Play Like Bobby Fischer

“Play like Fischer” is an absolutely essential course.
It will
help you understand the secrets behind Fischer’s style. After the
study of this course, you will be able to copy some of his
winning techniques into your own games, so you can play like a
really strong player!
Play like Fischer

Remote Chess Academy
GM Igor Smirnov
Play like Fischer 2017
Contents
Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 2
Video Lessons - TOTAL: 191 minutes ......................................................................................... 3
Lesson-1: Bobby Fischer: Positional Play at its Best (15mins) ................................................... 3
Lesson-2: Fischer's Favorite Chess Piece (21mins) .................................................................. 12
Lesson-3: Crush Your Opponent Using Open Lines (14mins) .................................................. 20
Lesson-4: The King of Chess (14mins) ...................................................................................... 30
Lesson-5: Crush Opponent's Weaknesses (25mins) ................................................................ 38
Lesson-6: The Strongest Attacking Force (15mins).................................................................. 54
Lesson-7: Fischer's Positional Mastery: Pawn Structure (10mins) .......................................... 63
Lesson-8: How to Launch Your Attack Fast? (24mins) ............................................................. 67
Lesson-9: Counterattack like Fischer (24mins) ........................................................................ 74
Lesson-10: Fischer's Chess Secrets - Revealed (7mins)............................................................ 85
Lesson-11: Play like Fischer: Practical Guide (22mins) ............................................................ 89
Practical Part ............................................................................................................................ 96
INSTRUCTIONS ......................................................................................................................... 96
The Practical Part: 1. Bishop .................................................................................................... 98
The Practical Part: 2. Knight ..................................................................................................... 99
The Practical Part: 3. Rook ..................................................................................................... 100
The Practical Part: 4. Queen .................................................................................................. 101
The Practical Part: 5. King ...................................................................................................... 102
The Practical Part: 6. Pawn Sacrifice ...................................................................................... 103
The Practical Part: 7. Counterblow ........................................................................................ 104
The Practical Part: 8. Many Ideas........................................................................................... 105
The Practical Part: 9. World Chess Championship ................................................................. 106
The Practical Part: 10. Rematch 1992 .................................................................................... 107
Remote Chess Academy| https://chess-teacher.com 1

Acknowledgements
First, I would like to thank all those students who sent me their chess questions via e-
mail, comments on my website, etc. This course was created based on your queries.
I would like to thank Aggelos Kesaris for their great help with the course
development.
I appreciate Olga Carreño’s effort in polishing the texts of the course.
On top of that, let me thank the whole Remote Chess Academy team. They have made
a valuable contribution to the creation of this course. Also, they are awesome people!
J Thank you!
Finally, all of my work is only possible due to the inspiration and support of my wife
and family. Thank you for this!

Video Lessons - TOTAL: 191 minutes
Lesson-1: Bobby Fischer: Positional Play at its Best (15mins)
Many players consider Bobby Fischer to be the greatest chess player of all times. He
was the youngest Grandmaster of his time, eight times USA Chess Champion and the
11th World Champion.
At this course, we'll talk about Fischer's games and will not only enjoy the beauty of
his games, but will also learn the techniques that Fischer used in his games; so that
you can learn and imitate his style, and improve your own performance.
Of course, it is a difficult task to play exactly like Fischer because you might need to
dedicate your full life to chess, which most people would not do. But, anyway, even if
you imitate some of the techniques and style of Fischer, you will definitely be able to
improve your chess performance and gain one or two extra hundred rating points,
which will be a nice result by itself.
I’m Igor Smirnov, International Grandmaster and chess coach from the Remote Chess
Academy and it will be my pleasure to make my best to help you improve your
chances, while having a great time observing Fischer’s games.
How to Play like Bobby Fischer
Some people say that he simply had such natural talent for chess, that he was a chess
genius. Well, let's check what Fischer himself said about this topic:
“I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all-around

genius, who just happens to play chess.”
Well, definitely the guy didn't suffer of lack of self-confidence. :-)
If we are not geniuses, we will have to analyze his games more seriously and
methodically to find keys to success and something more practical.
I analyzed a lot of games played by Fischer and I realized that his main strength is the
positional play. Different players have different styles of playing. For instance,
Michael Tal, a former World Champion, was the master of attack and combinations.
He was great in complicating positions and he implemented some sudden moves
which helped him win some fantastic games. On the contrary, when we look at the
games of Bobby Fischer, we see a different picture: His game was very methodical;
he was building the position step-by-step, putting his pieces in the best positions and
ultimately, he reached a total domination where the opponent was totally defenseless.
So, the positional play was the main strength of Bobby Fischer; it was something that
he did really well. That is why the title of this first lesson is “Bobby Fischer:
Positional Play at its Best”

