The Chess Mind

Yes indeed: this is shilling, but for a reason: I'm now one of ChessLecture.com's video presenters. It is a site requiring subscription, but with it you have full access to everything that's ever been done on there, and it's a lot. (1106 archived videos, according to the site.) Regular presenters include GM Eugene Perelshteyn, Josh Friedel and Jesse Kraai, together with several IMs including theory maven IM Dave Vigorito, and there are many more presenters (past and present) besides. (There are even a few videos by Dzindzhi, and they were very good!) The price is $12.95/month - but have a look here for a couple of samples to see what you think. Let me add that the site is beautifully organized, and it is very easy to filter searches by content, level of difficulty, presenter, video length and so on. Another nice feature is that there are generally PGN files with some or all of the videos' analysis content - mine included.

Thus endeth the ad; time now to quickly summarize my first ChessLecture presentation. I cover the two-bishop sacrifice best known from Lasker-Bauer, but take it a couple of steps further. First, I show a case where it works, despite the absence of some "canonical" feature (something you'd expect to be a part of the procedure, based on the Lasker-Bauer template), and then go on to show an instance where it fails, despite a seemingly ideal set of preconditions. The point is twofold: one should learn as many tactical themes as possible, but realize that the application of the model needs to be checked and not assumed.