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This game came from the french winawer where black castles into what seems like a white attack but can be pushed back. Eventually it became a race between pawn storms. White's attack looked strong, but his king was in the center and in fact black eventually took advantage of it.

This was one of the first games with 1 b3 in a tournament game. The move controls the dark squares from move 1, and that's exactly what white did the whole game. Saemisch was a strong player back then, so I don't know why he played so badly. Maybe he wasn't prepared at all for the move. Anyways, this game shows the potential attacks that can come out of it. I also analyzed some lines of this opening a little bit. It's probably a little flawed, but it should be instructive since just by looking at this opening can make you understand some points of chess better.

This came out of the reti opening and the game was a benoni type game except white had many advantages that black normally doesn't get. It is instructive in how it shows both direct and indirect control of the center in one game.

A game from the solid king's indian fianchetto variation, meant to drive black players nuts by plying slowly and not giving black the kingside chances he wants. Najdorf for the most part outplays Jaroslav though there is one point where I think he goes wrong.

My Game Editor is having a few problems, so you can check out the link to these games to view them. Then, I'd like for the readers to post their thoughts on the games to create a "collective analysis" of each of the games. These games have one side playing in the style of the Hypermodern Era while the other plays in the style of Classical Era. 1. Lisitsyn vs. Botvinnik, 1944 2. Harmonist vs. Paulsen, 1889 3. Schwarz vs. Paulsen, 1879 4. Opocensky vs. Reti, 1925

This game came from a QGD exchange variation, an interesting one positionally since the only difference in the game is the pawn structure though white usually comes out slightly better because black is more pinned down and white has more chances to get play in both the center and queenside. White played pretty well, dominating his opponent and played good defense when black played a dubious sacrifice to secure the win.

The "Classical" Era of chess is best described as period between the mid-1800's and the end of the 19th. Century during which many players thought it best to build very strong pawn centers. Most "Classical" openings begin with 1. e4, though they are not limited to such. One master of the times, Henry Pillsbury,played the Stonewall Attack. As you can see, a strong, yet rather stagnant, pawn center is achieved in this d4 opening. Of course, the best example of what I consider truly classical is the Italian Game, especially the aptly na med Classical Variation. All the books I have read have led me to believe that strategies involving fianchetto and piece control of the center (as opposed to pawn control) didn't become popular until the 1920's. While it may be true that this style wasn't popular until the early 20th. Century, that doesn't mean it was never apparent beforehand. From what I have gathered based on the styles of a few 'Classical Era' players, the ideas propounded in the Hypermodern Era were simply not popularized. Long before Reti ever came along with his novel openings or Nimzovich bragged of his originality, there were tournament players trying their hands at new ideas. Some may have just preferred to let their pieces control the center from afar, others wanted to achieve some actual innovation in the way the game was played, and a small few simply got bored and frustrated with center pawns. I have listed below some names that I thought stood out among their contemporaries for being not only fairly solid players during their times, but also counter-intuitive to the "Classical" mindset. John Owen- Began Playing around the 1850's John Owen was a noticeably successful tournament player in his time. What made him stand out was his signature defense, Owen's Defense: 1. e4 b6. Owen made his defense trendy for a small period of time, but it never caught on for too long. As early as 1856, he was able to beat Paul Morphy with 1..b6. Preston Ware- circa 1870's and on into the early 1900's Preston Ware was the Michael Basman of his times. Ware's play was symptomatic of a disdain for the obsession with center pawns during his times, though I would hardly say his contributions to chess were anything great. His opening, the Ware Opening (1. a4), achieved more success for him with the Black pieces (1.e4 a5), ironically. What he displays, more than anything, is boredom with norms. Van't Kruijs This mysterious player has only one game in chess.com's database, and it shows him losing as Black to Adolf Anderssen in the 1850's. However, his name lives on in the Van't Kruijs Opening.

This game came from a closed sicilian, an interesting opening, in fact Karpov didn't seem to like it too much because apparently this is the only closed sicilian game he played as white! I decided to do an in depth analysis of the game because there are tons of strategical and tactical (at the attack towards the end) ideas to get out of it.

The following game was played by Frank Marshall and Amos Burn in 1907. It's a great example of a king hunt ad the methods used to initiate one. In it, Marshall plays aggressively in his attack on the enemy king and he forces opportunities for his attack when there are apparently none. Here is Marshall-Burn, 1907:

I always liked Alekhine's style. He is known to be one of the best calculators and attackers and chess but this was all backed up by his solid positional understanding. He had the positional strength of Capablanca and once he got an advantage he could convert it with incredible skill usually in the form of a mating attack. In this game Alekhine uses the Ponziani opening which I thought was just inferior but in this game I saw some very interesting ideas in it, one of which was an early queen move. So here is the game.

Vladas Mikenas was among the innovators of the 1930's that helped develop Modern Chess, or the style of chess that is most commonly played nowadays. Basically, he, along with other players such as most notably Botvinnik, Smyslov, Ragozin, and Flohr, considered new ways to attack, defend and develop (his colleague Ragozin had an especially interesting way to develop in the Queen's Gambit Declined that went as such: 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 Bb4 [pinning the knight on c3; this could be played 1 move earlier] 5.Qb3 Nc6!?. This was called Ragozin's Defense and the point of it was to develop speedily, even if it was at the expense of blocking the c-pawn. It can be achieved through transposition by starting with the Nimzo-Indian Defense). The best of these players took what they needed from the Hypermodern school and the Classical school, oftentimes combating one idea with the other (notably Lisitsin vs. Botvinnik). Leading figures among these players held game and opening analysis in high esteem. Before them, game analysis was something a player would indulge in occasionally, but the Modern players took it seriously and their studies were arduous and thorough. In contrast to men like Capablanca, who was said to never prepare for a tournament (though I seriously doubt this to be any more than a rumor to add to his mystique), the Modern players thought of analysis as second only to practice (if not equal to) in the development of one's chess playing (Kasparov wrote once that in Botvinnik's chess school the students were assigned games to analyze for homework!). Through this, openings like the Gruenfeld Defense and the King's Indian Defense were developed into popular and viable weapons. Mikenas, the player I will be focusing on in this post, even had his own defense, the Mikenas Defense, which goes 1. d4 Nc6. The following games are short but complex struggles between Mikenas and Feigin. In each, Mikenas embarks on a bold attack using his pieces for pressure. Here is Feigin vs. Mikenas, 1937 as well as Mikenas vs. Feigin, 1939:

I will not attempt an analysis of this game myself; it is far too complex and famous for me to even pretend to present a passible analysis. Instead I'm giving all of the Assassins out there the link to a great video analysis of the game. I hope you enjoy Saemisch vs. Nimzovich: "The Immortal Zugzwang Game"!

This game was played in New York 1956. 8th round. Gruenfeld Defense D97. Many years after the completin of this game, Fischer would recall it as one of the best of his entire career! I hope some of you found this game instructive. I know it help me a lot in the way of trying not to blindly assign numerical value to pieces. Much better to simply read the needs of the position.