a couple of days ago i made a video about getting invited to a chess training session as a kid
and where the coach was gary kasparov arguably the greatest player of all time
and gary roasted me he made fun of my poor organizational skills i played chess like a maniac
i brought him a crumpled up piece of paper with a blitz game on it and i didn't really seem like
i was taking the training session seriously well in that video i said something about also getting
kicked out of a chess camp when i was younger and that's what this video was going to be all
about so first it's going to be story time and then i'm going to share a game just like always
uh when i was a kid i was invited to a chess camp with artur usupov arturius
was ranked number three in the world between 1986 and 1992 behind kasparov and karpov he was
an exceptional chess talent winning basically everything except the world championship
and he ran a chess camp with this organization in new jersey a couple weeks every summer now
i was the highest rated in the camper just about that and i was a chaos i mean i was
crazy during recess and i would constantly tell kids the answers i would interrupt our tour i
wouldn't listen i would talk back uh i made kids cry over you know blitz games because i was so
aggressive and talk so much trash and one day our tour told the organizer that it was either him
or me so i have that on my resume as well i mean you think that looking at some of these pictures
like i'm an angel i mean i'm i'm i'm like the nicest kid ever like look at me i had such an
illustrious childhood i was so well behaved look at me look at me and all my trophies no no and
i figured for this video i would actually take what's considered our tour's best game
and show it to all of you we can do an instructive video analysis and i would have this little bit of
story time and one quick thing before we actually jump into the games in that kasparov video
i shared a game i played against uh a childhood friend who's now you know in the corporate ranks
and is successful and is enjoying chess as a hobby uh and we reconnected on linkedin actually like
yesterday i think that was so pretty funny how the world goes around and
he would remember a lot of these things because we were at that chess camp together so hi max
if you ever see this video hope you're doing well and uh yeah um amazing memories we made together
all right let's take a look at the game of arturi supa versus vasily venchuk this was
played in the early 90s uh our tour had the black pieces at this point evonchuk was the
second highest rated player in the world he was i mean he peaked a few times in his career but
this game was incredible so let's take a look the game begins with the move c4 and our tour plays e5
this is very logical straightforward and standard g3 d6 and what ends up happening is the players
just get a king's indian in a really roundabout move order and way the players get a king's indian
uh and you know white plays knight f3 knight f6 castles castles now this can happen if
white begins the game with d4 and c4 followed by knight c3 this can also happen like this players
are so far keeping the tension in the center of the board both guys not wanting to commit
and usually at this point white will decide whether or not to lock the position uh or keep it
open and flexible and develop you know with with moves that don't actually commit the central pawns
so queen c2 exactly rook to e8 now you are constantly threatening to push this pawn
because you've supported it with the rook and your knight evangel doesn't seem particularly phased
c6 another very common move you can now bring the queen out in this direction you also stop
anything from coming over here and in the long run this bishop is kind of blocked a little bit
on the diagonal so you have b3 you have queen to e7 bishop to a3 and this is kind of a very logical
move actually at first glance this looks pretty unpleasant to be playing with the black pieces
here but usual has a plan e4 knight to g5 and well now four pieces are attacking this so black plays
e3 of course that pawn is untouchable because if you take it it's a fork and you die actually you
probably die even more painfully because i also have knight g4 and knight f2 coming so that didn't
happen and instead of vanchuk plays f4 now if anybody's curious whether you can on poisson here
you can't because tuan poissant you would need the pawn adjacent it would need to be right next to it
it can't be like this it can't be diagonally in front so f4 and this pawn now is just kind
of standing there uh and evonchuk's got a kind of an interesting space advantage in position
knight to f8 very important move you're not going to go forward so first you come back
you open up the light squared bishop to go to f5 and then you will decide what to do on the
kingside ivanchu plays b4 he's made his intentions very clear he wants to attack on this side
so usual plays bishop f5 attacking the queen uh ivanchuk uses the square that he just created
and now we have h6 and knight to g4 well you might as well transfer your knight in this way
as well this move opens up the queen and you are now ready to go g5 because your queen
covers that with the knight there the queen did not cover that so evancho plays the move b5 now
