Great Players of the Past: Alexander Alekhine

thank you hello everyone, I'm National Teacher Spencer Feingle oh wait a minute oh just a second let me try at first glance it's Grandmaster Ben Feingold teaching the Tuesday class as usual unfortunately our topic today is Alexander Alakine and/or Alyokin and/or uh uh uh yeah like that um and like that that's a good Rick and Morty reference anyway um he was a controversial chess player uh to say the least um he gets a lot more credit than he deserves I'm one of yours, let's see what's the opposite of a fan hater yes I'm one of the biggest alkyne haters in the world so I thought I'd give him a lecture, that sounds like a good idea now that Kasparov said he was one of the best

players

ever the times and then he based his game on his play and Fisher said he was one of the 10

great

est

players

of all time and the craziest comment ever made by anyone was Levonaronian who is known for saying crazy things, dressing crazy and act crazy and said that Alkyne is the best player who ever lived, probably. he was between 20 and 30 years old if I had to place him somewhere but I would place them somewhere um it's clear that he wasn't as good as laughter or capablanca as the tournament results indicate, but I think a lot of people like his style of he plays more um although I don't know that he would like his style more than Alaska anyway uh and one of the reasons why I'm one of his detractors is because when I was a kid my dad and my father taught me chess.

He's the biggest Kappa Blanca fan in the world and obviously if you like Kappa Blanca you're not a big Alicine fan because Alakyne, you know, stole the title, wouldn't give it back and kept going like he was chasing him, but Alicon was running fast. you know this and that, for those of you who are not aware of the topic, at least one of you in this room and all of you at home in 1927, Alekine played a world championship match with Capablanca and Kappa Blanket it was like wow . what an easy opponent and then Alachim won. I think it was about 35 games.

I'm one game in, maybe I'm two games in and I think they won six to three, but I could be wrong with a lot of draws. I could look it up. but that would take valuable seconds and Kappa Blank obviously wanted a rematch in which he would win and Alakine said he moved his eyes from one side of the rematch to the other and instead alicine found the worst players to play with and still couldn't beat them playing to Begolia Bob. I think twice. you know why you have heard about begoli above because he played matches with alecan and Karen is like Bulgaria what are we talking about but you have heard about the Indian BOGO.

I have heard of begonia because he is the thread probably yes, it is true because I give lectures. occasionally alecai lost to max irv, of course, because alakyne occasionally drank like when he was awake and then supposedly stopped drinking for the rematch. I don't believe that now in the Wikipedia article that I read obviously my whole life before I read the Wikipedia article. I heard various things about how he died, he was murdered, he died of natural causes, he drowned with me and he died in Portugal, which I didn't know because what do I know? And of course a grandmaster who lived in Portugal for about 30 years is the Canadian Grandmaster Kevin Spragget and I think he married a Portuguese woman anyway, he became interested in how Alakyne died and he researched it and in his opinion , the Russians killed him well and the main suspect is very strange.

According to almost everyone it's Trump, I couldn't believe it, it's like Trump killed Alicorn, wow, anyway, okay, maybe it wasn't Trump, but it could have been like his grandfather, so I don't believe that, I don't think Elakim was. killed by the Russians but I wasn't there, this was in 1946, so it was like Mr. Burns would say, it was 25 years before I was born, okay, so the official cause of death is that he drowned on a piece of meat, so it's okay. then I could make some South Park jokes, but then Karen would have to get a real editor here, not the Joker, yeah, yeah, anyway, so today we're going to talk about alakai, now alakyne was a good attacking player, um, even better than a drinker, he was a really good attacking player and unlike a lot of people from so long ago, he was very interested in the opening and, for players now, that's all they talk about now, the players in the room and the players watching at home. the opening does not matter, however, for the best players in the world they believe that it is a very important thing that they can get an advantage against their contemporaries and alkyne and especially botvanic, then of course they believe that too and before that you know that they play the opening. a little suspiciously and his opening notes were also suspicious that someone would play the most common opening of all time and thus lose because it was a move also similar to the King's Indian.

