Tricks of Chess

Dear Chess Friends!

I believe every chess player prefers to attack rather than to defend his position! However, usually one

player attack, the other one defends the position. If the player, who attacks, succeeds with his active

play, he might be able to deliver a checkmate or gain the material.

If not, then his opponent may pass the game into the endgame in his favor, realize his strategical

advantage and finally win the game.

But what if both players attack? And how may it happen? It almost always happens in position where

players castled their kings to the opposite sides: for example, white king – on the queenside, black king

– on the kingside. Players (including me) who enjoy such sharp positions, specially choose such openings

where castling to the opposite side is considered to be a strong plan! For example, Yugoslav Attack in

Dragon Variation of Sicilian Defense, English Attack in Najdorf Variation, Nimzowitsch Attack in Russian

game, Meran Variation in Semi-Slav Defense and even Saemish Variation in King’s Indian Defense.

The plan for both sides is the same – attack the enemy king, but how exactly? What pieces and pawns

to use? Develop pieces first? Or start the attack immediately with the pieces that are already

developed?

There are many questions how exactly to attack in case of opposite castled positions. But in general,

there are much more subtleties and nuances to know when you play such positions! That’s why I

decided to devote our next 40th webinar to this topic - “How to Attack on Opposite Castled Positions?”

I’m going to illustrate everything by the examples of games played by top grandmasters and, of course,

explain the ideas behind their moves:

1) Boris Spassky – Tigran Petrosian (7 th game of the Championship Match)

2) Boris Spassky – Tigran Petrosian (19 th game of the Championship Match)

The webinar starts on Sunday (12 th of July) at 10 a.m. (EDT), 2 p.m. (GMT), 5 p.m. (Moscow time). This

webinar is free.

Please, register for the webinar with this link:

Please, don’t forget to register in advance and reserve your spot in case of high number of attendees.

See you on the webinar!

FM Victor Neustroev