Sicilian Najdorf | French | Alekhine | Chigorin - GM Yasser Seirawan - 2013.07.17 

this is such good content for free

22:32 is just hilarious. I love GM Yasser Seirawan

What an awesome lecture! Kudos to the cameraman for following Yasser's pointing this time. More like this!

over the years i've been in a lot of classes and met a lot of professors and teachers but in my heart i know GM Yasser is someone whose lecture i'd sit at gladly for hours. he is such a gift to listen to.

He continues to surprise me. What a fantastic teacher.

GM Seirawan, you are simply awesome and highly appreciated. Best regards from Germany.

The best chess teacher ever!

Of the many Seirawan talks in this series, this is one of the best. Although not trying to analyze a specific variation (he actually demos about 4 different lines on request), for each he describes a line of his choosing to provide some flavor and describes the evolution of thought behind what he's showing. Also, I fully endorse Seirawan's recommendation to look for the world's greatest proponent for whatever the student is trying to learn. This is the inverse of what I teach is that one of the first things the beginning student should do is discover his personal playing philosophy and then find a world class player (historic or current) to be the model for choice of openings. The result is that this video is filled with not only some excellent Seirawan dommentary, there is a splash of how to learn and colored with personal anecdotes of his conversations with other world GMs. Very enjoyable.

Yasser. I love your lectures. You present ideas in such a calm, collected manner. Thank you so much for this.

Love this guy's voice :)

The Nimzowitch reference is so true. If you read My System you know what I mean.

Oh my word. I had questions about some of these precise lines. And then bam. I find a Yasser video. He's so awesome! Yasser Seirawan and Daniel King are the GOATs of Chess teachers!!! (and obviously they were great players too!)

Yasser is so easy to listen to and learn from.

The Dutch used the name of the seaside town of Scheveningen as a shibboleth to tell Germans from the Dutch ("Sch" in Dutch is analyzed as the letter "s" and the digraph "ch", producing the consonant cluster [sx], while in German it is analyzed as the trigraph "sch," pronounced [ʃ]). upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Nl-Scheveningen.ogg

Fantastic once again! What a treat..for free!

you are true master. the only clearly explained openings on the world

It would be super awesome if GM Seirawan would do a lecture on the Caro-Kann

Seirawan has such a gentle way about him. He can insult you without upset. "Turkey butt" cracked me up

Great lecture, as always. When I used to play the French Defense (as black), I had more trouble with Nc3 and Nd2 than I did with e5 (advance variation). However, I was only 1400-1500 rated at the time and playing against players of similar strength. They didn't know the French Advance as well as I did, since they also had to prepare for e5, c5, c6 and the off-beat defenses, as well. I did try out the Rubenstein, Winawer and Tarrasch variations, against Nc3 and Nd2, but didn't have a lot of success with them. I ended up switching to the Sicilian, after a while.

Very instructive. Good lection.

scheveningen sounded more like shenanigans the way Yasser prounounces it, nice lecture as usual btw

Good content and interesting analysis. Thanks Yasser...

Is he talking about chess...? Or he is a standup comedy man..? :P

great teacher...........

Probs my favorite GM

At 4:45 - 4:48 who is GM Seierwan giving the bird to?

Hilarious and educational! Yasser you're the best.

Unfortunately I think a lot of this video is starting to get a bit out of date. Just FYI if anyone is looking to learn from it.

You don't have to play f4. You can also play Qd2, though this doesn't appeal to some aggressive players like Seirawan.

Always the smOOth voice

Ik ben met seven schaapen naar scheveningen gegaan this was the key sentence to read and discover your hidden nationality if diferent from dutch

Brilliant lecture

Don't like calling Nimzovich horrible. He's one of greatest chess thinkers of his time, and has inspired a generation of chess player . With his book "My System"

PLEASE CAN WE HAVE AN EXCLUSIVE VIDEO ON THE ALEKHINE DEFENCE PLEASEEEEE!!!!

3. c4 is a very normal move in the Alekhine that transposes to the mainline. 1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. c4 Nb6 4. d4 and we are back to the mainline.

I like my Yasser Seirawan 1.5x speed

Nimzo stuff was great

The name is even more elaborate: it's Ah-le-okh-in!

that was fun. Oh and it is pronounced: 'Scheveningen' :)

whats that parody part about? that part with those "introduced by myself' moves?

hhahah 22:59 I have read My System by Nimzowitsch and this is all true what Yasser is saying! lol I thought that I was the only one who noticed that :)

Isn't Bc4 in the Najdorf called the Lipnitzky Attack? Edit: Apparently both are correct.

Wrong topics. The last part is not Cigorin defense but Ruy Lopez Chigorin variation.

change the speed to 1.5x...just perfect...