What's the matter? Although maybe that's true, King's Indian probably loses, but anyway. alkyne did a lot of opening analysis and not only the opening that bears his name, which was not played very often, there is also the alakyne variation and the french where they play H4 they put it in H, the L is in shartard attack, yes, that is. That's a lot of other openings, okay, so of course, he died very young or was murdered, nobody knows, okay, some people think they know, but I don't know, that guy has a lot of famous schemes, very famous games and Unfortunately for him, one of the reasons I'm not his biggest fan is in the 19s, you know, tens, 20s and 30s, when he played in tournaments with Lasker in Kappa Blanca.

You wouldn't bet that Alakain would get there first now if Kappa Blanca Alaska wasn't playing. I'd bet he'd get there first, okay? So you know he's kind of the St. Louis Cardinals Chess, so that's enough, uh, yeah. I guess we'll talk about Kappa Blanca the rest of the time, so this was a game he played against begoliabov. I tried to find someone good but I couldn't so no, no, I'm kidding. I think his most famous game is against Rady, but you guys aren't ready for that game, are you? Nothing, they know the game. I'm talking about what you do well, oh what?

Yes, are you ready? Yeah, anyway, we'll see a couple more games. Let's look at this game that I'm not very familiar with. I have seen it. Spencer was more familiar. then the next game, which I talked about in a previous lecture, but not the full game, just the ending, but now we will look at the full game and show you how people of different levels made people. Western levels seem quite weak and that's the problem and it's actually a double edged sword, so the problem with games that were played between 70 and 200 years ago is that a lot of them were very one-sided, which in It's actually very good for Teaching that that guy played well, that guy played badly, look today, if I show you a game between Carlson and Carolina, I say, yeah, they both play well, you play like that, I mean, you can't learn of that because you play badly, so when you play badly, you want to show how you should be punished so that you stop playing badly, but if everyone plays well, how are you going to learn from that?

That's why there is the famous book by Irva and Maiden, you can say it all together: chess master versus chess fan. then one guy beats up the other, that's why when I give lectures I often show my games because I play Rufus and Doofus all the time. I play with people rated 1000-2000 like half the time, especially my extra rated games. all the moves are bad my moves are mostly good because the slow game not all and then they get the smackdown so this first game is not the smackdown but begoli evolved very well in the game the second game was a SmackDown , okay, so let's go.

Check out. Alikine was black now according to the internet, so you know it's true for all world champions. Alakyne had the most decisive games unlike today or, like Magnus, I'm sure he has more draws than any player who has ever lived or will live. and therefore he is the best of all time, but Gary would agree now in the Isle of Man tournament that has just ended. They know what I'm talking about. Karen knows that yes, there were two players who had 11 draws in 11 games, that's how they play chess today. Um, that's actually my only criticism of Capablanca.

Too many draws, okay, but Alkyne too many wins, although playing Begolia, Bob, now you can see why, but above I had a very famous saying that I'm sure everyone knows when I'm white. I went because I'm white when I'm black I win because I'm begolia love truth and I took that thing for myself when I'm white I win because I'm white when I'm black I lose the truth it hurts now The reason I gave you that Spiel was because you don't have to try them all the games if you don't want today's players to want to lead every game, so everything is

great

, no one loses.

Well, then we have the Magnus Carlson apologists. on Twitter you meet his PR guys and they say he hasn't lost a game in 100 games or whatever and my response is he doesn't want to give up 100 games now so the point is if you don't. I want to draw Magnus obviously wants to lead every game in an Isle of Man 11 rounds How many draws did he probably seven? Well, any type per second. How do you have seven ties? 11 games tied for one second. Which everyone just ties every game. The answer. Okay, so when you play tournaments in the US, and I've said this in other conferences, you can't tie your games and make it to second US tournaments, they're mostly Swiss, so it's not around Robin where the 10 are. the players are Grandmasters and you can have seven ties in one win, it's the world open, the US Open, the Chicago Open, the Foxwoods National Open, if you want to win these tournaments, drawing all your games is not the way to do it, you have to win a lot.