What is Positional Play?
I googled this question and I found plenty of different answers, starting from the
statement that positional play is what Nimzowitsch described in his book "My
System".
Often times, people refer to chess strategy or some general things. Some other people
name different elements of the position such as open lines, center and initiative, etc.
But, I have the feeling that most players just don't have a clear understanding of what
the positional play is.
At the same time, the answer is already included in the term itself. It was summarized
very well by of one of the famous players of the past, Savielly Tartakower, who said
the following:
"Tactics is what you do when there is something to do; strategy is what you do when
there is nothing to do."
I think that it’s a neat explanation of what most people feel when it comes to strategy
or positional play. And I can understand it easily.
When it comes to tactics, there is something straightforward you can do. For instance,
if we have a look at the tactical motif called fork, there is a white knight which double
attacks two opponent pieces simultaneously. This is called fork.

Everything is pretty straightforward. But when it comes to positional play, this is
something vague and intriguing.
So, what is positional play? I can give you a very simple explanation which you can
remember for the rest of your life. The answer to the question of what the positional
play is, actually is already included in the term itself; it is all about the position.
Put your forces on the most favorable positions.

You have to play moves that put your pieces on the best positions: that is called
positional play. Why is it important to put your pieces on the best positions? It is
because, when your forces are standing properly, they are controlling a large amount
of territory.
And, when you keep doing this, you continue increasing the territory under your
control, until the moment that ultimately you control the majority of the chessboard;
therefore, you reach total domination.
I think it could be even easier to understand this thing if we take an analogy from the
real life because we know that chess is a model of war. So, we can imagine the
situation of a military conflict between a few different parties, where different forces
control certain areas.
Here's a map from the real life, even though it is about 800 years old, about the
Mongol empire. Here, by different colors, you can see the territory marked out under
the control of different forces, so you can see that there is a green, yellow and grey
territory.
So, what is the goal of each party in this competition? The goal is to control the whole
territory. Ultimately, it’s what they wanted to achieve.

What does it mean to control the territory?
It means that our forces are present at some locations / position and they can easily
attack the rest of the territory without being there physically. If we talk about the
modern world, we can say that our forces can bombard the territory which we control.
In this way, we can make it impossible for anyone else to go and stand in our
controlled territory.
Now, let’s come back to chess and see how this idea works there:
Fischer,Robert James - Bertok,Mario [B35]

Bled Bled (10), 18.09.1961
[http://chess-teacher.com]
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.Bc4 Na5 8.Be2 0–0
9.0–0 d5 10.exd5 Nxd5 11.Nxd5 Qxd5 12.Nb5 Qxd1 13.Raxd1 Nc6 14.c3 a6
15.Nc7 Rb8 16.Bc5 Be5 17.Nd5 Be6 18.Bf3 Bxd5 19.Rxd5 Bf6 20.Rfd1 Rfc8
21.Bb6 Ne5 22.Be2 e6 23.R5d2 Rc6 24.Bd4 Kg7 25.b3 h5 26.h3 Rcc8 27.c4 Nc6
28.Bb6 h4 29.Bf3 Bc3 30.Rd7

Black to play
How would you evaluate this position? Which territory is under the control of Black
and which is under the control of White? It's difficult to say very specifically which
side controls the most of the space because there are a lot of pieces. However, we can
make a relative comparison and say roughly which territory is controlled by the
pieces.
By controlling, I mean the pieces which are standing on some squares physically or
the squares which are controlled by them. We can see that Black is controlling the
last three ranks because almost all of his pieces are standing there. The h4-pawn and
the bishop on c3 are individual pieces which are not attacking anything at all. So,
overall, roughly, we can say that Black is controlling the last three ranks.
On the other hand, we can say that White's pieces are controlling almost the entire
board with the exception of the last rank. Thanks to White's rook on d7, he has put
pressure along the seventh rank. The rest of the white pieces are controlling most of
the other squares of the chessboard.

