxf6 gxf6 14. Nd5! makes it clear who’s in charge here:

White dominates the position and all the key squares.

Chess Strategy: Exchange Sacrifice in the endgame, power of two bishops

Here is an older video of the game I played 10 years ago, where the power of two bishops in the endgame is full revealed. A blog entry with the game analysis: http://roman-chess.blogspot.com/2009/06/paul-keres-memorial-2002-part-2-two.html

My YouTube Chess Channel

A few days ago my YouTube channel hit a bit of a milestone – I got a 100th subscriber. Big Thank You to Everyone who subscribed!

This is a good time to make some observations about the blog/channel duo:

Effort:

The blog is more of an outlet for quick notes, thoughts, book reviews, and tactical ideas that caught my attention. On the other hand - making the 65 YouTube videos took a lot more of serious game analysis, some new hardware (microphone) and experimentation with recording software. I would go over the game a few times and try to understand its key points before I could talk for 10 minutes about it. So those videos probably took even more effort than the nearly 300 blog entries. The upsetting part is that at some point is that some of that effort was used while my microphone setup was far from ideal, so the sound quality of some earlier videos is very disappointing.

Feedback:

I also found that I received more comments on the videos, than on the blog entries – viewers who made it through the video probably got engaged in it to the point of actually feeling like making a comment. While the videos are harder to make, and involve wearing headphones to “consume” – the rewards are hopefully higher for both the maker and the viewer.

Learning:

I used the videos to structure my chess study, so the videos follow several themes, with playlists accordingly:

• Endgames
• Grandmaster games
• My games
• Sicilian Defence
• Spanish Opening

Pawn sacrifice in Closed Sicilian

This position could have occurred in one of my recent online games

  White to move

White sacrificed a pawn (on b2), but has a surprisingly (to me) strong initiative.
14. e5!! dxe5 15. Nc6!! Out of nowhere, White generates dangerous threats! Black king is stuck in the center and his queenside pieces are not developed, so White opens up files and diagonals just on time.

now probably  best is 15... Qc7 and something like this could happen: 16. Bb6 Qd7 17. Nxe5 Qxd1 18. Rfxd1 O-O 19. Bc5 Re8 20. Bd6 Rd8 21.Bxb7 Bxb7 22. Rxb7 Ne4 23. Nxf7 Rdc8 24. Rc1 and and White maintains winning chances.

But what if Black wants to be ‘shown’?

15…dxc6?! 16. Bxc6+ Bd7 17. Bxa8 Qxa8 18. Qd6!

Black to move. Rb8 is a decisive threat. White is winning. 18… Ne4 19. Rb8+ Bc8 20. Qc7 +-