The #1 Square On The Chessboard | Logical Chess Ep. 20

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Welcome to Episode 20 of this "Book Club" series where we are currently going through the book: Logical Chess - Move by Move by Irving Chernev

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If Amazon is sold out, you can also get it from House of Staunton below:

[Lordpulkit]

I really appreciate the focus on the importance of striking key squares rather than just attacking or defending pieces. This concept was new to me, especially since I couldn't see how it applies without knight jumps, checks, or pawn wins. Your explanation has helped me realize how crucial it is to keep a balanced approach in my games. I often find myself lost in trying to imagine all possible lines during a rapid game, which only leads to making poor tactical decisions. These insightful minutes have been incredibly valuable to me.. 😍

[emilsadykhov]

At 18:08 you could also go Rc8, if QxR pxQ, Bxc8 and Qd8+ picks up the bishop. If 1. BxR then just promote to a queen

[NJDJ]

this is why im loving Logical Chess series! great episode, Nelson!

[gosukiwi]

It was a nice game, and great coverage, thanks for sharing! I think controlling that square in particular has to do with the fact that to attack a pawn you should control the square in front of it, making the c-pawn a backwards pawn. Very good illustration on how to play against that, also notice that White traded a lot of pieces, which is good for that kind of positions.

[aperkinsvt]

It all makes sense in hindsight. What’s hard is to see the importance of that square early in the game as a hook to hang your entire strategy on! What were the factors that pointed to it being so important from early on? Thanks for a great video, by the way! Love your channel!

[toastbrot]

10:56 i thought of Qc2. And i'm not quite sure what the difference is to Qd4. They seem to both accomplish very similar things. They both keep everything defended and open up a lot of good squares for the queen. Qc2 opens up the whole diagonal for the queen for example. Also i though keeping the queen further back makes it less likely to get pushed around by the opponent compared to d4. The queen is also defended on c2 and is creating a battery with the rook with the immidiate threat to capture on c6.

The only issue that is see is that the queen is temporarily taking away the square for the rook f2 Rook to double up, but other than then Qc2 strikes me as the more natural and solid move. I haven't put the position into the analysis yet, so all of this is only my own take on it.

Edit: According to the engine Qc2 is only very lightly worse. Stockfish sais it's -0.2 compared to Qd2 and torch says -0.15. So it seems my analysis was mostly correct.

[AAABeatbox]

15:01, once black rook attacked queen, coudn't the white rook take the black pawn winning an extra pawn? If rook takes queen then rook also takes queen but by this move you win an extra pawn and establish two connected pass pawns.

[tldreview]

@5:40 but how could we identify in advance that the C5 square will be important? Is it a consequence of the opening, of some board state like the difference in development, or the pawn structure or what?

I feel like I have 0 shot of looking at a board and thinking "yeah, I need to control square X"

[RayWall]

13:40 spoken like a true member of society

[cadleo]

You dont really explain how they knew to go for C5 though. Did they just pick a rando square and focus on it? Why that square?

[frankbrown]

Nelson my question is the c5 square important because that’s where the attack took place due to the advantage of whites piece placement. And lack of blacks ability to defend the square in that particular opening?
Or is that square always important in all opening?
Thank you for your time.

[GlobalWarmingSkeptic]

I can see the logic behind this but I am stuck at 1350 because to be honest I struggle with coming up with the "right" middle game plan. That's the hardest part of chess, untangling all of the complexities of middlegame positions and having the right balance of finding your opponent's weaknesses and not creating ones of your own. I quit chess for 18 years after age 20 when I got tired of playing it, and recently just started back a year and a half ago, and I feel like my lack of experience at the game hurts me in that regard, because there's some things you just have to "know" when you see certain patterns.

[drxyd]

Im surprised I followed this game so clearly and predicted most of the moves. Your content has made a huge difference in my play, my puzzle rating shot up first (2150) and rapid is slowly catching up.

[tylerbruce]

Hey Nelson, taking your course currently going through middle game just wondering if you could do a video on your channel for common ways, positions or lines for setting up discovery moves or checks? Might be very informative to have some examples from you as I find these harder to see from others but very effective when I use them but I would like to train my eye/vision further on this very useful tool thanks very much in advance if you decide to.

[shoumyajitroy]

Dear Sir...am greatly enjoying this logcal chess series...keep up the good work...eagerly waiting for the next game in the logical series...thanks

[Methylimidazol]

15:03 Why not Rxa6, counterattacking black's queen? That would win us another pawn in the end and we are left with two connected passed pawns.

[TheShawnMower]

Amazing recap amd a beautiful strategy. I learned a lot from this game

[Confluence]

1650 Elo here -- I'm still note quite sure how you "choose" to go after the c5 square. I can see in retrospect how it became super important, but I don't see how I'd think to establish a plan to go after c5. Was this something white knew he was going to do from the beginning? Or is it something that just became more important as the position unfolded? If it's the former, how would one know to choose c5 as opposed to trying to gain control of another square instead? Basically, how would one decide to even choose this plan in the first place?

[Methylimidazol]

18:23 What's wrong about Rb5, attacking the queen, while being defended by the queen?

[hathawayamato]

Great explanation. I have a question though. While the C5 clearly super critical in this game, does this principle apply to every single game? Or is it important because of the conditions of this game? Thank you Nelson for the great content as always.