Under these circumstances, we can conclude that White should be winning in this
position because he is dominating almost the entire chessboard. Let's check some
other important aspects of this position.
Aspect Number One
Even though, materially both sides are equal, White’s position is so much better and
in fact he's winning. For instance, let's compare White's rook on d1 and Black's rook
on b8.
Theoretically, they are the same pieces with the same power. However, in reality,
Black's rook is locked in the corner, with only one square available theoretically.
Instead, White's d1-rook can go wherever it wants –it’s very active in the open file:
White’s rook can move in more squares.
This is the conclusion number one: Put in your pieces on favorable positions, so you
can make them more powerful than the equal opponent’s counterparts.
Aspect Number Two
While improving the position of your pieces, you start attacking automatically. Let’s
take some moves back in order to explain you what I mean.

White’s turn
White played 29.Bf3, so he improved the position of his bishop because on e2 it was
restricted by his own c4-pawn. Putting the bishop on f3, he starts attacking on the h1-
a8 long diagonal.
29…c3 30.Rd7
White didn’t plan any particular attack. Right now, he is not attacking anything
directly; he will not capture anything in the next move. White is putting his pieces
on slightly more active positions. At the same time, he is starting to control a larger
amount of territory of the board and some of Black’s pieces appear under fire. This is
the great thing about positional play and putting your pieces on better positions. At
some point, your opponent’s pieces appear under the fire of your forces automatically,
without you doing anything particularly for this attack.
We can see that, right now, that Black is totally restricted. There is almost nothing he
can do. The rooks are restricted to the last rank. The black knight cannot go anywhere

because the b7-pawn will be lost. Black’s bishop can move, but it won’t change
anything either.
In the actual game, Black tried his last chance by making a double attack, but White
simply ignored it and took the b7-pawn: 30...Ne5 31.Bxb7 Nxd7 32.Rxd7.
Black to play
Even though White sacrificed the Exchange, he still has a total domination in the
current position. Black’s c8-rook is under attack.
32…Rg8 33.c5
After the rook was removed, White simply started to push his pawn forward. White’s
plan is pretty simple: He would like to advance his powerful c-pawn to the end,
hoping to win the rook for this pawn.
33…a5 34.c6 e5 35.Ba7 Rbe8 36.c7

Black is defenseless. White is going to play Bb6 and then Rd8, and the critical c-pawn
will be promoted or Black will have to give up the rook for it. White won the game
after some moves.
36…Bd4 37.Bxd4 exd4 38.Rxd4 Rc8 39.Rc4 Kf6 40.Kf1 Ke6 41.Bxc8+ Rxc8
42.Ke2 Kd7 43.Kf3 Re8 44.c8Q+ 1–0
Conclusions
Put your forces on the most favorable positions.
That is the single most important guideline idea that Fischer followed in his games.
That’s why he was the master of positional play. In every move he played, he was
thinking of how to improve the position of his pieces; how to place them on slightly
more active, better positions. While doing this methodically, he came to the situation
where he was totally dominating and his opponent had nothing to do, he had no
defense and he was absolutely losing.
This is a general idea and, in the next lessons, we will talk about it in more specific
terms: What are those right squares? How should you move your pieces there? And,
all of the other details. I’ll see you in the next chapters.

Lesson-2: Fischer's Favorite Chess Piece (21mins)
Before we move on to the topic of this lesson, let’s quickly recall the main takeaways
from the first lesson. It was the art of positional play by Bobby Fischer, which states
that, in order to be an outstanding positional player, the only thing you should be
doing is putting your forces on the most favorable positions.
In light of that, it is interesting to see one quote said about Bobby Fischer by Najdorf,
one of the famous players of the past century; perhaps you’ve heard about the Najdorf
variation of the Sicilian Defense. Here is what he said about Fischer: “Bobby just
drops the pieces and they fall on the right squares”.
For the majority of chess players out there, the games of Bobby Fischer are a mystery.
They see that Fischer is playing fantastically strong moves, but they can not
understand exactly how he does that. Even though Najdorf is stating the right strategy
that it’s about putting the pieces on the right squares, it’s just that most players cannot
figure out exactly how Fischer does that. But, in this course, we’ll demystify the play
of Bobby Fischer, and we’ll conclude a set of rules which he followed in his games,
so that you can adopt the same rules for your own games.
In order to put your forces on the most favorable positions, of course, you need to
realize what those favorable positions are. Therefore, in this, and a few next lessons,
we’ll analyze different pieces and we’ll see what the most favorable positions are for
them.
In this lesson, we’ll start from the Fischer’s favorite chess piece. Well, I have to
confess that I don’t know exactly what Fischer’s favorite chess piece was, but based
on his style and his games, I suppose that his most favorite piece was the bishop, He
was really terrific with the bishops and he won a lot of great games by the great usage
of them.
This is the game between Fischer, playing White, and Petrosian playing Black. Both
of these players were world champions at some point. Therefore, it’s a really
interesting battle.
Fischer,Robert James - Petrosian,Tigran V [B13]