here's the hardest thing about being an attacking player do you take do you push or do you ignore
very difficult decision if you push you are giving up the d5 square if you push this pawn white goes
to d5 you've granted white access here this pawn is forever a target and when i open it i will
have my rook in the game so pushing doesn't make any sense and that's how you have to think
about it if i push this pawn i'll be opening up squares and files and diagonals for my opponent
if i take this pawn the same thing applies i lose control of d5 that's the important square it's
to negate the effect of this knight and so for that reason our tour plays g5 disregarding the
b-pawn entirely we have bc6bc6 and ivantruk makes this trade because now this pawn is a weakness
he has the b file and maybe he will put it to good use well yvonne chuck here does something
absolutely fascinating he plays the move knight e5 under normal circumstances that can just be
captured but because this pawn is pinned to the queen you can't take this with the pawn
at the same time you also have no interest in taking this with the knight or the bishop
if you take it with the bishop you've weakened your king substantially and if you take it with
the knight white goes f or d takes e5 and now has pressure on the one pawn that's pinned to
your queen not to mention that your pawns are not taking anything the whole point of launching the
pawns on this side of the board is to trade them and open up the lines to the enemy king which is
only protected by a bishop i mean all of white's pieces are in a rectangle on the queen side
so if you can open up the position the bishop is going to be the only thing protecting the king
and so for that reason you leave the knight exactly as it is and continue to take pawns
yes white has this pawn to capture but that is something that you will calculate and now move
your queen to g5 very logical move queen here and now all of this is under pressure
ivanchuk takes the last pawn and with this in mind he now uses kind of like a you know
a little boomerang technique although a boomerang comes back directly to you so that's not accurate
he kind of brings his bishop here and and now has vision of this side of the board
okay so our tour continues to get another piece into the attack he's not making a committal
decision just yet he would actually love it if black played pawn takes f4 if white played pontex
f4 excuse me uh and he would be able to take and not to mention just go here i
mean there's no need to even take this now that this pawn left it's square again we
see this concept of freeing up the square on g3 queen takes it queen to h2 and queen f2
are devastating threats and uh white is simply losing whoops i just jumped ahead and spoiled
a little bit of the game uh forget that you saw any of that and we will continue the game from
takes f4 so knight takes c6 queen g5 bishop d6 and we have the move knight to g6 so knight d5
evanchuk brings the knights forward looking for knight f6 looking for knight e7 looking for knight
c7 and all of these pieces are now fighting for the f4 square as well very big decision
now from yusuf he can jump in with the knight he can jump in with this knight sacrificing looking
for a knockout he can take he can push his other pawn he can play queen h5 and threaten what does
he do he goes for the simplest approach you have a queen you have a horse you have a pawn let's link
them all up together and attack of course evancho plays h4 he does not play h3 attacking the knight
because then the knight would go here attacking the rook and now three pieces line up on this and
again the more you push the pawns in front of your king the more delicate they are going to become
so we get h4 the difference here is that if you want to make any progress you now have to
sacrifice well you don't have to sacrifice but youtube of sacrifices so he sacrifices on h4
and after gh4 queen takes h4 he has a very very scary attack now in this position
uh i'm not gonna tell you the eval and by that i mean i will it's actually plus nine
but back then there was no robust engine supercomputer that could refute all of this attack
in fact what happens now if you plug this position into a computer is it gives you a really crazy
evaluation and then it slowly starts to dwindle a little bit and then finds a technique to defend
here for white but defending here for white is extremely impractical which is why this game was
voted as the best game between like 1966 and 1996 literally the best game the craziest game
in 30 years so knight comes to e7 it's a check and the bishop on f5 is all but lost
so we have king to h8 of course we have knight takes f5 and now we have queen h2 and king f1
so we have a position where evanchuk is up five points of material uh but meanwhile his king is
getting absolutely swarmed and it's it's it's it's very scary it is not pleasant it is very scary
these moves are coming in rookie six now his rook is going to join the attack
and once that happens and the knight moves out of the way you're in serious trouble
but ivanchuk finds a beautiful move he finds a move that actually creates harmony on
on all sides of the board the move queen to bisa and it attacks the rook it attacks the pawn and in
