The London Chess Classic brings together the world’s best players between December 4 and 13, 2015. Join GMs Yasser Seirawan, Maurice Ashley, Alejandro Ramirez, and WGM Jennifer Shahade for the move-by-move analysis. This is the third and final leg of the Grand Chess Tour.
2015.12.05
GrandChessTour.com
"I LOVE these moral victories!" Typical Tony Miles! Had the great good fortune not only to meet, but to play Tony at a simul in Paisley many years ago. Guess what? Yep, I got squished, but learned more in that night from the games played than from a year of reading. The man passed far too soon – I miss him.
what a great channel– i learn alot
The best coverage! Love Yasser and Maurice
I like turtles
One of your best pre recorded bits ever in the middle at 2:17:15.
Phuc Yu
The correct pronunciation of Rafael Leitão is "layton", not "laytown". hehe
Did you notice the hosts are wearing black and white suits?
Michael Adams is obviously going to win 1st.
Great game!
The ghost at 2:02:10 'Get out' 😉
That discussion about World Champions between Yasser & Maurice was AMAZING!!!
great presentatioin and coverage.yaseer is just wonderful.his isights are too good
These broadcasts are fabulous!
I don't like this guy as commentator, where's The pretty girl?
In the MVL vs Nakamura game, at 2:52:00 what's wrong with Re1? since as Alejandro was saying, white has been trying to play the moves e5 and Nc4 for forever but can't because of the pressure, wouldn't moving the rook to the e file be sufficient? Or is this too slow of a move?
36:00 — Yasser, PLEASE work on the vocal tics. A thousand uh's and er's per broadcast is obviously far too many. Good broadcasting is not easy, but a little training can go a long way. Smoothing our your speech is one. Slowing down just a little bit might also help you avoid the constant halting, the stopping and starting that grates on our ears. Lecturing, which you excel at, is a very different matter from the unrehearsable nature of live broadcasts. Please work on this.
I'm not being unkind. Simply compare your work here with any other sports announcer. None of them have anywhere near the difficulty you do. Or simply compare your work in the London tournament with the ease with which Alejandro conveys his ideas. Cheers.
1:20:10 — One of those positions where Adams as black might do well to tolerate minor pawn weaknesses on his Kside as the better option, by offering the exchange of Queens with …..Qf6. After that the game should amble to a draw. –Too bad black can't seem to get his bishop to b7.
1:23:20 — You're not serious. A GM should not come close to losing that kind of ending despite the doubled pawns, especially when he has …..b6 in the announcers' line to stifle any unpleasant incursions by white's knight.
1:23:58: Oops. Yasser misses the nice rerouting resource for black, …..Nc6-d4, where white cannot win the knight with e3xNd4 without hanging his Queen to the discovered check recapture, …..e5xd4. After white castles, say, black's knight gets to the good f5 square and all is well with his game. In fact, white's Queen on the open file can be harassed by black's rooks.
1:26:30 — "I will be suffering [as black]…" –In fact, no. In addition to his tactical chances, for his pawn black has a critical lead in development as white's king is still in the center, and black already has one of his rooks on the attack. Black also has bishop versus knight, and we know that when there are pawns on both sides of the board the bishop is almost always noticeably better in the endgame. If white simply retreats here with the plausible looking Qc3-b2, black's ….Rf8-e8 looks brutal, especially with black's queen headed for the dominant square e4. If on the other hand white exchanges minor pieces, black recaptures RxNc6 with tempo, swinging his rook to the Kside along his 3rd rank or doubling his rooks before white even castles.
It's white who will suffer in the given position.
edit: in any case, great to see this much analysis of what we typically wave away as a dead drawn position. This is why players shouldn't worry too much about their opening repertoire against weaker players if a few of the lines appear to end in drawish positions. There's always room for the better player to squeeze.
3:06:30 — Really? Jen contributing to the stereotype that husbands are far too stupid to be able to dress themselves properly without their wives' supervision? Just stop.
4:33:00 — Hard to believe MVL had not made a priority of white's a-pawn when he began to liquidate the position with the execrable BxN. With the a-pawn off the board black plays the endgame down the exchange but with as many as three passed pawns.