hi everybody and welcome to another chess tips video if you give me about 10 minutes of your
time i'll teach you or help you strengthen a chess concept and today we're talking about the
initiative before we jump into that it's been a while since i've made a chess tips video and
that's because i've been doing commentary on the legends of chess alongside hikaru nakamura if you
missed that we're live every day at 10 a.m eastern over on twitch and also i moved in case you can't
tell so some of the lighting is a little bit off so bear with me i will get everything figured
out and i'll be uploading instructive content more frequently now the initiative what does
that mean an initiative in chess is a sequence of moves where you put pressure and threats on
your opponent's pieces squares their king and at the end of it you have a sizeable advantage
using that set of attacks so starting out with five examples today almost all of them from
the legend of chess this game vishyana with black peter svidler with white and this was the position
here vishy played the move e5 now this move obviously supported by the pawn takes space
in the center attacks the queen svidler replied with queen e3 now we see knight to f5 improving
the position of the knight and attacking the queen in the center of the board i should just
point out here like a move like d4 also does attack the queen but it's slightly different
uh than knight to f5 because the queen can simply go to d3 and blockade everything you can't push
this pun forward because of the sufficient defense and so for that reason the initiative
we're trying to improve our position knight f5 played now in the game svidler played queen b3
right here you can try to pause find the way for black to completely take over using threats one
move threats dominating white's position i'll wait about five seconds so you can catch your breath i
will also spoil that in the game vishy played e4 which blocks out the light squared bishop
and tries to go for a positional advantage what he should have done is hopped in with knight d4
and you say well levy what does that do a knight d4 just attacks the queen and even though it is
attacking this pawn as well the queen can go to d1 well i said keep creating threats so how can
we create a threat on this rook there's knight e6 but there's also bishop f8 and we see the power of
this knight it's taking away this square and this rook has nowhere to go it goes here it attacks the
bishop okay just move the bishop and bishop d6 is coming this rook is trapped and this would
have been a completely winning position for vichy and well you can check out the result later in the
game obviously more twists and turns happen but that is a perfect example of how you use threats
on an enemy piece to then secure an overwhelming advantage like every move made was an improvement
of the position and certain things like d4 right on the second move they they open up lines but
they don't quite give us enough okay bishop a6 but the queen just runs to safety we can pick up
a pawn but we can do even better than that this position is very dominant uh so let's jump into
this game uh played between and let me not spoil things i will go back to the starting position
this was a game played between peter lecko and peter svidlo uh svidlo svidlo wow lekko and svidlo
svidler uh also from the legends of chess this was the position for the white pieces now watch what
peter lego does here if you want to pause take a look for yourself peter leko plays the move
d5 in this position what what is this move all about how does that create an initiative the
move d5 is like a door it opens the d4 square for white's bishop white's knight and white's
ability to take over the c6 square an initiative doesn't always need to be attacking a piece
i told you in the intro it can also attack a square so you say i would love to end up with
a knight on c6 so rook c8 knight d4 and knight e5 that stops knight c6 but this knight had another
thing in mind now peter leko says all right i'm gonna keep changing my plan and keep targeting
things with my knight now there is some vision on this side of the board h5 here was played uh by
svidler and lekko immediately moves his bishop here so again it's all because of this move d5
chopping away at the night that night that pawn and g6 attacking the knight if you'd like to find
the next move in this position to put the pressure on black it is an exceptionally difficult move
but i urge you to pause take a look there are two but one is much more beautiful than the other
all right i will tell you the answer now if you said f4 you are also correct that is the move
played in the game but the absolutely stunning move queen c1 because you need to get your most
powerful attacking piece into the game you say levy well what about gtx f5 yeah but i mean
you're at least winning the nightback right away right and i mean if i block like this you play
queen f6 and you're probably going to mate me so queen c1 is an amazing move another move here f4
just every piece is getting a turn improving the position this could be a separate game and how to
just attack the enemy king but none of this would have been possible if the move d5 wasn't found and
if you're thinking things like e5 you do have also an interesting idea because if takes takes
there is this and this but don't forget it's not checkers i don't have to take you
and i can just put my knight in the center and you're never going to get rid of it
it's just it's just going to stand there you play something like queen to e4 okay then i'll take
your bishop so initiatives for the more advanced viewers also can do with empty squares to then
open the door for some of our pieces to transfer into the enemy territory transfer toward the king
and so on okay so that's another example uh before uh we talk about more empty squares let's talk
about more physical threats this one is a little bit more uh probably the most advanced example of
the day but i figured i'd slot it in third so if you're watching go ahead and pause this was a game
by ivan chubb versus dingli ren and here ivan chuk taking a look at the position wanted to create
a discovered attack on the queen now sometimes sometimes initiatives start with a slow move
like d5 well how do we allow this bishop to move so that this rook is well protected
we've got to bring the rook up a square so that we set up bishop e3
and he's doing that because of the pressure on the d-file the pressure on c6 the pressure on
the knight and not to mention that he does have a pass pawn here so in this position dingley ran
played the move c5 the idea being that he wanted yvonne chuck to take and then play queen c6 now
watch as this initiative builds up first threat on black's position bishop e3 knight blocks
and so now an initiative is supposed to improve our position and create a threat every move so
obviously all of you are looking at this move but don't forget then the queen is going to take this
pawn this knight has guarded from this threat so he plays b5 and you might say well levy that's