the future will attack the bishop and all you have to do is move the knight which will defend the
bishop on the other side of the board so we get rook to g6 anyway and we have queen takes a8 of
course after queen takes a8 the position uh is one where evanchuk has a 10-point material advantage
yeah and so obviously he is winning except he's not and remember what i said earlier about engines
if you play rook g6 and let the engine think for about 15 seconds
it starts to tell you it's like plus a plus nine and then once you put this position on the board
suddenly it starts to realize wait a second this attack is actually very scary and black is
basically winning uh black has an unstoppable threat that's kind of insane so for example
let's say you know you go here and you try to threaten mate on g8 right well i don't need
to move my knight and i don't need to move my rook anymore i just go queen h1 check
you take it i go check king e1 and rook g1 mate and i think from a distance the engine
misses this queen sacrifice gluing the king in i mean evanchook is up 19 points of material
and yet he's getting mated here so the only move here the only move that doesn't lose for white
queen g8 check as if you have a knight on e7 but you sacrifice a full queen
to check and win the rook that is what you have to do you have to check
and win the rook that is the only way you don't lose on the spot
and now what is the count ivanchuk is still up three points of material but his king what about
his king so evanchoux takes another piece but instead of recapturing yosupo plays the move
knight to f2 now the rook is hanging and he's threatening to play knight h3 threatening queen
g1 mate and if bishop h3 that's mate and that's mate two mates so bishop takes f4 evonchuk's only
move once again not to lose the game queen takes f4 this one we will take now the knight escapes
and hits the queen but the queen returns right back ready to create the threat of knight to h3
evangel plays rook b1 but now knight h3 is coming actually again if you look at this with
a machine it doesn't even realize the power of black's attack until this happens and it goes oh
crap and it's just over rook b7 check king 2h8 rook b8 sacrificing the rook taking the horse and
yet it doesn't matter because queen returns right back and it's coming in and mate is unstoppable
an absolutely insane game which all the way back here according to the machine doesn't work
literally i'm looking at the eval right now and it says plus 9.5 and if you start putting moves
on the board watch it says plus six knight ce7 not knight d7 has played in the game but knight ce7
okay so maybe this is the way to go because in the game we had this king h8 knight f5 queen h2
and this rook move so what is the difference between the two variations if the knight went
to e7 and the king went to h8 and this was taken and all of the same stuff occurred
could there have been rook to e6 and if queen b7 could there have been this
the difference is that in one of these variations the knight is on c6
when one knight is on f5 and in this variation there's a knight on d5
queen a8 king h7 and it looks like after bishop takes f4 the key difference is the fact that the
knight is on d5 and you are able to take on f4 with the bishop which prevents this idea
because now the bishop covers the h2 square again the difference in the game with the position
is the fact that if we rewind and go through the game exactly as it occurred
notice the positioning of the knights the wrong knight went to e7 for ivan chuk
taking on f5 and the wrong knight cost him the ability to defend against this checkmating attack
that's all it came down to and probably what he had missed from a distance is the fact that
when queen b7 arrives black can just go rook to g6 threatening queen h1 and this gorgeous idea
arturia super was known as a player who valued tremendous study and there was a quote about him
that said something like uh he didn't you know he didn't just get things out of inspiration you know
you wouldn't just come to the board and you know let it come he needed to study
a position and study its ideas meticulously which is probably why he was able to have a as
an extremely robust training mechanism with mark devaretsky and publish so many successful chess
books i've recommended his books uh to uh to a variety of uh of students that are that are you
know anywhere from a thousand to two thousand and i've worked on some of them myself looking at some
of the endgame and test chapters uh just to see my calculation my positional understanding and so on
well um that's the story uh i made a former world number three
uh one of the most elite players of all time and chess trainers of all time kick me out
of a chess camp and give an ultimatum to the organization that he had been hired by uh to
you know run this camp and the funny epilogue to this story is that in 2015 um i played in a
chess tournament and i actually saw you super he was playing in that chess tournament live
and i didn't know what to do i wanted to apologize to him in person actually i was so embarrassed
by what i had done and i was really wondering if he had remembered me because like 10 or 12 years
had passed but uh yeah pretty amazing story and well there you have it i'm glad that i matured
maybe