Category: Lessons from the Masters

September 20, 2025 Matthew Sadler No comments exist

IIn previous blog entries, we discovered that Stuart’s 16.Nd4 Game: 16.Nd4 – while obviously a perfect practical choice in his crucial 8th round game at the British Championships – gave Black a number of opportunities to flatten out the play and drain the attacking life from White’s position by capturing on d4 at various moments….

September 9, 2025 Matthew Sadler No comments exist

We saw in previous blog entries that Black’s best line on move 20 was to capture the knight on d4 with 20…Bxd4. Line: 20…Bxd4 In fact, an exchange on d4 could have been played at multiple occasions between move 16 (when White played 16.Nd4) and move 20: at what moments would this have been a…

September 1, 2025 Matthew Sadler No comments exist

In previous blog posts we noted how important the idea of …f6 – driving away the white knight from e5 – was for Black, and how White tried to prevent it with moves such as 16.Nd4 Game: 16.Nd4 19.Qh3 Game: 19.Qh3 and 20.f5 Game: 20.f5 We saw of course that when 20…f6 finally arrived on…

August 27, 2025 Matthew Sadler No comments exist

In the previous blog post, we looked through the game Conquest-Royal from the 8th round of the 2025 British Championships in Liverpool at a high level. Now it’s time to dive into the critical positions in more detail, starting as always from the end of the game and working our way backwards!   Game: 20.f5…

August 23, 2025 Matthew Sadler 2 comments

English grandmaster Stuart Conquest had a wonderful finish to the 2025 British Championships in Liverpool, winning his last 2 games against grandmasters Shreyas Royal and Nikita Vitiugiov to tie for first with Michael Adams and Peter Roberson, subsequently finishing second to the evergreen Mickey after a rapid playoff. I was particularly interested in the quick…