The US Amateur Team East is the best tournament in the world! I love it and have played four or five times. Team play is so much more fun.

The discussion of white's various early middlegame plans in the Scotch was fascinating. So many possibilities!

I liked the line after ...Nd4, where you play Be3 and after trading on f3, you play f4. I like those kinds of positions.

Nxd4!! Absolutely nuts. I was wondering how it was going to become your craziest game ever. Now I know why Your team-mates must've been worried.

You get a very nice knight on e4 after all the sacrifices and trades. You have one of the best central knight outposts I've seen. Those d5 and f5 pawns really help.

It seems like your opponent made a pretty serious mistake with ...c6, since it allows you to activate your bishop in many lines.

This video was very fun to watch. I can't wait to see the rest of the game. Thanks!

How many times did you say "I honestly don't know what's going on here." I honestly believe you! For a guy concentrating on general principles to guide my analysis... I had no idea where to start in many of these positions. Think I'll just throw out all the books I've read and enjoy the analysis!!!
Your sidelines and alternate continuations are very noteworthy, thank you for including them. They often times clue me in to just how deep you have to see into a position to make correct decisions, and yet you make it sound so easy.
Very enjoyable video, thanks again.

Aww, i was sorta hoping for your pawn avalanche game (Schliemann attk) against GM Yudasin. THAT game is a treasure.

This vid has additional value due to the extended discussion of the opening. Great point about getting over the fear of losing.

Nice video! I agree that a game should be fun and not just about playing perfectly and focusing on the win more than on playing an enjoyable game. 99% of us chess players won't make alot of money out of chess anyway and just play chess for fun.

On the last position:


1... bxc4 seems pretty much forced. Now I think white should get that pawn rolling asap with 2. Nc3. Now white has to deal with several black moves:

(a) 2... Rh2+ 3. Kg3 Rxc2 4. Nd5 Qa7 5. Rf1 (defending from 5... Qf2+ and mate) 5... Kf8 6. c7 Qb7/Qa8 7. Rh1 should win for white.

(b) 2... Kf8 3. Nd5 Qa7+ (again the most forcing move) 4. Kg2 Ke8 5. c7 Kd7 and now I like the simple and brutal 6. g5 when, when necessary, white will defend Nd5 with Rd1, and will try to get a new and just as strong passed pawn on the kingside.

(c) 2... Qa7+ 3. Kg2 Qc5 however seems to be killing my Nc3-d5 plan.

So maybe a simple rook infiltration first is better... 2. Rd1 with 3. Rxd6, and maybe 4. Re6 to cut off the king and 5. Nc3, 6. Nd5 to help the pawn forward. If black can't get his rook out, then it's pretty clear white wins (black's king trapped, so it's a rook, knight and passed pawn against a lone queen...). So:

(a) 2... Rh2+ 3. Kg3 Rxc2 4. Rxd6 and now:

(a1) 4... Qc7 5. Rd7 Qb6 6. Nc5! and white should win with 7. c7 coming up.

(a2) 4... Kf8 5. Rd7 Qb4 threatening 6... Qe1+ with mate. So maybe 6. Nc3 there?

Maybe someone else has better ideas?

Phobetor, you're off to a good start! One suggestion you might want to check out is in the 2.Rd1 analysis, line (a2), where instead of 5.Rd7, allowing 5...Qb4 with possible mayhem, see if you can find something else that's useful for White.

katar: I'm fond of the Yudasin game too - I did a chess.fm lecture on it about 4 years ago. Maybe it's time to revisit it, especially since those shows are long since off the air and almost no one on here will have seen it.

Oginschile: Chess is amazing, isn't it? Sometimes games follow a pretty clear recipe: you know the opening to move 15 or 20, know what your general plans are supposed to be, see that you're achieving your strategic goals faster than your opponent and everything works perfectly. Wolfgang Puck would be proud. Other times you're playing jazz on a roller coaster. Guess which one I was doing in this game! I think part of what makes chess so much fun is that we have both kinds of games from time to time.

Josh: Yes, it's remarkable how many different - radically different - ways the opening could have gone, just in the first 5-6 moves! About my tall pawn (the bishop) and the glorious knight on e4...stay tuned. You've yet to see the most heroic attacking unit of them all...

i just gained a great deal of respect for you dennis.
until now you were just "that guy who does the lectures on chessbase."
what a heroic move!