URS-World Belgrade (1.2), 29.03.1970
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5. By the way, this is a relatively famous game and maybe
you’ve seen it before, but this time we’ll analyze this game from another perspective.
We’ll analyze the right and wrong usage of the bishops because this is pretty much
the main idea of this entire game. Throughout the game, the right and wrong usage of
the bishops determined the advantage and even the overall plan of White’s and
Black’s sides.
Now let’s start from here. In this position, White wanted to develop his light-squared
bishop. Where would you place it? In order to answer this question, we need to
compare the territory that the bishop will control after being developed to one or

another square. For example, let’s compare the potential options of the Be2 and Bd3
moves, so that we can determine which one is better.
When the bishop is developed to e2, it controls three squares along the d1-h5
diagonal. And, of course, it also controls the f1-a6 long diagonal, but this is identical
in case that the bishop be developed to e2 or d3. On the kingside, the bishop controls
three squares. Now let’s go back and compare it with the Bd3 move.
The bishop still controls this long diagonal as before, but on the kingside, it controls
four squares. So, comparing these two positions where the bishop could possibly be
developed (either e2 or d3), we may conclude that Bd3 is better, because from this
square the bishop controls a larger amount of territory.
Now, how about the last option, Bb5? Is this a good move or not? What do you think?
Generally speaking, it’s the right idea to place your pieces forward because, while
doing so, your pieces control a greater amount of territory and, even more
importantly, they start attacking the opponent’s position. So, in general, this is a good
idea. But, in this particular case, it’s not the real attack because Black can play Bd7
and the only thing White could do is to trade off the bishops, which would only help
Black develop his queen or knight. Therefore, in this particular case, Bb5 does not do
anything. It only helps Black. So, let’s move backwards.
We may conclude, after analyzing all the options, that the best square for the bishop
to be developed is d3, thus Fischer played Bd3.
4.Bd3 Nc6 5.c3 Nf6 And now, we have a similar question with White’s dark-squared
bishop. Where would you place it? As you already know, the bishop should control as
much territory as possible after your following move. And therefore, you may notice
that bishop need open diagonals. For example, if you place the bishop on the e3-
square, you can see that the bishop’s activity is restricted by White’s own pawn
standing on the same diagonal. Therefore, the bishop is only active along the c1-h6
diagonal, but it was already controlling the same diagonal from its initial position. So,
Be3 does not change anything in the activity of this bishop.
And it’s useful to remember this conclusion: bishops need open diagonals (diagonals
free of pawns). With the same logic, the Bd2-move would be a mistake because on
this diagonal the bishop would be restricted by his pawn on c3. Excluding these two
options, we may see that there are only two available options for White, which are
Bf4 and Bg5. Both of them are worthwhile alternatives and we need to consider them.
If White goes to Bg5, Black can chase away this bishop, playing Ne4 and White has
to move the bishop back or trade off the light-squared bishop; but both options are not
that good for White. Therefore, Bg5 just does not work tactically due to the exact
reasons of this position.
Finally, we may come to the conclusion that the only reasonable option is 6.Bf4,
which was played by Fischer. As you can see, right here, it controls two open
diagonals and that is great.
Now there was an instructive moment for Black’s side. There was a question which
bishop should develop first. Black may either develop his light-squared bishop first or
start developing or preparing the development of his dark-squared bishop. Which way
