Mikhail Botvinnik Top Eight Amazing Chess Sacrifices!

[@Shadowboost]

These are really fantastic. I hope you continue to show top sacrifices

[@pauloguimaraesferreira8223]

Thank you for the lecture, Botvinnik's games are very instructive.I'm looking forward for the next one. Take care.

[@benfinegold3034]

amazing video

[@TheQTWolf]

Nice to see some of my favourite player's tactical masterstrokes out here!.

[@hazmatac]

Thanks for sharing KingsCrusher

[@Attlanttizz]

Love this series :)

[@kingscrusher]

Mikhail Botvinnik Top Eight Chess Sacrifices! All likes, comments, questions etc appreciated. Cheers, KC

[@DonFreeq]

I have a question to you. In the video you said that Stockfish is not finding Ba3 until depth 29 while it seems that it finds move immedietely even with depth 13. I assume you are using Stockfish 5 so can you explain me how it is possible? From curiosity i tried position also on very bad equpiment and it still points out Ba3 in a blink...

[@kingscrusher]

DonFreeq On depth 24, on my I5 I have this displayed within a few seconds: Mikhail Botvinnik - Jose Raul Capablanca, AVRO The Netherlands 1938 8/p3q1kp/1p2Pnp1/3pQ3/2pP4/1nP3N1/1B4PP/6K1 w - - 0 1 Analysis by Stockfish 5 64 SSE4.2: 1. +/- (1.24): 30.h4 h5 31.Ne2 Kh7 32.Ba3 Qg7 33.e7 2. = (0.30): 30.h3 h6 31.Ne2 Na5 32.Ba3 Qd8 33.e7 Qd7 34.Qb8 Qe8 35.Qd6 Kf7 36.Nf4 Qd7 37.Qxd7 Nxd7 38.Nxd5 Nc6 39.g4 a5 40.Kf2 b5 41.e8B+ Kxe8 42.Nc7+ Kf7 43.Nxb5 Nb6 44.Nd6+ Ke6 45.Ke3 Na4 46.Kd2 Kd5 3. = (0.00): 30.Ba3 Qxa3 31.Qc7+ Kh6 32.Qf4+ Kg7 33.Qc7+ (Doe, 03.08.2014) Is this exactly the same version of Stockfish as you?! Later (about a minute later) at depth 32: Mikhail Botvinnik - Jose Raul Capablanca, AVRO The Netherlands 1938 8/p3q1kp/1p2Pnp1/3pQ3/2pP4/1nP3N1/1B4PP/6K1 w - - 0 1 Analysis by Stockfish 5 64 SSE4.2: 1. +- (2.35): 30.Ba3 Qxa3 31.Nh5+ gxh5 32.Qg5+ Kf8 33.Qxf6+ Kg8 2. +/- (1.57): 30.h4 h5 31.Ne2 Nd2 32.Nf4 Nde4 33.Nxd5 Qd6 34.Nxf6 Qxe5 35.dxe5 Nxf6 36.exf6+ Kxf6 37.Ba3 Kxe6 38.Kf2 a5 39.Ke3 Ke5 40.Be7 b5 41.Ba3 a4 42.Bb4 Kf5 43.Kd4 Kg4 44.Be7 Kf4 45.Kd5 Ke3 46.Kc6 Kd3 47.Kxb5 Kxc3 48.Kxa4 Kd3 49.Bd6 c3 3. +/= (0.36): 30.h3 h6 31.Ne2 Na5 32.Ba3 Qd8 33.e7 Qd7 34.Qb8 Qe8 35.Qd6 Kf7 36.Nf4 Qd7 37.Qb8 Qe8 38.Qe5 Qd7 39.Nxd5 Nxd5 40.e8Q+ Qxe8 (Doe, 03.08.2014) But it was showing using just 1 CPU so maybe I'm not configured correctly

[@DonFreeq]

kingscrusher Same Stockfish. For the Stockfish 5 64 (which i used earlier) there is no much diffrence. I used also 1 CPU and i got: depth 24 1.+- (3.00): 30.Bb2-a3 Nb3-a5 31.Qe5-c7+ Kg7-g8 32.Ba3-e7 Nf6-g3 33.h2-h3 Na5-c6... 2.+- (1.43): 30.Ng3-e2 Nb3-a5 31.Bb2-c1 Qe8-e7 32.Bc1-g5 Na5-c6 33.Bg5xf6+ Qe7xf6... 3.+/- (1.26): 30.Qe5-c7+ Kg7-h8 31.Qc7-d6 h7-h5 32.Bb2-a3 Nb3-a5 33.Ba3-c1 Na5-c6... depth 32 1.+- (3.53): 30.Bb2-a3 Nb3-a5 31.Qe5-c7+ Kg7-g8 32.Ba3-e7 Nf6-g4 33.h2-h3 Na5-c6... 2.+- (2.16): 30.h2-h3 h7-h5 31.Bb2-a3 Nb3-a5 32.Ba3-c1 Na5-c6 33.Qe5-c7+ Kg7-h8... 3.+- (1.85): 30.h2-h4 h7-h5 31.Ng3-e2 Nb3-a5 32.Qe5-d6 Na5-c6 33.Bb2-c1 a7-a5... Your I5 is faster than mine there is absolutely no doubt. I'm really curious why are such diffrences between ev's.