Therefore, many of the best American players who have played in these tournaments over the last 40 years have a very reckless style, it is not good. Reckless, the Israeli GM, you're probably thinking that, but Reckless, you have to win, so that's how Alkyne played in this game. because he can drop a goalkeeper over horrible, okay, so he played well with the Dutch and there are two openings. I hate openings that are intolerant of other openings and the Dutch are very good, so he got it. Yes, you should be a gold member of our club. a member of Feingold, okay, not only Alachine played against the Dutch, who don't have a great reputation, okay, let's test the class here, big bet.

Nobody knows the answer. The American grandmaster hates the Dutch more than anyone and I mean the answer. It's John Fedorowitz if you are his student you played with the Dutch you are no longer a student if he gives a simulation against a group of people and you play with the Dutch against him he yells at you during the cymol every move he says oh you are still there playing against the Dutch, I mean, you already played, yeah, Fedoras doesn't like the Dutch. Another world champion who played a lot against the Dutch was in good class. Bob Finnick, okay, now the reason the Dutch are good is because you get unusual and complicated positions.

Hikaru Nakamura's favorite he plays a lot against the Dutch and in fact even Fabiano will play against the Dutch if he has to win because you don't get boring positions you get weird positions the opponent confuses you. Archer loves that position, the Dutch, yes, yes. I've never seen him play against the Dutch, yes you guys he plays the England Gambit, yes go be Dutch. Okay, now if you play the Dutch in consecutive rounds, what is that double dutch thing called? There you go, there's a guy who's paying attention. Well, then they played normally. To begin with, this is normal Dutch, it's okay nowadays if a grandmaster plays Dutch, yes, they normally don't play E6, but Leningrad Dutch, which starts with the key G6 and hugs the bishop, and if not, they can play The Stonewall, one of the players in the last 30 years who played a lot against the Dutch as their main opener, who obviously everyone knows is Sergey Dolmatov and the reason everyone knows that is because everyone has heard of them, no one , yes, world championship candidate, tough man, okay. so he played with Bishop B to verify, this is more John Spielman territory, not Rudolph Spielman, yes, Rudolph Spielman was a contemporary of Alkyne.

John Spielman is alive now, this should be forech, now these positions wouldn't expect to see many ties because the positions It doesn't make any sense, perfect, okay. Bishop D2. I agree that you can also take the queen so your knight can go to C3, but this is fine now normally in the Dutch, especially in the Stonewall dodge, which hasn't happened yet. These are the White bishops want to exchange, so if Black plays D5 and C6 in a structure you are familiar with, well, the exchange with Black is good. Bishop, that bishop on C is not good, but alkyn did not, he played Knight C6, this is unusual.

Touch it so early, but Alkyne is like I'm not going to play The Stonewall. I have to get my horse out, let's go to C6Now alakyne played B4 and on the internet some people say that was not the best move. Queen H5 attacking the knight on D1. is the best move and to take it with check and the reason is that after B4 you will notice that the queen is attacked. I hope you notice that and the tower on A5 is attacked, so you can play. The rook takes the rook by attacking the queen on E8.

See what? What I'm saying is that if I played Queen H5 and you took care of your knight on D1 and then I played B4, that's the knight of a different color now, if you take my Rook, my Queen won't be attacked because my Queen won't need it anymore. . it means both moves win and alakyn's move is cooler so you have to play that move ok so B4 is the best move for humans for an engine maybe Queen H5 is better win is win. I don't care, so the game continued like this. I said take take take and now the move you all came for is why you're in class today and this actually reminds me of the tall symbol game the game I really like where you take out all his pieces he plays G7 or something like that, with the correct answer, C2 hangs up his rook in check, they lose their king and that C2 pawn looks pretty good, pretty good, now you say, well, obviously, this is good for Black, frankly, it's Well, however, if they were good at giving advice. material is not his strong suit how much white has two rooks ahead of him at this moment you are going to sacrifice two rooks, yes, but he realizes when he makes the queen, that pawn, the queen is much better than those silly rooks, this one , this rock, oh, this bishop, however, this queen and this Knight and tonight now you are talking, yes, that is the Knight demonium, okay and this is a very common tactic and the riddles in the seventh threaten the He queens on two squares and of course if you could put a rook somewhere you could try to defend those squares but you can't do it well so you have to let him reign.

