The Chess Mind

Last week, I presented an old loss of mine to Adam Lief in a Pirc Defense, and gave the impression that it was a very clear, clean, straightforward win. All that went wrong was my omission of a4, to prevent ...b5, and everything went to heck in a handbasket after that. This was not only my impression, but that of strong analysts like Jack Peters and Robert Byrne.

We were all wrong! Lief did play a nice game, but things were much more complicated than last week's superficial look would suggest. To see how much more complicated, have a look here. It's worth it not only for truth's sake, but because the truth happens to be very interesting as well, and even useful. See for yourself - it's very entertaining!

This week's show is based on an old loss of mine in a Classical Pirc. I omitted one little move, and had to pay the price for it. (And worse still, seemingly the whole world got to see it!) On the other hand, my opponent - the then-talented, now retired Adam Lief - won a very nice game.

So have a look here - the show is free and available on-demand for the next month or so - for an attractive and instructive game. And stay tuned for next week's show, when we'll see that the game is even more interesting and instructive than we might have imagined!

We continue our look at some highlights from the career of the late great David Bronstein (1924-2006). Last week, we looked at some quick, clean tactical kills, but this time our examples are deeper and rely more on judgment and intuition than calculation. They are not any less entertaining for this, and in fact they offer more scope for investigation - and there are several places in our presentation this week where that would be appropriate. (Indeed, there is one moment where I explicitly recommend it.)

So have a look (links should be available here and/or here); the show is free and will be available on-demand for the next month or so.

At one point a ChessVideos viewer expressed an interest in a David Bronstein "Best-Of" show, and that seemed like a good idea. So good an idea, in fact, that we'll have two: one this week and one next week. Bronstein was one of the greatest and most creative players in the middle third of the 20th century, and every generation of chess players ought to rediscover this legend of the game for themselves.

To help in that regards, I've compiled a number of his tactical "greatest hits", iconic combinations which will impress themselves in your memory for the rest of your chess career. I think you'll be begging for more after the show, but don't take my word for it - see for yourself! (Links to the show should be available here or here.)