Hello everybody

I enjoyed that video quite a bit, in particular it was paced very well and kept my interest.

Just a quick question for Dennis, how come you don't post videos on the ICC as well. Pete Tamburro post videos there all the time and like you he isn't titled either, so that shouldn't present too much of an obstacle.

Merry Christmas,

Toppy

I started on ICC when chess.fm just got started. Then they killed it for a while, I went to ChessBase, and since the two servers are competitors, it's one or the other. And for me, there's no contest: I'll stay with CB.

Happy New Year!

awesome! could u also post something about how to play the Nimzo Indian? i'm having trouble with it

Thx Dennis. I loved that game. If you are an attacking player. Which I like to think I am. I find that when it comes to positions where my initiative stalls that I tend to lose games. I have so much work to do on being able to consolidate and build an advantage with patience. I forget the origin of the term 'accumulation of small advantages' but that's what you achieved in this game and , all of a sudden, white was in zuggie. Very impressive.

Great video. I am seriously considering using this defence in an OTB game (for the first time).

Did you see the possibility of 31...Nf5 (with the point of trapping the rook)?
If so, why is 31...Ra1 the better move?

Also, why can't White play 18.Rd3 avoiding the trade of pieces?
I guess Black would continue ...c5 and ...c4 ?

kobesarmy: The bad news is that I haven't played the Nimzo-Indian for quite a while, so it's not likely to show up on one of these programs any time soon. On the other hand, if you have access to my archived shows on the playchess.com server, I've presented quite a number of Nimzo games over there.

mleonard: I didn't see 31...Nf5, which was better than 31...Ra1, during the game. As for 18.Rd3, the obvious rejoinder is 18...Bf5 winning the c-pawn. As it turns out, White isn't losing after 19.Re3 Bxc2 20.Rc1 Bf5 21.Ned4 Bd7 22.Nxc6 Bc5 23.Ncd4, but Black has a very comfortable advantage. I think most players will give up on 18.Rd3 almost the moment they see 18...Bf5 unless everything else is blatantly terrible, but although the move isn't as good as what my opponent played, it's nowhere near as bad as the first-glance rejection would suggest.

Thanks for the lecture, Dennis. I think I'm comfortable with the Kc8-b7 idea and now I have some idea of what to look out for (both tactically and thematically) in the main line. I plan to add this to my repertoire immediately.

Thanks Dennis. You did in fact mention 18.Rd3 Bf5 in your commentary. I remember looking at this in greater depth after viewing your game - I must have forgotten that it was your own suggestion!

The line you have given strikes me as a logical continuation, but I can't work out why Black has an advantage. Perhaps this is one of those positions where an amateur such as myself lacks the insight and experience to understand how play should continue.

So (in the hope I would learn something) I went through the game on my computer and tried to beat it (using 23.Ncd4 as a starting point). White always managed to get in e6 (a theme you pointed out to us) and I lost my bishop pair. I couldn't do anything useful in the ending and it quickly turned into a draw.

I ended up doing a lot of computer analysis. Shredder 10 came up with this line: 18.Rd3 Bf5 19.Re3 Bxc2 20.Rc1 Bf5 21.Nfd4 Bd7 22.e6 fxe6 23.Rg3 Ne7 24.Rxg7 Bd6 25.Nf3

I have no idea how realistic it would be for a human player to consider possibilities such as this over the board, but I certainly found it interesting. It also makes me despair of ever improving my rating. I simply find it impossible to judge which lines are worth investigation. Stronger players seem to have a knack of discarding entire branches of a tree, saving themselves thinking time. I lack that confidence.

Thanks very much for the video. A very interesting opening. I'm much more interested in position (I always play e6 as black against either e4 or d4, which I find extremely flexible, e.g. transpose variously into Sicilian, Dutch, French, QGA, QGD, etc.) so positional analysis is right up my street. Not that I dislike tactics and sharp positions but sound tactics always flow from positional advantage, as distinct from cheap shots. This is what Steinitz discovered and why he was able to dominate chess so completely. Re: pawn structure, Philidor said "Pawns are the soul of chess!" and he should know.

I find all your explanations lucid and informative and I enjoy your videos very much (I'm afraid I actually download them as they tend to disappear). Keep up the good work, it's by far the best I've seen on the net.

the end

momus,

Either my play was perfect, or one shouldn't bother with the Berlin? That's a strange conclusion to draw. Yes, we exchanged a pair of inaccuracies, but the course of the game highlighted very useful and common themes rather than ideas that could only occur given the earlier mistakes. If you were expecting a sort of ECO-style presentation, then you came to the place, but as an introduction to some of the important ideas and the logic behind the opening, it's not a bad game.

As for specifics, 17.Nd4! gives White a genuine but far from crushing advantage after 17...Kb7 18.Nxe6 fxe6, and as I noted in the video, 15...c5 (instead of 15...Ng6) gives Black a completely acceptable position after 16.Rfd1 Be6 and so on. (I continue the line further in the presentation.) Now Nd4 isn't a factor, and Black will resume the task of unraveling his pieces and setting about the task of utilizing his long-term trumps. There's nothing in this video that should chase someone with an interest in the Berlin away from it.

final

Seriously, was it so unclear what Dennis communicated during his lecture? Playing devil's advocate is one thing, but you seem to be taking this to a whole new level...

finish

DandyDanD,

Thanks for the moral support!

Momus,

You're certainly misunderstanding what I've said in the video and in my earlier reply, but if that's my fault I'll do what I can to make my thoughts clearer. The move I played in the game, 15...Ng6, was not born out of a low view of my opponent, and it wasn't a blunder. I'll elaborate on each point.

(1) I took 15...Ng6 to be a perfectly good and playable move for several reasons. It clears the path for the Bf8 and creates the positional threat of ...Bb4, and it offers at least token pressure on White's e-pawn. Such a move (...Ng6) is very typical of the Berlin, as is the ...Bb4xc3 idea. I had seen 16.Rad1 Be6 17.Nd4, but didn't consider it seriously because it hung the e-pawn. If I had continued looking and saw that 17...Nxe5 would lose a piece, then I would either have rejected 15...Ng6 in favor of 15...c5 (when Black's position is fine), or would at least have abstained from the capture on e5. There was no thought that "this is bad, but I doubt my opponent will find it".

(2) 15...Ng6 is not the best move, as we agree, but it isn't a blunder, either, because after 17.Nd4 I don't have to take on e5. Allowing White to swap off my light-squared bishop is a concession, but it doesn't leave me with a lost position. Thus 15...Ng6 is inaccurate, a mistake of more than trivial proportions, but nowhere near a "blunder", which is typically defined as a very bad move, one that's obvious and generally (maybe always) involves serious material losses or checkmate, or the obvious failure to collect serious material or give checkmate.

In sum: Playing 17...Nxe5 could be classified as a blunder, but I didn't play it (obviously, since I didn't even get the chance to), I didn't have to play it if my opponent played 17.Nxd4, and I didn't play 15...Ng6 thinking that the move was bad but that my opponent wasn't sharp enough to prove it. Both my opponent and I assumed without carefully checking that 17.Nd4 Nxe5 was possible, and our assumption was mistaken.

Hopefully this is clear. If it's not, and your purpose isn't malign, then I apologize for not communicating more clearly.