Neil McDonald (chess player)

Transcription

Hello everybody its jrobi! I'm going to be starting a new series here about chess swindles, I’ll do these once in a while but they're definitely fun positions to take a look at. This particular game was played in 1986 between Gary Kasparov and Neil McDonald. Kasparov was playing the white pieces, and McDonald was able to basically swindle away Kasparov's win. So we will take a look at that in a few minutes here. I just want to say a few things before we get started. Number one, I’m going to have a couple questions for you at the end of the video I’d like your feedback on them, it's regarding that other channel idea that I had, and finally I found a YouTube channel completely by coincidence a few days ago. Totally blew my mind. Like I mean, the quality of this channel is outstanding! And I’m going to talk a little bit about that at the end of the video. hopefully you guys can get this guy some subscribers, and because the content, the quality of the content is, it’s going to be a great channel definitely recommend you subscribe to it, I have, and, you know, as long as this video is up on YouTube, hopefully as people watch it as the months and years roll on, they'll continue to subscribe to this guy. So, looking forward to a lot of good content from this gentleman, so we will get to that at the end of this video as well. So let’s get started with this though. What is a chess swindle? You know, a chess swindle to me I always kind of struggled when I was first getting into traps and things of that nature as to exactly what was a swindle. I guess the best way to look at a chess swindle is to recognize that, it's coming from the player that is getting crushed on the board. They're in a completely losing position and they are struggling. They are fighting to come up with some kind of drawing opportunity or some way to trick their opponent into playing what looks like a very reasonable move, but once they play it they either open up that drawing opportunity, or they lose substantial material and actually end up losing the game. So it’s basically like your stealing a guaranteed win away from your opponent. So they're very fun to look at. This particular game between Kasparov and McDonald. Kasparov's white. I'm just going to flip through a couple moves here, but he's just going on a rampage. He's landing check after check against McDonald, Kasparov, obviously one of the best players ever in the game, snags up a little bit more material here, continues this checking barrage, comes in, McDonald's on the ropes, he's running around. Kasparov lands a check on E7 and McDonald tucks his king into H6. And, it’s white to move in this position so go ahead and pause the video if you want, what do you think you should play as white in this position? And I am going to show you what Kasparov played, and then I am going to show you how McDonald capitalized on the placement of his pieces because he’s got a very beautiful layout here of his pieces, that contributes to this little swindle he’s going to land on Kasparov. So let's first look at what Kasparov played. He plays Bishop takes Pawn on E4. Now, this move looks really really good, the queens protecting the pawn on C5, it’s also protecting the bishop on E4, and at any point, Kasparov can hit a check here against the enemy king, a variety of different ways, so that he doesn’t have to be worried about this bishop getting pinned by the rook or anything of that nature. So now McDonald is facing this position, it's black to move, and this move is going to trigger the swindle, so go ahead and PAUSE the video, take as long as you need to, and try to come up with a move that McDonald found, to swindle the win away from Gary Kasparov. Okay, so we're going to get right into it here. The move that McDonald found was, rook captures bishop on G3, check! Now, the king was defending the bishop, so the king can take the rook, which was what was played in the game. So king captures rook. Now watch this beautiful move that McDonald comes up with. Actually, you know what? Go ahead and pause the video and see if you can find it yourself first. But watch this, queen check on E5! Now Kasparov is in a World of trouble. He can't ignore this, because if he ignores it, he just outright loses his queen, and loses the game, so the only option that he has, is to capture, but the black king has absolutely nowhere to go, so the queens taken away this diagonal here, as well as these squares here on G5 and H5, and the bishop's carving along this diagonal taking away G6 and H7. Absolutely beautiful move! And in fact if we go back, you might be asking yourself, "What are some options here, after the rook takes on G3?" There really aren't any good options, for example, if the King moves to H2, well it's just Checkmate, its game over at that point, so Kasparov couldn't play that. If after the capture, the kings tries to go up the board to H4, well, what happens here, is simply another rook check, and the king is going to capture, at which point another check from the queen on D7, and we're still in a stalemate position. In fact if we go back here instead of the capture if he goes back to H3, then Kasparov just loses the piece outright and he's down a substantial amount of material and is probably going to lose the game from this point. So it’s an absolutely beautiful strategy that McDonald came up with and his king placement on H6 was key! Like I mean, if the king wasn't on ... he was getting checked so many times from Kasparov, but once he was allowed to sit on H6, and remain on H6, given the way his other pieces were laid out, this allowed for the swindle to take place. So I thought it was a really interesting position to look at. Alright! Let's get to the questions. Okay, the first question I have is, I’m kind of struggling a little bit with this extra channel that I was thinking of doing. YouTube has obviously changed, I think there was a way I can add like a google+ page or something. Anyway, there’s some steps I have to take, but I’m really struggling if I want to do that or if I just want to add it to this channel, maybe keep the extra non-chess content coming out like Mondays or Tuesdays, and then the other days for chess content when I can. And, it’s not going to be a bunch of random stuff, probably be some League of Legends stuff, it's a very competitive E-Sports game, with lots of cash tournament prizes, that I find really really fun, and strategic and in some ways similar to chess, and potentially some working out videos. I like to go to the gym, I’ve developed some routines with my son so, you know, things like that. I don’t know. I'm kind of torn between creating a brand new channel, or just kind of adding it to this one, because this channel is about what I am pursuing, and my interest especially chess, and these other things I find quite interesting too. So I am definitely looking forward to your feedback on that, let me know what you guys think. Secondly, let’s talk about that YouTube channel I came across. I was just browsing through YouTube, checking out some new stuff that’s been coming out over the years for chess, and I stumbled across this link to a video, and the name that was on it was Greg Shahade, and I’m hoping I pronounced that right, but the name rung a bell for me. I think his sister is quite competitive in the poker scene, and as well a very strong chess player, and I think I have seen her do tournament coverage before and, so anyway the last name stuck out. So I clicked it, sure enough, I am really glad that I did, the content is amazing, the quality is top-notch this gentlemen’s around, hovers around 2500 rating on Internet Chess Club consistently. I believe he could become a GM if he wanted to. I am sure he'll maybe get into the story as to why he's not doing that, but I can’t see why he wouldn't because he's beating GM's at blitz quite frequently. One of the things that really stuck out to me about his channel, like when he does chess endgame practices and tactical positions he actually puts it on his screen and works through it, he doesn't go into there, kind of pre-working through it, he's working through it live on the screen. So you get to see a very very strong chess player and the thought process that goes behind working out very difficult chess positions. You cannot beat that for free videos. To be honest I would probably pay for that! So, hopefully he doesn't start charging, but you cannot go wrong with his channel so I am going to link it up on the video on the screen right now, make sure you check that out. Go over, subscribe to his channel, grab yourself a coffee or tea, or whatever you like to drink, and just sit back, and relax and enjoy a lot of top quality chess content. This channel of his, it needs to be bigger. The word needs to get spread out about this and his subscriber count needs to go up, because he is going to be doing some awesome things. He already has done some awesome things on this channel. So I am really looking forward to the feedback on the questions that I had regarding my channel, make sure you go over to Greg Shahade's, click on that subscribe button, watch those videos, have a lot of fun, and ya, that’s about it! So take care, thanks for watching the video, and will see you next time!