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Welcome back to chessopenings.com Today's video is all about the Pirc
opening which begins with the moves, e4 and pawn to d6. With this modest
looking move, what Black is looking to do is develop his pieces as quickly
as possible and keep the White center restrained. Only later will he plan a
counterattack against the center. Let's take a look.
The Pirc defense begins with the moves, pawn to e4 and pawn to d6. Right
away Black is doing something a little audacious. He's allowing White an
opportunity to occupy the center with the strong move, pawn to d4. Unlike
other openings where Black allows White to do this, Black's strategy is to
leave the center unchallenged for quite some time to come. Instead, Black
will use what's called a hyper-modern strategy, that is to say, he'll focus
on developing his pieces quickly, let's say, knight f6, g6, bishop g7. He's
going to focus on developing his pieces quickly restraining the opponent's
center and only later does he plan to use his piece pressure plus pawn
strikes, such as c5 or pawn to e5 to launch a counterattack in the center.
White on the other hand, is going to try to maintain this powerful center
that he has, this powerful duo that he has at the center, and at the same
time he wants to complete his development and then systematically advance
the center forward into the opponent's position.
After the move, pawn to d4, Black now plays knight to f6. Black's first
move in the Pirc, pawn to d6, is actually designed to prevent e4 to e5
here. It makes so that this knight to f6 is much more stable. If White
tries to move pawn to e5 just to show how this works, Black would profit
now on the fact that he can exchange on e5 with pawn takes pawn on e5, pawn
takes pawn. Now he would simply win material with the moves, queen takes
queen on d1 and king takes queen, and then simply knight g4 attacking both
f2 and e5. Clearly the move pawn to e5 is out of the question. Instead,
what White needs to play in this position is knight to c3 simply defending
the e4 plot. Now Black plays pawn to g6. With this move he's looking to
develop the position to g7, complete his king side development and train
the bishop towards the center. This position is the main starting point of
the modern Pirc opening. Black's plan of playing bishop g7 and castles king
side and then chipping away at the center with pawn to c5 or perhaps pawn
to e5, is fairly straightforward here.
White, on the other hand, has a few different strategies which he can
choose from. One idea, for example, would be to advance pawn to f4. This is
known as the Austrian attack, aiming to one day play that move, e4 to e5,
anyway and violently attack later in the game. Of course, the drawback of
this strategy is that White is spending even more time on pawn moves, and
this means Black's counterattack may be more successful if Black can
deliver the blow in time. Another strategy for White is simply the pawn
development strategy, knight f3 and then simple bishop b2 followed by
castle and king side. This is known as the classical setup. This is also an
option for White.
Today we're going to check out a highly interesting system more or less the
150 attack. That begins with the move, bishop to e3. With the move, bishop
e3, White is signaling a number of important things which we'll get to in
just a moment. However, I just want to point out that White is making
it,more difficult for Black to achieve the move, pawn to c5, since the
bishop is,now bringing that square under observation. Also, White is
signaling that he plans to develop his queen side pieces, castle to king on
the queen side. Then to play for a pawn storm attack on the king side. In
fact, this so called 150 attack has now been widely recognized as one of
White's very best options against the Pirc opening.
Over time, many master players handling the Black pieces have felt so
intimidated by the attack White gets in this system that they searched for
methods to avoid castling king side. Or even, they avoided Fianchettoing
the bishop. For this reason, some players have begun playing with the move,
pawn to c6 and then after queen d2 Black simply plays pawn to b5,
threatening to oust this knight on c3 and attack this pawn on e4. To cover
the e4 pawn, White simply plays bishop d3 when Black replies with his own
simple developing move, knight B to b7. Black's idea here is to get a
little head start on attacking the queen side. This will make castling
queen side somewhat less attractive for White. Another benefit of this
setup is that by avoiding bishop g7, Black has avoided the standard
exchanging maneuver, bishop h6 which you'll get a chance to see in just a
moment.
Of course, there are also some real drawbacks to Black's strategy here as
well. If White simply remains calm and plays something like knight at 3
followed by castling king side, he does lose some of his capacity for an
attack on the king side, but he can reason that he's achieved a little lead
in development, and he still maintains the center pawns, and perhaps these
pawns on the queen side turn out to be weakened one day. This plan of c6
and b5 is interesting, but ultimately White can still count on an advantage
in these positions.
Let's take a look at the more natural move, bishop to g7, to find out how
White still builds his attack there. White can simply go ahead with the
move, queen to d2, but often he likes to start with the move, pawn to f3,
so he never has to worry about knight g4 after the move, queen d2. Another
strong point about the move, pawn to f3, is that White is starting to
support his king side pawn storm. He's ready to start looking for g2 to g4
and h2 to h4. This is also a strategically helpful move for White.
Once again, if he'd like, Black can delay or even just get rid of the
concept altogether of castling his king by simply playing pawn to c6.