is better? Well, if Black would try to develop his dark-squared bishop by playing e6,
he may realize that, at the same time, the e6-pawn would block tremendously the
activity of Black’s light-squared bishop. And currently, it would have only one
available square to go to. Therefore, it will be terribly passive.
That is why, you may also conclude another interesting rule that you need to watch
over the central pawns in the position, and you need to make sure that those central
pawns do not restrict your own bishop. If there is a risk of such a situation, it is better
to place the bishop in front of the pawns, which was Bg4, aiming to develop the
bishop in front of the central pawn chain and only then to build this barrier in the
center. So, he played 6…Bg4. And here, even though Fischer could definitely cover
the queen, which is currently attacked, Fischer could cover it with the knight move;
but instead he decided to be a bit trickier and he moved the queen away. Because, if
White closed the bishop’s diagonal with the knight, then we would say that this
bishop is actively placed and it is attacking White’s position. But currently, White
simply removed the queen away and the bishop is attacking emptiness. So, White
played 7.Qb3, aiming at Black’s pawn on b7 and provoking Black to do something
about that.
Black played 7…Na5, protecting the pawn and attacking the queen simultaneously.
So, White had to move the queen away. White played 8.Qa4+ and Black decided to
cover his king with a tempo by playing 8…Bd7; and White retreated back with
9.Qc2. Black played 9…e6 to continue the development. And you can now evaluate
the point of Fischer’s tricky maneuver of the queen. By doing those seemingly
unnecessary moves of the queen along this diagonal, finally White provoked Black
into putting his bishop behind the central pawn chain. And as we know now, the
bishop is blocked by those pawns and it will be passive.
White just continued his development with 10.Nf3. Here Petrosian used the right
strategic motif which, unfortunately for him, did not work in this position. Petrosian
realized that currently he has the bad bishop on d7, which is restricted by his own
pawns. And he decided to trade it off. Generally speaking, it’s a great idea and you
should take note of this: if you have a bad bishop, try to trade it off.
Petrosian played 10…Qb6, preparing the Bb5 move which would trade off the light-
squared bishops. However, in this position it did not work really well for Black
because White could stop it very easily by playing 11.a4 to control the b5-square, so
that Black was unable to play Bb5 anymore.
The game continued with 11..Rc8 12.Nbd2, both players just developing their pieces.
12…Nc6. It was a tactical idea –Black prepared the Nb4 tactical motif, using the pin
along the c-file. That was probably the point of his previous move, Rc8.
However, White could certainly remove his queen from this potentially dangerous
line very easily. White just played 13.Qb1. Now it is Black’s turn to determine the
right position for his dark-squared bishop. Many players would, automatically and
unthinkingly, play Be7 here. But I would like you to pay attention to the activity of
this bishop. We know that while developing a piece, it should start controlling greater
amount of territory or greater quantity of squares on the chessboard.
And, in this position, whether the bishop is standing on f8 or e7, in both cases it pretty
much just controls this long diagonal f8-a3. So, nothing really changed after this
bishop is developed. And the next thing is, let’s think about the prospects of this
bishop. Where could it possibly go on the next turn?
You see that it can only go backward, back to f8 or d8; both squares are passive and
meaningless. And therefore, on e7, the bishop is extremely passive and has no
prospects. That’s why, instead of this automatic, but wrong decision, Petrosian came
up with a better idea.
He played 13…Nh5 to kick off White’s bishop from this open diagonal. And that was
a great idea by Petrosian. So, Fischer had to bring his bishop back to e3 with 14.Be3,
to a passive position, where the bishop is restricted by pawns. But, unfortunately for