just a defensive move that's not an initiative no look closer there is a threat here for white
that threat is bishop takes c5 because for example the knight cannot take
because the queen is hanging and if the queen takes this is guarded by that so we just take that
and the rook defends and attacks at the same time if you take me i take your queen
if you take my queen i take it with the rook so there is a threat
it's just very it's just very difficult to see it's just but it's bishop takes c5
and while dingley ran played queen b6 to get out of the pin and now now find the focal point of
black's defensive setup what is black's one piece holding everything together and get rid of it
f3 i know i know those of you that watch ben feingold i know you're not supposed to
play this move but that's why you can't always listen to general rules f3 and in the game this
just shreds apart the defenses in the game queen takes b5 happen takes takes and it looks like this
is sufficiently defended oh but there's something else very sinister in mind if queen takes f6 was
possible with check it would be mate but it's not possible with check because the pawn is on g7
well you have all the puzzle pieces and the instructions now put it together
bishop h6 stunning move threatening this can't take because of mate bishop comes back now
bishop takes d3 and ivan chuck won a piece and he went on to win the game so it's not always a move
that begins the initiative with such a thunderous attack like we saw in the very first example but
i will dial it back with this next one okay this next one kramnik versus anand which happened today
a crazy match between two world champions and in this position vishy had just played the move a6
okay let's make a threat knight d6 and you say well that doesn't make any sense i'm just winning
a pawn yeah and so now everybody's looking at this and this but hidden in all this is this
diagonal so how can we attack those rooks ah they should have four but there's a pawn in the way
so what do we do d4 incredible move a move like that a move like this you find when you start
adding layers to your tactical abilities right you know that if that pawn wasn't there that's an easy
x-ray for 99 of you okay for that one percent keep on grinding you'll get there uh but knight takes
d4 bishop takes again e takes very difficult and rook takes results in check and a fork
of these two rugs these poor rooks so ed4 now we get queen f4 with the x-ray queen c7 and now a
very nice move here from cranmix c5 and he's able to play this move because if queen takes c5 white
simply as rook c1 and if queen takes a3 defending this queen g5 rook c7 again initiative every move
is gonna have a threat every single move so he plays c5 rook c6 and now how can white create
another threat here using the move that he just played using this move clearing the square check
forcing the king to f8 this next move i'm not going to make you find it is the engine stop
choice it's also vladimir kramnik's choice and it is a beauty do not trade the queens you can
go queen g6 excuse me queen h6 but then there is queen g7 and you don't want a queen trade
rookie five and black resigned because there's nothing if you play the bishop out this is made
in one and the threat here is bishop d5 so look bishop d5 the knight can't take and if the rook
takes on c5 that rook used to guard that knight and this is simply made in a couple of moves
bishop d5 a killer because of queen f6 and queen h6 threats you say okay well levy what if i just
play like king g7 that's great but then i have rook g5 and i'm gonna mate you in a few moves
i'm going to make you in a few moves if you play king h8 a beautiful combination you want rook g8
check here here made in two and so after rookie five a move that causes absolute paralysis for
the black position anand resigned but a seven move aggressive sequence d4 fantastic move shredding
open the center and queen f4 and domination on this light square diagonal looking for the threads
now this last one i wanted to include it's not an example from these super gems an example from one
of my own games i was playing a subscriber uh one morning over on twitch where i stream a lot and i
was playing an 1800 and in this position he had castled so i blitzed out a move here that looked
natural queen a5 but an initiative that i could have built up already started out with the move
c4 which closes the position he has to play queen back and then i start my queen side operation
that is how you create an initiative c4 closes the door and then you start attacking the knight
in the pawn in the game i played queen a5 first which the difference being that i i do allow him
to take not to mention i do allow him to go here now i take on d4 in the game because this knight
has no discovered attack that's useful because i defend and i'm also threatening this so he took on
d4 and here i actually made a mistake in the game i played knight b4 which looked really natural and
i won a pawn like this and okay i went on to win the game but here my development is very bad and
even though i use my initiative to win a pawn his position is actually fine i mean it doesn't look
like it should be great but f4 and you know he can create some counter play
what i should have done instead of playing knight b4 to create an initiative that just wins a pawn
is i should have won the the very obvious pawn in the center okay i should have just won the pawn in
the center and then if you play something like this i just put the knight on c4 and
i have some pressure but for the final example i will flip this and i will say is knight takes e6
creating a winning initiative for white you can sit here take a look i'll let you think
the answer to the question is a resounding no because if 96 takes takes black just blocks and
two things apply here number one if you've seen my other chess tips video the rule of plus two
you need two more attacking pieces than there are defenders and white doesn't have that white just
doesn't have that he does not have well there's no knight takes d5 because the queen is protecting
and yes you can play moves like rookie one but black is by by all means going to attack you first
so this is not a lasting initiative uh there is just simply nothing here
an initiative is also supposed to improve our position at the end of this position
we are simply not doing that well we are getting mated it it's all smoke and mirrors white does not
have a substantial attack okay hope you enjoyed these five examples i'm very happy to be making
these chess initiative excuse me chess tips initiative videos uh and so on and so forth
let me know what other concepts you'd like me to cover in the comments below
any thoughts on the videos and listen i really love reading uh the comments i try to interact
with you guys as much as possible the support the past few weeks has been unbelievable and if you've
made it this far just just keep being awesome okay i'm gonna keep making this content let's try
to uh let's try to hit 50 000 subscribers soon so much love and i'll see you in the next one