Ultimately, after the move, queen b2 and b5, White gets a pleasant game
after either g4 or simply even castling king side. It may appear that Black
has a little bit of a head start on the queen side attack in this position.
However, because Black has already played bishop g7 in this position,
bishop h6 will be much stronger when White achieves it. Instead, after the
move, f2 to f3, Black often prefers to castle king side. Let's recall that
in doing this Black is simply with his overall opening strategy of
developing quickly and then striking against the center later.
Many games have eventually demonstrated, however, that White gets great
attacking chances here, but many players handling the Black pieces still
aim for this traditional setup. The idea is that after White's standard
play, queen to d2, Black begins counter strike in the center with pawn to
e5, knight g d2 and then knight to c6, putting pressure on the d4 point.
From this position White has a couple of different ways of building his
attack. For example, d4 to d5 is a definite possibility here. The simplest
approach is probably castles king side, just leaving
this tension alone in the center and completing development. Now White
very primed to begin launching his with the move, g2 to g4, as soon as he
gets the opportunity.
To show an example of how White's attack comes together, after the popular
move, a6 preparing b5, White can continue with his stock move, g2 to g4,
beginning the sharp attack on Black's king. Black plays b5 and Black's idea
is simply to play b4 and bring those pawns forward in search of an attack
on the queen side. It's now this moment that White plays d5. No matter
whether Black plays the knight to e7 or to a5, White will continue with the
move, knight g3, and he's getting very close to the big attack idea, which
is simply h4 and h5 beginning to open lines and create a critical attacking
condition for White here.
At the same time, White is also with his last move uncovered the bishop on
f1 so that if the knight were to try to sink itself into c4, White would
simply capture the knight and then get on with his ambitions on the king
side. These positions are so dangerous for Black that we might even go so
far as to say that he's close to being objectively lost, and it's positions
like these that have modern grand masters so enthusiastic about White's
chances in the so called 150 attack. Realistically, after White has castled
on the queen side, Black probably needs to try another strategy rather than
that straightforward move pawn to a6. Therefore, another popular attempt
has been pawn takes pawn on d4, knight takes pawn on d4, knight takes
knight, bishop takes knight, and now bishop to e6. By bringing about some
exchanges, Black has freed his position a bit and no longer has to worry
about d4 to d5 since he's exchanged the pawn off from d4. However, White
still has plenty of scope for a king side attack whereas Black is a long
ways away from creating real threats against White's king. In positions
where both sides castle on opposite sides of the board, attacking the king
is the essential strategy, and Black is still probably going a little too
slowly here. So White simply continues with the move, g2 to g4.
Now to the [inaudible 10:17] aggressive post, Black plays c5, and after
bishop e3 he plays queen a5. There are fascinating complications ahead. If
White tries to take on d6, he actually will find himself in big trouble
after the outstanding move, knight takes e4, a sharp tactical blow which
wins in all variations. For example, if White plays pawn takes knight on
e4, he immediately runs into bishop takes c3. If he were to try to
recapture this bishop, he would simply lose after a queen a3 check. If
White moves the king to d2 which would be the only move here actually,
Black would, of course, play rook a d8 picking up the queen. If the king
moves to b1, there's the standard mating procedure. Bishop takes A to
check, king a1, bishop b3 check, king b1 and it will be mate on c2. So
White cannot recapture on c3. This means that he is simply going to be down
in material in this position.
The other option would be knight takes e4. However, after knight takes e4,
Black plays rook F to d8 and no matter where we bring the queen we're going
to get hit with the same tactical blow. For example, after queen g3, it's
lights out after bishop takes b2 check. After king takes b2, queen takes a2
check, and it's going to be mate next move, either king c3, queen a3 mate
or king c1, queen a1 mate. If White were to take on c5 with the queen
rather than moving the queen to g3 it would still be lights out with bishop
takes b2 check. King takes b2, queen takes a2 and now in this situation
Black doesn't have the simple mate queen a3 mate, but he's still completely
winning after the move, rook takes d1, when he has way too many threats in
this positions, and the material is roughly equal so White is simply lost.
So White can definitely not take the pawn on d6, but the general consensus
here is still that Black is in quite a bit of danger and what White will
simply do in this position is bishop h6, or perhaps he'll do something
about the a2 pawn with king b1 or a3. Each of these strategies still leaves
White with an initiative. my favorite being bishop to h6. Even though Black
is in quite a bit of danger in this position as well, his position is much
more solid than the disastrous scenarios we saw when he tried to play the
straightforward a6 and b5 in the previous positions that we looked at.
Once again, keep in mind that grand masters today often avoid these kinds
of positions by either refusing to castle or even sometimes refusing to
Fianchetto the dark squared bishop even after Black has played the move,
pawn to g6. As we've seen Black is just a couple natural developing moves
away from an incredibly dangerous situation, and so many club players will
fall into this situation. That's it for today, and I'll see you again soon.