He's still stuck in the corner where he wants to be and probably at least 51 of the time two rooks are better than one queen, but your rooks have to be coordinated and your king has to be safe, okay? The rook in Jitsu obviously traps the bishop. in H1 the white king is not good white's pawns are not white they have nothing the rooks you don't know that nothing happens now if I put these rooks well if I put these rooks like here okay, you may be talking now okay Knight E1 obviously maybe that's why it's wrong and alakai is the best player of all time because of the game giri aronian oronian plays Knight E1 and if only Spencer was here that's one of Spencer's favorite games it's 91 bam it's well, Tower H2 and then the game ended in a draw. now, because it's deadlock, the Queen takes C4, yes, threading the Queen, she takes the Knight mate very hard, so she fires an exchange and then plays with a hell of a reason because that's a good reason, right, and then this is really fun.

Alekine plays King G8 King 8 King H7 because white can't move night and F1 moves because you hang E3 the king can't move because you hang the Knight's pawns have nowhere to go, they moved anyway yes and it was a cleanup bam Queen E2 more tactic the same tactic you have to take the queen now you can stop the queen from making queen in both squares you can do it King F2 and the King implementing is winning easily okay here he quit yeah that's not the way I would have won the game but that game was analyzed by many people, including Kasparov, and the engine says that Black played very well after the suspicious openings of the Dutchman ic6, yes, but one thing that a very Grandmaster told me a long time ago suspicious was that you never move pawns if you make every move that breaks that rule and then he lost all his pawns and didn't control any squares etc., and why begoliabov put all his pieces in the corner doesn't make any sense to me and the fact who played What two games with Alkyne for the world championship were horrible, okay, and last but not least, it's a game I like because he played like me.

You know, when I play against a very weak player, not when I play against anyone. powerful okay and with turning the board again this is alakai versus FD Yates and in this game Yates made a mistake similar to what begolia Bob was doing wrong too many pawn worms okay now first of all looking at this game, it looks like a game. What would I play if I were white that last game? No, no, I wouldn't do any of that, any of that, I wouldn't have captured my queen, I wouldn't play an ic6, I wouldn't play the Dutch, I wouldn't. do some of that okay and then he won because he's all the champion and then this game looks like he was playing now you're talking well why didn't a gray Queen's Gambit appear?

I've had white in this position many times, yes. great beautiful I've had white in this position I've also played Queen C2 here great good and queen good Queen C2 and Rook C1 it's like I'm playing yeah so this is what's happening: the players are playing the waiting game the waiting game sucks, let's play Hungry Hungry Hippo, well that's The Simpsons, now the waiting game is black, he will take C4 and then play Knight to D5 and exchange all the pieces, however this bishop is on F1, so we're going to wait for the bishop to move and then we're going to take C4 and it's going to move again and Alquin says: hey, why don't you take that pawn before I move my bishop?