Petrosian, here he made a coward decision and instead of playing Bd6, which was the
right move, he decided to protect the h7-pawn which is attacked by White’s queen
and bishop. But it was not a big threat from White because even if White captures the
pawn, the bishop will be locked. You can quickly check this variation.
That was not as dangerous for Black, as it looks at first sight, and Black could safely
go into this line. But instead, Black overprotected his position by playing 14…h6.
And here, there was another interesting moment. Of course, Fischer could easily
castle, which was the most natural decision, and maybe many players would just do
that. But Fischer realized that Black was going to play Bd6, putting his bishop on the
active diagonal h2-b8. And Fischer wanted to prevent it from happening.
That’s why he started to think what he can do right now to prevent Black from
playing Bd6, so that Black has to start caring about something else. And White played
an attacking move, 15.Ne5. It’s not a very big attack, but anyway, White aims to
capture the d7-bishop which will force Black’s king to stay in the center in a
dangerous position, which Black does not want to allow.
If Black tries to capture this knight, then after dxe5, two bad things would happen for
Black. First, his queen is now under the fire of White’s bishop. Second, White is
ready to play g4 and capture Black’s knight which currently has no retreat path.
In the actual game, Black did not take the knight; instead he protected his bishop by
playing 15…Nf6. Here Fischer played 16.h3; maybe it was not that much necessary
right now, but just in case it takes away the g4-square from Black’s knight. Black
continued with 16…Bd6 17.0-0.
Although it looks like Black is attacking White’s knight on e5, in reality, if the knight
is captured, White will recapture it with a discovered attack over Black’s queen. And
still Black’s minor pieces are under the attack of White’s pawn. So, Black will be
losing some of his pieces, and that’s why it’s a bad option for Black.
Instead, Petrosian played 17…Kf8, a bit strange move –it’s hard to understand why
Black did not castle. Now, what should White be doing? Well, one thing we may see
is that this knight is somewhat under attack. We’ve already seen that it’s not under
real attack, but still Black is pressuring this knight and White needs to do something
about it.
What would you do with the knight? Would you take one of Black’s pieces, say the
c6-knight or d7-bishop? Of course, White could do these, but it would trade off
White’s active knight and would open up the diagonal for Black’s bishop. That’s why
instead of taking, Fischer played 18.f4. It is fixing the knight on e5.
Now, you can see an interesting situation. Black’s light-squared bishop is limited by
his own pawns standing on the central squares. And Black’s dark-squared bishop is
limited by White’s central pawn chain together with the knight on e5. So, you can see
that, mainly, the trouble for the bishop is that it can be blocked by pawns, whether by
your own pawns or your opponent’s pawns.
Black played 18…Be8. The f4 move blocked Black’s bishop on d6; but, at the same
time, the same trouble happened for White’s own dark-squared bishop. So currently,
the dark-squared bishop has no squares to go to. And it does not control any open
diagonals. What should you do in such case?
In such case, you need to think how to reposition the bishop into another diagonal
which is still open. Fischer made it by playing 19.Bf2, and on the following move
20.Bh4. So, previously, the bishop was blocked by White’s central pawns; but now it
is repositioned to this long diagonal. That’s a great idea you should remember: If your
bishop is locked behind your pawns, you need to reposition the bishop to an open
diagonal. Remember, we’re talking about the art of positional play, meaning that you
find the right positions for your pieces. And this idea of activation of your bishop by
re-placing it to an open diagonal is a great way to play positionally well with your
bishops.
20…Ng8

