Chess.com's camp

From July, 7 till July, 11 of 2014 I was an instructor at the first Chess.com's University online camp. Camp gathered 21 players, who listened to lectures of Boris Gelfand (he analysed his win against Hikaru Nakamura and then answered to questions on chess-related issues), Roman Dzhindzhihashvili, Valeri Lilov and of mine.

I gave 4 lectures, dedicated to such themes: 1) prophylactical thinking; 2) play by two bishops; 3) positional sacrifice of exchange; 4) general advices about how to work on chess. For me it was a first experience of giving online-lecture on English for such a big group of players. But I did liked this a lot. I hope, that my listeneres also enjoyed the process.

On one of days I gave the simul for all students, where I won all my games. But the most interesting happened at the end of the last game. I played one of the most unusual moves in my carreer. Though, that move does not win directly and it's not really hard to find, but still I will remember this for a long. It rarely happens, when a player can place own queen under attack with no checks or captures in the relatively quiet position.

Here I played 25...Qg5. White took the Queen (evidently, my opponent decided, that I was enough tired to blunder the queen. The correct answer was 26. Rfe1 with better play for Black thanks to a control over the open file and e3-hole), after which I gave the check 26...Rf2 27. Rxf2 Rxf2 and here my opponent realised, that to any move Black checkmates with 28...Rxh2.

It reminded me a combination, which my friend Alexander Zubarev played in 2006.

White played 22.Qh5!! gxh5 23. Bd1!!, after which Black could not stop the checkmating attack.

Hopefully, there will be more camps of such type and I again will be invited to share my thoughts about different middle- and end- games problems.