I'm not sure what move it was on, but at time ~11:15, another major advantage that white has is black has terrible dark-square weaknesses, and white has the dark-squared bishop. As black, I'd have a really hard time justifying that variation, and I think anyone playing it would rather be white.

At the end, that was a blistering attack. My eyes were watering in joy when he played Rxh6.

Interesting game. At 17:12 f3 by Spragget was an interesting move. I know that I would be looking hard for something else, but really, what can Black do? Good move IMO. Later, Kh1 was another good move. Kevin is just building his position and waiting patiently. What was really cool about this is that when Black finally struck on a plan (to get his N to b4) White was able to start aggressions on the other side of the board. I did see Nd6 and the follow-up but didn't finish calculating until you started showing the lines. Very cool attack by Spragget!

A really nice positional game.

Thanks for the impressions, I'm glad you enjoy it

Best regards

Renier

you are good at picking interesting games between top players... games that aren't in the spotlight... but are very important

Hello Renier,

first of all, I was confused to not see your new videos on the main page (chessvideos.tv), so I thought you took a break or something. The more glad I am that you actually posted some videos without me noticing it.

This game is wonderful, to say the least. A seemingly unspectacular maneuvering game, with a pretty finish, this is what an amateur might think.
But in fact there are very deep positional ideas which you pointed out very well, for example I thought that f3 was just to take control of e4 and maybe prepare a bind with e4. But you pointed out the posibility of Bg3-e1, which seemed rather farfetched at first, but on second sight it actually might force a heavy piece to protect a week pawn on the Queen side.
The sacrifice itself was very beautiful. Good thing you demonstrated, how not taking the rook on h6 loses due to Bxg7. The rest was just the play of a master, winning a second pawn and forcing a lost rook endgame.
Nice to see that older players still stand a chance against the sons of the "Computer-generation", by the means of outplaying them positionally.
Thanks for the video, and keep it up, please. I seriously feel like I'm learning a lot from your games.

Hi Renier,

If this is just annoying then please say so and I won't do it again but -for what it is worth - I thought I'd post here my first ever game as black in the King's Indian! I'm just an average club player but with a sincere desire to improve so any constructive criticism anyone on the site has is welcome. My opponent was rated just under 50 elo points higher than me so I was happy enough with a draw in the end.

[Event "Barrow A vs Penrith A"]
[Site "Barrow"]
[Date "2011.10.15"]
[White "George Horne"]
[Black "Kevin Southernwood"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 Na6 {First KID as black! I've not run this game by an engine. They can tell me how stupid I've been later.} 7.O-O e5 8. dxe5 {Ugh!}dxe5 9.Qxd8 Rxd8 10. Bg5 Re8 {...h6 maybe better?} 11. Rad1 Nd7 {The plan is Na6/c5/e6 with a view to posting on d4. But is it best here? Maybe ...Bg4 deserves a try (uniting rooks and exchanging white's knight to weaken d4. I was worried about white doubling on the d file with some problems for black.} 12.Be3 c6 13. a3 Nac5 14. b4 Ne6 15. c5 Ndf8 $6 {Don't know? ...f5 is too dangerous! Maybe ...b6 is a move. I looked at Nf4 but didn't like it if white just ignored it with (say) Bc4. d6 is a worry and Rd6 awkward.} 16. Nd2 {phew!} Nd4 $1 {Obvious but still a good move.} 17. Bxd4 {White won't live with a knight on d4. I wasn't convinced that ignoring it was impossible.} exd4 18. Na4 {Least worst retreat? WIth ideas of b2/c4?} Kh8 {I couldn't see anything other than ...d3 to exploit the off-side Knight and felt it was too high a price to pay. I was stuck for a plan and ...Kh8 doesn't feel right.} 19. Bc4 Be6 20. Bxe6 Rxe6 {The plot -still- is keeping white out of d6.} 21. f3 Nd7 22.Nc4 b5 $1 {White now never gets to d6!} 23. cxb6 axb6 24. Naxb6 Nxb6 25. Nxb6 Rxa3 26. Ra1 Rxa1 27. Rxa1 Bf8 {When I played ...b5 I'd got to this position in my head and felt that it had to be defensible.} 28. Ra4 Kg7 {Possibly push the pawn?} 29. Nd7 {Or maybe now?} Be7 30. Nc5 Rd6 $6 {Maybe taking the knight is better.} 31. Nd3 Rd7 {Draw offered and agreed.}1/2-1/2

Cheers

Send me the pgn directly to reniercastellanos82@gmail.com and I'll see what I can do

Best regards

Renier

Hi,

Thanks - that's a kind offer and much appreciated. I'm busy running a Junior Chess Tournament today (soon) but I'll send something on tomorrow.

Cheers.