White to play
Currently, both White’s bishops are already standing on the right (active) squares.
How can White increase their activity further? We’ve already talked about the main
idea in regard to bishops. The bishops need open diagonals, the diagonals that are free
of pawns.
Therefore, if you wish to increase the activity of your bishops, you need to trade off
the pawns and create new open diagonals. That’s why, in this position, White played
21.f5! This pawn break aims to open up a new diagonal for the bishop. As you can
see, now in case Black captures that pawn, White will recapture it with the light-
squared bishop which will further increase the activity of this bishop.
So, not only it controls the b1-h7 diagonal, which it was controlling before; but now it
has a new open diagonal, and along this diagonal it already attacks Black’s rook. In
the actual game, Black did not capture the pawn, but something similar happened
eventually.

21…Nxe5 22.Nxe5 Bxe5 23.fxe6 Black traded off the knights in the center and White
took the pawn on e6. Black cannot take this pawn because it is currently pinned along
the f-file. And actually this puts some danger for Black’s king. And Black decided to
cover the line by playing 23…Bf6; 24.exf7 Bxf7 White took the pawn on f7, attacking
two minor pieces of Black. Black recaptured. And right now, since the bishop is
attacked, Fischer protected it by playing 25.Nf3. Petrosian traded off the bishops,
25…Bxh4 26.Nxh4, and played 26…Nf6. And here is another instructive moment of
this game: One thing we can see here is that Black’s king is in a dangerous position –
it is on the open file without castling. Many players would try to attack it and
checkmate it somehow.
Instead, Fischer took a different approach. He didn’t try to pursue the king
straightaway. He was resuming the activation of his pieces further, and mainly he
cared about the bishop. So, he played 27.Ng6+, forcing Black to trade off the bishop.
There is an interesting thing about this idea. Most of the chess manuals say that the
value of the bishop and the knight is equal, and they are about equal to three pawns.
But Fischer had another opinion on this matter. He said that the knight is equal to
three pawns and the bishop is equal to three and a quarter of a pawn. Therefore, in
Fischer’s terms, if you can trade off the opponent’s bishop for your knight, you are
winning a quarter of a pawn. So, it gives you some advantage, not a decisive
advantage, but it is still some advantage.
And after this exchange, you can see that finally the bishop was landing inside
Black’s position, where it cuts off the king from moving on the kingside and, at the
same time, it locks up Black’s rook on the corner. So, it’s as if Black would be
playing without the h8-rook.
So, finally the Bishop reached the most ideal destination, where it’s not only active
and controls those open diagonals; but it also directly attacks the opponent’s position.
Black made a desperate attempt to activate his rook by playing Ke7, but it couldn’t
help because now the king is extremely vulnerable. It is so exposed that White can
attack it with almost any move he wants.
So, let’s continue with the game quickly. White is easily winning, he just needs to
attack Black’s king which he was doing.
Black played 32…Rc7: He is desperately trying to cover all the weak squares around
his king, because White is definitely going to invade somewhere with the queen and
try to checkmate Black.
White played 33.b4, to kick away Black’s queen and then 34.c4, to further open up
the files. Black took it which exposed one more open file against Black’s king. And
here, White played the final move with the bishop which wins the game. He played
35.Bf5, to cut Black’s king off the queenside and, at the same time, to take control
over the d7-square, so that Black cannot cover his king easily with the rook.
And the game continued with Rf7 36.Rd1, and the game is over. In case Black plays
Nd7, covering the king, White would just continue with Re1 and, finally, he invades
inside Black’s territory and he is defenseless. So, in the next move, White will either
checkmate Black or will get a decisive material advantage. And Black resigned in a
few moves.
Conclusions
1) The main rule about the right usage of bishops is that you should place your bishop
on an open diagonal.
2) The bishop can possibly shoot along the entire diagonal, unless it is blockaded by
pawns (either your pawns or the opponent’s pawns).
3) While talking about pawns, it mainly implies the pawns on the central lines.
Therefore, make sure to develop your bishop and to put it into an open diagonal which
is free of pawns.
4) However, what should you do if your bishop is misplaced or blocked by pawns?

Then you have a few options:
Option-1: Reposition your bishop to an open diagonal. Transfer it to a better square.
Option-2: Trade off the bishop. Exchange it for an opponent’s bishop.
Option-3: Trade off the pawns and create new open diagonals which your bishop can
occupy.
These are the three main ways which you should follow in case your bishop is
misplaced, or is passive or restricted by pawns. Utilize one of these options in those
situations to activate your bishop.
5) Finally, there is an extra rule by Fischer, which is quite a unique rule –I’ve never
heard it from other authors or players. It is the fact that the bishop is worth 3.25
pawns, while the knight is worth 3 pawns.
And therefore, if you have the bishop against the opponent’s knight, it is as if you
have a quarter-point advantage. In the modern era of computers, this evaluation of
+0.25 can easily be understandable when you analyze your game with an engine, you
can see the computer showing you evaluations like that. And now, you know how you
can obtain an advantage, so you can trade off the opponent’s bishop for your knight.
The main conclusion is that you should place your bishop on an open diagonal, free of
pawns. If you do this, you ensure that your bishop is placed properly and that is the art
of positional play with the bishop by Bobby Fischer.

Lesson-3: Crush Your Opponent Using Open Lines (14mins)
Welcome into the next lesson of the course, “Play like Fischer”. In the previous
lessons, we were talking about the art of positional play which was perfectly mastered
by Fischer. He really knew where to put his forces so that they occupied the most
favorable positions and dominated over his opponents. In the previous lesson, we
were talking about bishops and now we will go to the rooks.
The topic of this lesson is “Crush Your Opponent Using Open Lines”.
Here is the game between Larsen and Fischer. Fischer is playing Black.
Larsen,Bent - Fischer,Robert James [E97]

