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From Greco to Planinc.....Connecting Chess Positional Concepts Through the Centuries

From Greco to Planinc.....Connecting Chess Positional Concepts Through the Centuries

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kamalakanta
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It is a common fallacy to believe that the great Masters of the past did not play chess well....a myopic approach, to say the least.

The games of the great Masters can serve as a great source of inspiration and actual knowledge.....the final position in the following game is immortal!

Many of the opening ideas played today by our elite "Super GMs" have been played for centuries, but the fact is that this is NOT mentioned by modern teachers, for the most part. For example, Giri was promoting one of his chessable courses in a video with Sagar Shah, and he showed this idea:

You can watch the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkqxhUnA2hI&t=6519s 

But the idea of ....g5 in the Italian is not new! One of White's main ideas is to play f4 at some point, opening the f-file for attack.

Check out this position, from a game by Greco, from 1623!

In this Greco game, the move ....g5 is premature.

Now check this game by Philidor, played 167 years after the Greco game.....g5 is played at an opportune moment.....

                                                                        Philidor

Now, fast forward to 2024, and see how this idea of ....g5 in the Italian helped Black in this game:


An important detail is that, in the Italian, the move ....g5 is useful AFTER White has played h3, creating a contact point on the g4 square....otherwise, Black will end up in a worse position, such as in this game:




Or this one:





 Now, to some other examples of the move ....g5 in different opening/positions. We start with GM Judit Polgar, the best emale chess player in history. She achieved her highest rating of 2735, which at that time made her the no.8 player in the world, man or woman!


And now, two examples from the book "Apología of the Unexpected", by Pablo Iglesias.



The first game is Kurajica-Planinc, 1972.....Kurajica is a strong GM, with victories over Smyslov, Karpov and Tal. Here is a victory against Karpov!


















I have not had the time to add more.....I hope these examples inspire some exploration.....

Peace.