Lol against alekhine defence i play this variation on blitz games which is funny but requests attention and that is 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.c4!? Nb6 4.a4!? and now if black plays 4...a5 i continue with 5.Nf3 d6 6.exd6 cxd6 7.d4 g6 and 8.b3 with the plan 9.Bb2 and 10.Na3!(the key move that defends against Nc6-b4-Bf5 and also allows Nb5 at some time of the game) and i always get more space and the idea is that blacks Knight on b6 is misplaced since b3 and c4 are stopping his advance,thus its a loss

Thank you yasser, you give me an enormous amount of pleasure while i study chess with my faithul cat alekhine by my side. Surprised you did not mention here 6.f3 e5! (instead of your 6 . .e6 here ) When faced with the najdorf 6.Be3 i always play e5! but now if 7.Nf3 this always annoys me as the game will become rather positional when i always seek sharp tactical melees.I have finally, after many painful defeats realised that a knight on the f3 square is a long way from controlling the d5 square (especially if black has the time to cut out a white Bg5 with a timely . .h6!) and there ARE lines whereby black can 'tip toe' around a white controlled d5 square but it takes a good sense of position (not to mention courage) So, 6.f3 e5! and i now have my wish as 7.Nf3 is impossible. That said however, 6.f3 DOES cut out my favourite 'anti english attack' system via 6.Be3 Ng4!? so no easy draw by repetition possible there via 7.Bc1 Nf6 8. Be3 Ng4 9.Bc1 Nf6 etc etc. All in all 6.f3 in the Najdorf is best met by 6. . e5!? for a black 'najdorfist' and for a black 'scheveningist' then probably 6 ..e6!?

Lol, i only understanded that schevaningang after he explained it was on the dutch coast :) Scheveningen is indeed really hard to pronounce as a foreigner.

I know a gentleman of Dutch descent who is unable to pronounce his own last name.

Merci beaucoup pour cette lecture échiquéenne.

Chess softwares which can move the pieces with voice commands are very much needed. Hope some one is working on this.

very good style

My System is a great book as one of the first to be studied after you have learned the rules: Basic development and general ideas of sound play. It was written in 1925 - 1927 and is inarguably THE foundation of modern chess. It marks the end of old school ideas, mainly advocated by Tarrasch. These two guys were probably not friends on Facebook, Twitter or Linked-In ... (Before 1900 you even let your opponent win a "briiliant mating attack" that could easily be refuted out of gentleman-like courtesy. Good and solid defense was frowned upon!) To compare My System with modern works written 80 years later is of course inappropriate, and though Yasser is great fun it may be a bit unfair to ridicule Nimzowitsch like that. Yes, full of flaws and inaccuracies, and both Nimzo and Tarrasch took every opportunity to describe their own brilliancy ... "the battle of ideas" extended far beyond the board ... but it is so easy for us to point out fawlty play, even by the Super GM's of all times with engines of today. No question about it: There IS "before and after" My System in chess history. Yasser of course knows this. As he points out: "Learn from other people's mistakes." Chess authors write better books today ... but good ol' Nimzo was THE first reaching in to "the modern world" after Steinitz and Tarrasch.

MVL is probably another najdorf player to adopt.

I was under the impression that "My System" by Nimzowitsch was a good chess book.

Woohoohehehehehe! oh Yasser :)

"They greedy busters" ;)

@7:30 ah, you mean "Scheveningen" xD

3. e5 is considered relatively passive against the French. 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Qb6 Black's position is perfectly fine.

Love GM Seirawan and his lectures,wonderful man and teacher.With all due respect then, he shouldn't have described chess Master Sozin as a 'second rate master'' that was a bit cheap.A variation in chess takes its name from the person that invented it,not by the chess player who played it better in the history of chess.And since Sozin was born in 1896 ,Yasser's remark was unfortunate.

what is the name of the player whom the sir is refering to french defense advance varaition

Wait so this opening is being demonstrated for BLACK yes?

22:34 That is funny

what if we're playing black?

4:44

There's just soooo much theory.

At the 32 min marks, how is it you castle through check?

I believe the name is a-Lek-in.

Shay vuh nin geh

of time and the knight must come all around again at d7 and possibly on f6 and white will have enough time to maybe attack on center or try to invade blacks queen side with the move Nb5

5:06 I think I woke up my roommate laughing

12 minutes knightxf3 is hanging

haha those greedy bastards!!

Strange that he never was worldchampion. He understands so much about chess. But it is so easy to overlook small things on the highest levels.

***** I can pronounce this on my first try perhaps because I speak Russian?

4:45 LUL

4:44 f u guise