September 1, 2025
Matthew Sadler
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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
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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
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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…
June 16, 2025
Matthew Sadler
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In my last blog post, I left you with 2 intriguing middlegames which the engines assessed as dead equal and yet would only be the start of hostilities in a human game! I spent some time looking at these positions and I wanted to share my thoughts with you. Let’s start off with this one:…
June 15, 2025
Matthew Sadler
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I said in my last blog post that I had concluded my examination of …c4 in Trompovsky / Torre / London system structures but… I lied 😉 During a sleepless night, I got thinking about the main engine line after Mariotti’s 7.Bd3 (as you do) and decided to try and understand better what was going…