Wow, what a great video! I followed a link from lichess, and I'm glad I did. I love the way you visualize the board without pieces, or with only the key pieces, it really helps me understand the key characteristics of the position and the relevant plans. Thank you!
Same, I also saw the video on Lichess and, since I play the Tartakower myself, decided to check it out. Incredibly useful summary of Black's plans in this structure!
This almost made me want to play another Tartakower game but I remember how in reality 90% of it is random dancing around a couple of squares in hope that White is inaccurate enough to allow pawns to advance, thus breaking free from the hopeless +/= intrinsic to this line (as Kramnik joked, if this is fine for Black then Berlin with its doubled pawns is -/= as Black also has the bishop pair). Yes, you'll pay attention to square control. That's all you do in this line. I don't think it makes it "highly strategic". Good to quickly checkmate someone 200 rating points weaker, or if you want to premove your first 10 moves. Bad if you want to have at least 5 different games from a hundred.
Thanks a lot for the video! I've just increased my (only french) repertoire by adding the Caro-Kann. Would love to see some more videos of you explaining different variations. Especially in the advance with 3.Bf5
This discussion of openings based on the pawn structures and plans is fantastic! I'm lucky enough to play this as Black; this video has taught me some ideas! Is this line really so strictly positional, though? As I've already seen some games where Black plays for the attack, either by making a queen-bishop battery along the b8-h2-diagonal or using the doubled f pawn as a battery ram to shred the kingside of White and the model games that you showed also contained a lot of exciting attacking chess instead of positional maneuvering....
Wow I've seen so many opening videos and this was one of the best. The way you broke down the position and highlighted different ideas individually was so much more helpful than just giving out pages of theory to memorise. Thanks for the high quality video I actually feel like I understand the tartakower now
Thank you, Sir! Your videos are very good and handy. You are explaining thing so clear! You have gift to teach. I've watched almost all of your vids. Thank you for doing this. My dream is reach 2000 fide at some point in this life, would be great. Caro was my first opening against e4. For while I tried to Sicilian, but I think I'm switching back.
Wonderful video, please make more videos like this including pawn structures and middlegame strategies of various openings, like carokann, nimzo, ragozin/vienna defense, french, etc.
Don't exactly remember the dates but I do know that before the ... h5 plan was discovered this was considered somewhat bad or at least passive. The mainline was 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6 exf6 6. c3 Bd6 7. Bd3 O-O 8. Qc2 (or 8. Ne2 and 9. Qc2) and black played either ... h6 (which allowed a future h2-h4, g2-g4-g5) or ... g6 (allowing h2-h4-h5). The whole idea that ... h5 was okay for black was a "revolution" for the opening From 2021 onwards the Tartakower has overtaken 4. ... Bf5 as the most popular move in the 3. Nc3(d2) Caro-Kann. So, it is effectively the mainline today! Add to that GM Schandorff's new Caro-Kann book in which he advocates for ... Nf6 and I think this line will be played at yhe top for a while. Whoever thought of ... h5, well done!
Arrived to the channel through this video and I loved it. I play caro and thanks to the Tartakower I like facing Nc3. Do you have similar suggestions for the exchange or 2 Knights?
Thanks for the comment! 🙂 Against 2 knights you can use the same, Tartakower. Carlsen used it against Nepo in one of those model games from the video (when Qa5 was played). As for the Exchange, I am going to publish a video soon, but overall knowing the Carlsbad structure is enough to understand your opening & middlegame without learning the opening moves.
Thank you for the excellent video and your hard work. Especially the expression through pawn structures is very important. But it's not so easy for under 2000 players like me. It will be necessary to watch this video constantly over and over again, and keep it in mind during the games.
After searching the entire internet, this is the best video I found about this opening! Very great positional understanding!!! I have to play against a 1900 rated opponent next sunday, but because I am only around 1400 FIDE, I think these concepts are necessary to understand. Great resources!
Fantastic lesson! If someone plays the Caro-Kann in the 1600-2000 range in Lichess the Tartakower variation happens quite often. What do you think about 5....gxf6? White gets immediately a small advantage, but there is a strong IM who created a course based a lot on this line and he has had a lot of good results with it online. Is it too unsound?
I've been playing ...gxf6 for maybe a year. It is great when white doesn't know about the idea of using the h5-square to put pressure on f7. It can be annoying. 🙃
Hello there! I wanted to express my appreciation for your fantastic video. Thank you for all your hard work in creating such engaging content. I'm particularly impressed with the layout on the screen, and I was wondering if you could kindly share which chess board and set of chess pieces you use in your videos. Thank you so much!
Thank you for your comment! As for the layout and chess set, it is one of the lichess pieces, same is with the board (I can look further into it to be more precise), which I combine with the layout I've created using Canva. It takes some time to design it exactly this way. Overall making these videos is super time-consuming.
2:43 these Black pawns look pretty weak, doubled and isolated at first glance. Is this structure really good for Black? Or only playable if enough pieces are on the board to force White to make concessions by advancing one of the center pawns?
That's well noticed! I tested this structure with the engine in a couple of middlegame positions, and it never said black is worse (but often even better). I was surprised by that too. Especially in the situation with the IQP - how it is possible that White is not better? It looks like the f6-pawn is excellent, protecting against Ne5, and overall against white kingside attack. On the other side black feels comfortable with the d5-blockade (Nd5), with the b7-bishop cutting the board. Initially this observation was part of the video, but I excluded it cause it adds a couple of minutes more to the length of the video. The other structure, with black c6 and a7 vs d4, c4 and a2 - it looks OK to me, as d4 is on the open file, a target, while blacks c6 and a7 are well hidden, practically not weak yet. Only theoretically. But overall this plan with b7-b5 is the old(est) one in the variation, and feels dubious. It is rarely used today. I am sure I would prefer other plans when possible.
