More Instructive Online Games From A GM

GM Illingworth

Aug 13, 2024, 9:45 AM | 3

Hello, chess friends!

I am back with three more annotated games I played on Chess.com. These games and notes can help you discover some interesting opening ideas and see how I outplayed players rated between 2100 and 2450 Bullet.

When searching through my Chess.com games from the last 3-4 days (since my previous post), I found seven other instructive games I played that deserve to be annotated. However, I will be sharing these notes exclusively with my private students. Feel free to email me at illingworthchess@gmail.com or send a message to https://m.me/max.illingworth.16 if this interests you.

Now for the games!

Game 1 - Double Fianchetto vs. The QGD

Our first game features a Double Fianchetto setup that Kasparov used to win a must-win game in the last game of the 1987 World Championship Match (against Karpov) to retain his World Championship title. It's pretty easy to play as White and leads to strategically rich positions, with a lot of scope to outplay the opponent.

In the game, my opponent quickly fell into a tactic, and lost without a fight:

As you can see, this Double Fianchetto setup can be played via several move orders, such as 1. Nf3/2.g3, 1. Nf3/2.c4, and 1. c4/2.g3. If you already play the Catalan or Flank Openings, it's only a small setup to add such systems to your White repertoire.

Game 2 - Punishing The Winckelmann-Reimer Gambit

In our next game, we see White go for a Blackmar-Diemer style approach against the Winawer French, with 4.a3 Bxc3 5.bxc3 dxe4 6.f3. Objectively speaking, it's not very good, but Black should know how to deal with it. In the game, White never demonstrated compensation for the pawn:

When choosing sidelines to play, I like to pick sidelines that are at least somewhat sound (not worse for White, and no more than slightly worse for Black). They also need to score well in a way that doesn't just rely on cheap traps. Alas, 6.f3 fails both of those criteria.

Game 3 - Move Ordering Semi-Slav Players

Our final game for this post covers how to trip up Semi-Slav players with the Slow Slav move order (3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3). This variation leads to quite interesting strategic play, and if Black plays too routinely, he can quickly end up in a passive position, as my game shows:

Despite the mistakes, this game is quite instructive for demonstrating the power of meeting...c5 with d5, when the tactics work in White's favour.

Next Steps

As noted before, I'll analyse 7 more of my recent Chess.com games in a similar style to this post, exclusively for my private students. I focus on making my private coaching program the best for my students.

I do this through:

- Thorough preparation of unique material for each private lesson (which the student can review in their own time);
- Analyzing my students' games before the lesson and giving feedback;
- Asking questions/setting puzzles during the lesson, then giving feedback on the student's thought process;
- Providing a clear training plan and tailored material for students in each lesson;
- Providing additional material and support for students in an exclusive DIscord server;

- Weekly live group 'Workshops' on important chess topics;

- All on top of the 1-hour private lesson each week.

If this interests you, email me at illingworthchess@gmail.com or message https://m.me/max.illingworth.16. Because of the time involved in delivering these benefits and the lessons, I've limited capacity to 10 private students, so reach out soon to avoid missing out.

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