[@kingscrusher]

DonFreeq You seem to have the wrong position set up 30 Bb2-a3 Black's queen is attacked - making Nb3-a5 ridiculous. You have the wrong position here. To get the right position, you need to do Control-C and Control-V for the PGN fragment in the description of the video. ( at least if you are using something like Chessbase)

[@DonFreeq]

Ha! Sorry for that, I put position before Qe7 move. What a shame. Results are same as yours - depth 29 and same ev. Funny that Houdini have same problems and Fritz (even older versions as 12 and 13) finds it in a blink.

[@inconnu299]

great games and great explanation. thx again. it is a pleasure watching. thx for your work

[@mikek3459]

Thanks for the amazing video KC and really beautiful sac's :D played by Mikhail Botvinnik

[@flamingxombie]

Excellent games and commentary. The Botvinnik-Portisch masterpiece is analyzed thoroughly (and this video does the game full justice too) in "The development of Chess Style" by John Nunn and Max Euwe.

[@MouriWouri]

Absolutely amazing stuff!!

[@tiddlewink101]

Thanks, good video

[@estd1759]

Great vid thanks

[@fourtime7]

Brilliant. I'll like to see some British players top 8 sacrifice

[@paulgoogol2652]

modern engines struggle with finding sacrifices because they are programmed to calculate sound looking moves before the crazy ones. it seems to be the better practical choice.

[@kwesimensa-wilmot3012]

All these GREAT sacrificed of the GREATEST PLAYERS IA great little book?

[@DonFreeq]

Seems Stockfish is a really crappy engine. Mine Fritz finds Ba3 in a blink, same for Houdini. I just don't understand how engine that needs like over a minute to find that move can be best in the world... It's ridicolous!

[@rahmiaksu]

New version of Stockfish was probably redesigned to beat other chess engines.

[@jasondoe2596]

What's "ridicolous" (sic) is your lack of understanding of how chess engines work. Stockfish is crappy, indeed - so much that it won the most recent TCEC convincingly. I guess your unfounded opinion is worth just as much. But, hey, don't let facts stop you from paying for those engines. It's not as if your are trying to rationalise your choices, right? And how could an open-source program ever be as good as a proprietary one! P.S. Don't misunderstand me. All those are fine engines, and well-worth paying for (Stockfish included). Their creators probably worked really hard... Which makes dismissing one of them so lightly infuriatingly absurd.

[@DonFreeq]

Jason Doe I know how it ranks in CCRL index but i admit having problems with understanding how stockfish works. Why he needs so much time and so much depth to find this kind of move? I just watched some game at CE channel and find position where stockfish (according to CE - I believe him) assess position as +1.7 where Fritz and Houdini vary from 0.00 to 0.02... I don't know depth of Stockfish analysis but i don't believe that in depth 30 with Houdini there can be 1.7 point of missevaluation... I'm totally confused. Edit: Well i had to check it out with Stockfish 5 and I'm shocked. He points out Ba3 also in a blink and position i was talking about not as +1.7 but as +0.75 (depth 30) and he never goes above +1 at any stage. Now i'm ever more confused... P.S Stockfish is open source so what you are talking about with paying for it?!

[@rahmiaksu]

Jason Doe I don't wanna get between you two, but you're a rude one and thus your comments are of zero worth to me especially. I know how engines work and at their core they use a limited iterative depth-first search algorithm. It is not far-fetched to imagine that the evaluation function was modified for optimally beating other chess engines, especially if you somehow know their strengths and weaknesses. This makes them less useful for human chess analysis. If you admire Stockfish, by all means do. But don't fucking insult a person for having a different opinion. This knee-jerk reaction only illuminates your short-comings, no one else's.

[@kingscrusher]

(addressed to DonFreeq) : Is it possible your hardware is quite good?! I am using a Core I5 Zoomstorm sometimes as well as an I7 laptop. I guess you have a fast I7 ?! What is your analysis speed shown?! How fast do you get to depth 20, depth 30 etc?! The reason I guess I specified the depth was to make my observation less hardware independent.