So he'll play rook C1 and queen C2 and if he wants he could play A3 and H3 and he's still waiting for DC4, but that's okay, like Popeye, he had all he could handle, he can't handle it anymore and then Yates says: okay, great, now I can accept that D5 Knight exchange, all pieces I agree to retire now when it's white. in a Queen's Gambit and I have had very similar positions. I don't think I've had this position, but I could and I don't like to play E4 because I like to use E4. Sometimes I mate my opponent, so I had a pawn on e4, I couldn't do that or sometimes I play Knight E4, sometimes I play Bishop E4, so Alkyne accepts that he plays Knight E4 very well and the idea is that if you exchange bishops, if black does it, when white recovers, he is already threatening the queen H7 and is also stopping more exchanges naive four stops the exchanges and Yates played F5 very anti-positional is fine weakening E6 the bishop is diagonal to the king I don't like F5 now they don't make you on H7 that's good but you're giving up what color of squares what color closes the dark squares yes, you put all your pawns, you put your pawns on white squares, you can't protect the squares dark, the dark square The bishops will be exchanged, I guarantee it, so you are left with this frankly terrible bishop Get ready, get ready, terrible because you already know that, and Karen raises her hand and says I have never had a bad bishop without having one seen, it's never happened, right, it happens all the time, right, and a lot of Queen Point openings with a lot of players. her queen's bishop sits there and they say what I'm doing wrong or in the French defense etc., right, this is a very common problem.

F5 exacerbates that problem, making sure that Black can never do anything, that this bishop has been stuck here forever, okay, so switch. the bishops obviously move the knight back the knight does not play C3 white does not want to exchange white wants to keep all the pieces on the board so black is strangling B5 terrible and he does it, which is an unusual move but forces Black not having counterplay Black's counterplay is at some point to play C5 or E5, it's not going to happen now, if this pawn were here, C5 and E5 would be good, now you can't take with the e pawn you're hanging F pawns , you should take this path, that bishop is useless, you are not going to play C5 unless you have a magic pawn, then go to C5 and you are not going to play E5 because then you will weaken all your pawns. and the F pawns hanging and it's not your turn castle the A5 I don't like it either and obviously of these two pieces which one is better for black which one does black like the night the knights control the dark squares so white exchanges it very suspicious playing A4 putting all his pawns on white squares with his bishop on C8 I mean, who is British?

Then what do you want? I was talking to GM Ginger yesterday, he said Yates is the best player who ever lived. No, no, exactly right now, this is the kind of position I would have with white if I was playing as a 1200 player and then people would walk around and look and wonder why Ben is playing with a 1200 player number one, number two , why did Ben think of the material as if it were equal material and the type? 1200 the 1200 players like it, this seems like a tie, it's like everything is the same, he has 1200. I'll give him a break.

Well, now for Grandmaster they would never have Black in this position because there is an open file and White has it forever and you. I can't protect E5, let's look and this is the worst bishop ever, so everything is the worst. My black ain't got no plan, he ain't funny, ain't his name Frederick, he the worst, what's your point? The worst, is the worst, yes, the truth hurts everyone because of luxury, the truth hurts, yes, who said that we don't learn things here? Okay now I've never shown this whole game which is good because you know I'm pretty suspicious but the end of the game now you're talking about this is the part I haven't shown yet but close close Ok B4 double bubble up Bishop A6 95 o ba ok F3 never play F3 now when you play F3 in this pawn structure normally normally there are two reasons why I will play E4 or you will play G4 in this position neither of those is the reason, the reason can only be known by the Grandmaster Nigel, short, that was a clue, no, that was it.

It was good, it was a good ending. Did you like the track? So you like that ending, yeah, oh, you're like, oh, yeah, short, Tim, okay, yeah, and if White moves his king up, maybe Black can stop it, but I don't see how. so I dominated the C file, my knight dominates your bishop, the only thing it doesn't is that the kings are on the same square and again in the psychology study that was published today, this is the problem you have, you say, wow , my towers are there! good Rook C7 well my night is good knight D7 okay and a grandmaster says well my king is no good let's make my king good and then they pretend they are playing Bug House take a piece make that piece good just keep making pieces good remember Me from a Stewie Young story, your favorite poker.

