Studying the games of the classical players is a well-known way of training for the players who want to improve their strength and their overall chess understanding.
What better way to learn is there than from the very best?
Understanding their train of thought, their personality and their training routine can be a great source of inspiration for creating our own path to the top.
The Sicilian is one of the most popular openings for black against 1.e4. It is the favorite of many players and the theory inside it has been studied and discussed to exhaustion. Nevertheless, new ideas still resurface from time to time, which only shows how full of resources this defense is. Although many people believe it to be an aggressive opening, the truth is that it is, in fact, an opening for any style of play. There are, of course, many aggressive attacking lines, but there are also quieter ones, suitable for the positional player.
Studying the games of the classical players is a great tool of learning for those who want to improve at chess. From typical plans in a certain structure to positional and tactical ideas, there is a great deal to learn from the games of the strongest players of our game. You will discover that each player has their particularities, their own style of play and you can learn different things from different players of the same level.
In our previous article, we were showing you a less known idea for black in the Sicilian, castling long in certain positions. This is not the only way you could sometimes surprise your opponent and in this article, we are going to discuss another plan that many times intertwines with the long castling idea we’ve discussed previously. Castling queenside can have a double purpose – first of all, running away from any dangerous attacks on the kingside and center, but it can also be used in an aggressive way when you are preparing counterplay on the kingside.
We live in a time where technology is part of our everyday life and information is easily accessible to everybody, things that are clearly reflected in the development of the chess theory. With the help of computers, many lines have been refuted, while some openings have been demonstrated to be a forced draw. The help we get from the engines is immense, but this is not necessarily a good thing and this is mostly reflected at the club level.
Who doesn’t like a good, successful attack?
It is probably every chess player’s dream – to crush their opponent with a well-conducted attack and crown it with a beautiful sacrifice. There are many players who like to attack and it is something we see often especially at the club level.
Attacks are started in most of the games, whether they work or not. We often see “aggressive” pawn moves that aim to build an attack, but which, for the experienced eye, are moves that create unnecessary weaknesses in the position.
In chess, the King is the one piece we try to protect almost throughout the whole game. We castle, we put it into safety and try to weaken it as little as possible, but can it actually help win the game? For most of you, it’s common knowledge that the monarch is a key piece in the endgame. The more centralized, the better.
An active king can, in certain positions, even compensate for a missing pawn.
One of the first things we learn about in chess is the value of the pieces. We start off with the points-value of the pieces and favorable combinations between them. Later on, we understand that this value is only relative and there is much more to chess than some simple rules.
We learn that when we talk about the value of a certain piece we have to take into consideration factors like the pawn structure, piece activity, coordination between pieces and so on.
We have been talking a lot about attacking and finding active ideas in your games, but very little about how to defend and put up a good resistance when under pressure. Many players train their tactical skills, but very few know that defense can be trained in a similar way. Perhaps this is the reason why many players are very good in attack, but their position tends to tumble down rather quickly when they find themselves under pressure.
A very important feature of the position and one that we should pay special attention to during every game we play is the pawn structure and the changes that it might suffer throughout the game, as your plans should also change with it.
The study of the most important pawn formations will not only help you find the best plans during your game with ease, but you will also be able to choose correctly the type of position you want to achieve in relation to the pieces you have on the board.
