Artur Yusupov Gives Second Lecture in World Champions Series

On Sunday December 20, former world number three GM Artur Yusupov gave the second lecture in a new series of monthly “interactive lectures” on some of the best players in history. This month he discussed Mikhail Botvinnik, the sixth world chess champion. Mr. Yusupov began the lecture with one of his own games that was seen by Botvinnik. He shared the game and Botvinnik’s comments on it, chief among them a reference to a famous game by Rabinovich. From his study of this game, Botvinnik knew exactly how to play the position that Yusupov ended up losing. Yusupov showed the game and talked a little about the overarching point of this lecture: the power of recognizing even subtle themes that occur in multiple games and applying this. After a short break, he went on to show several more closely related games, one of Botvinnik’s and few more games that the world champion studied. He highlighted in this section Botvinnik’s remarkable patience in his preparing everything when in a superior position in order to maintain complete dominance. Yusupov ended with a few words on how all of the games in the lecture were based on the same idea of the power of an exchange sacrifice that leaves the side with less material a passed pawn and an extremely dangerous position. He also talked about that which was likely Botvinnik’s greatest talent: his ability to learn positional ideas such as the one from the lecture from only one example where most players would need a minimum of four or five.

            The strength of the attendees varied greatly at this lecture, ranging from Austin Chen, who has about a 1000 rating, to 2300-rated Haik Der Manuelian.  Clearly GM Yusupov has made a successful effort to make his lecture interesting for all attendees.

After the lecture, almost all of the participants stayed for a complimentary blitz tournament. Haik and Aaron Shlionsky were tied for first going into the last round. After a bitter fight, Haik emerged victorious and won with a total of 6.5/7. Everyone had fun and everyone except Alessandro (who had to leave early) earned at least one point.

Please join us for our next lecture on January 10, 2016 when GM Artur Yusupov will talk about the revolutionary first World Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz.

See you there!