Positional sacrifice is a very important topic for those who wish to take their positional understanding to the next level.
The importance of positional chess cannot be underestimated. It is a fundamental understanding of the game, it’s core principles and ideas. And it is one of the key reasons why Masters beat club players in almost every game. They simply read and interpret what’s happening on the board better.
The Tarrasch Defence is a neglected one. It had its glory days in the late 1960s when Boris Spassky used it first in his Candidates match against Geller in 1965 and then as a very efficient weapon in his title-winning match against Petrosian in 1969 when he scored 1 win and 4 draws with it.
The second champion of the Tarrasch Defence was another World Champion, Garry Kasparov, who scored phenomenal results with it in the early 1980s.
If Black wants to play for a win he has two general directions to choose from: he can try to equalize first and then outplay his opponent, or he can try to wrestle the initiative from White from the get-go.
I would like to discuss the second option as it is often the preferred one in all-or-nothing situations (though this does not mean that it will give more chances!).
A game of chess goes through many phases and changes. Every strategic game must be complemented by the good tactical vision. Every good attacking player needs to have good positional skills.
It doesn’t matter how great a positional player one is if tactical opportunities are missed. Just the same, there are many good attacking players who commit basic mistakes when it comes to playing a quiet, positional game.
Most of chess training routines are oriented to develop and a player’s skills at typical scenarios that can appear on the chess board during tournaments.
That includes tactical training which develops intuition and combinative vision, calculation, positional play, endgame play etc., the list is large. In addition to this common training system, we add a player’s homework towards learning the opening phase.
This course is dedicated to one of the most popular openings played on all levels – The Ruy Lopez or as many people know it the Spanish game.
Here is how this opening starts: 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5
The structure we are going to talk about in this lesson is, in fact, a form of hanging pawns.
From a strategic point of view, it represents a weakness for the side having it.
However, it can be successfully used in combination with a dynamic play.
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Chess is a complex game that takes a lot of time and dedication. We all know that improvement does not come overnight and, to make things even better, it is not so easy to measure it either in chess. You need to play many tournaments and, even after a long period of training, things may go wrong due to other factors that are not chess-related.
If there is a player that everyone likes that has to be Viswanathan Anand or the way we all know him, “Vishy” the Tiger from Madras. Vishy has been in the selected group of elite players for decades, winning tournaments and leaving behind a thread of great games for chess history.
In recent years people have adventured to announce a certain decline in his play, but he keeps proving them wrong time after time.
Chess players are usually highly interesting people.
Chess stands somewhere between art, sports, and science, universes where a chess player can drift away from the real world for as long as he wants. The chess world is full of unique stories. Every player has hundreds of anecdotes with things that have happened during tournament trips, chess training, games, foreign countries, etc.