What is that game called? No Hearts gin rummy. So Stu Young is the best Junior Army player of all time and he just got too good. Nobody wanted to play with him, so he started playing poker and a lot of people think it's him. The best poker player of all time. Not many people think that and he was playing in a poker tournament and behind him there was a gin rummy tournament that he couldn't play in because they wouldn't let him play so he's playing his hand and a friend of his was playing gin rummy and he finished the hand and turned around and said what did you think of that and he, the guy was sitting behind him looking away and Stewie turned around and said, I thought you should have done this. before so even though I was looking the other way playing a different game so yeah okay then you got it you have to do whatever now obviously in Shin rummy to be good instead of being a random person, you have to do everything that ever happened. always yes, I know all the cards in your opponent's hand, if I play with my mom like when I was a kid, she could barely see it was in my hand, okay, but okay, so you can't do just one thing, you have to do everything. so you have to make terrible black pieces, which he did and you have to improve your own pieces, you can't just leave one piece and be, yeah, okay, the one piece bed is good, you make it better, okay, and he blocks it in the A bubble appears here, he comes walking down the street Here comes his king, Black can't move at all and again, like in the last game when the white rook was on G2 and the bishop was on H1 , this is not a position you would see today. a game you can learn from because white got file C white got the best minor piece white got the best king if Grandmasters play today they know this is going to happen so before it happens they don't do that no they would play a move like F5, I mean, after F5, my king can come here, my knight can come here, trading with C5 gives me file C, put all my pawns in white because a bishop can't do anything terrible, okay , always play bishop F1, okay, good, and now. wants tomato in G7 Rook here Rook here Rook G7 is good because here, what is he going to do with black if white doubles?

Okay, so the king got on the board, the rooks got on the board, the knight hasn't moved in a long, long time. time then Knight D7 what's the threat Knight F6 check easy to stop except for one thing it's not easy not easy to stop so there's only one move that makes any sense now Knight F6 you can't take it because Rick H7 did You see What I'm saying, you want to take the Rook if the Rook moves the way you do in G7, but Yates had it all figured out, by the way, he wrote a bad poem,He played Rook f8 and said haha, you can't. take G7, I'll take the knight on F6 and Aliakin said not to talk, you see what I'm saying, yeah, but he did it anyway now, if the black rook was on f8, which it is neither, it doesn't matter , then I play.

H7 rook repeats control and then G7 rook always repeats, so alakyne finished the game and I have given a lecture about this game before king E5 attacked the rook. I just said that if either tower goes to f8, you get mate, you'll probably want to play Tower Cafe too. one else I take your tower now Yates, even though he says he's divorced, he found a way to avoid me and not lose his tower, he quit, yes that will do it, otherwise I'll take your tower and then I'll find you, yeah, so that was it. a very modern type of game from Alkyne, it wasn't like he captured all his pieces and made it or got a mating attack in the opening, that was positional brilliance, he took the C file into the dark squares, it made your opponent's game will move badly. the king of it off the board that's how I like to play it.

I'm not sure if he would do it because I don't like to say that if he takes the piece in the end there was nothing to calculate as I have shown. the end of that game before, um, but it never showed the full game that Yates didn't play very well now, again, we can't compare the games to 100 years later where people play better now because we have to look at these games , I mean. that day I know I read it Yates's chest space wasn't working it didn't work it should never work Yates could never make his chest space work so I didn't know I didn't know the opening very well I know and he was British too, so if you're not sure it was British, I can prove it if you can see it.

I don't know if you can see it because the tournament with London is quite small. London, there are two Londons, yes. I don't know why the lower chest does that, sometimes he points at the city twice, yes, so alky, as you can see in those games, good attacking player, good strategic player, he didn't have many draws. I showed you two decisive games, obviously, and again one of the best players of all time, I'm not his biggest fan, but that's okay, let's be someone's biggest fan and it probably would have been more interesting for everyone, including Alkyne, if would have really had a rematch against Capablanca, then I could have shot at, you know, him. it wasn't capablanca it would be blank again what am I going to do right we'll never know until we go back in time and get the machines to play like them then we'll know for sure yeah ok that's all I want .I have for you today, don't be late, don't forget to like and subscribe, go to the chess club and the Scholastic Center in Atlanta.

I am National Master Spencer Feingold or Grand Master Ben Feingold. I'll look at my wallet and find out, goodbye.