Monte Carlo Monte Carlo (5), 28.03.1967
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Be2 0–0 6.Nf3 e5 7.0–0 Nc6 8.Be3 Re8
9.dxe5 dxe5 10.Qxd8 Nxd8 11.Nb5 Ne6 12.Ng5 Re7 13.Rfd1 b6 14.c5 Nxc5
15.Rd8+ Bf8 16.Nxa7 Rxa7 17.Rxc8 Kg7 18.f3 Ne8 19.a3 Nd6 20.Rd8 h6 21.Nh3
Ne6 22.Rb8 Re8 23.Rxe8 Nxe8 24.Bb5 Nd6 25.Bf1 Nb7 26.Nf2 Bc5 27.Bxc5
Nbxc5 28.Rd1 h5 29.Rd5 Kf6 30.h4 Ke7 31.Bc4 c6 32.Rd2 Nd4 33.Kf1 f5 34.b4
b5 35.Bg8 fxe4 36.fxe4 Nd7 37.Rd3 Ra6 38.Rc3

Black to play
What do you think about this position?
Well, it looks unclear, approximately the material is equal, it is an endgame and there
is nothing special. Then, it is even more interesting to see how Fischer turned this
position into a win within just two moves!
He started with the sudden move, 38…c5, sacrificing the pawn, and White can simply
capture it; then he continued with another pawn sacrifice with 39… b4. By making
these sacrifices, he activated the key piece of this position, his rook, which was
previously totally passive. And now, all of a sudden, it delivers the final checkmate. It
is not exactly checkmate; White can give up his pieces to prevent the checkmate, but,
anyway, White’s position is totally lost.
So, it is really interesting to see how this seemingly equal position was turned into a
win by these fantastic pawn sacrifices. If this sounds very impressive for you, then it
is really good because, in this lesson, you will learn how you can deliver similar
winning blows.
Let me share with you an interesting quote said about Bobby Fischer.
“Fischer was a master of clarity… His opponents would see where he was going
but were powerless to stop him” –Bruce Pandolfini
In order to have the same clarity as Fischer had, you need to know the very
fundamentals of the chess positional play. In this lesson, we will learn exactly this: the
fundamentals of playing with a rook.
Once you have this clarity, it will be really easy for you to realize how to play it in
your practical games; and it will also be easy for you to understand more advanced
topics. Therefore, so that you can play as powerful as Booby Fischer, let’s start from
having this master clarity about the rook play. Let’s start from this theoretical
example:
It’s not the real game; it is a theoretical example to focus on rooks and to realize how
to play better with your rooks and where to place them.

So, for example, let’s talk about White’s rook on a1. Currently, it is totally passive so
it can’t make any damage to Black’s position and it does not control any important
squares. So, what should we do in order to make this rook more active?
Well, the rook needs open lines. If you remember, we talked about similar things,
about the bishops in the previous lesson. We said that bishops need open diagonals;
similarly rooks need open files (it needs to have a line free of pawns). If you imagine
that the pawn from a2 is removed, then the situation would become much better for
White.
I just removed that pawn from a2 and now you can see how largely the activity of the
rook was increased. Now it controls a number of squares along the a-file, and also it
keeps aim at Black’s pawn on a7. Therefore, Black’s rook on a8 may not go away;
otherwise the pawn will be lost.
So, this is rule no. 1: The rooks need open lines and especially, it is important to
remove your own pawns from this file.
Because, if there are opponent’s pawns in this file, your rooks will attack them; so it’s
already not that bad. But to get the most power of the rook, we need to have a totally
open line, where there will be no obstacles on the way of the rooks.

Now we have another situation where there’s nothing and we have a totally open line.
This is great for the rook because, currently, it controls the entire line. On the other
hand, you may be wondering, but so what? Okay, it controls an open file, but there’s
nothing there, so it does not attack anything from there. True, but at the same time, by
using this open line; the rook can invade into the opponent’s position.
So, White may bring the rook to a7, for instance, and the rook will directly attack the
b7-pawn and indirectly all those pawns on the 7th rank. So, potentially the rook can
grab a lot of pawns there and that is great.
Sometimes, the rook can even invade into the last rank of the opponent; and then, it
can even deliver a sudden checkmate. If we imagine that there are no rooks of Black
on the last rank; then, all of a sudden, White can play Ra8, invading the very last rank,
delivering the checkmate in one move, which is just awesome.

To conclude: When you have the rook in an open file, which is a great position for the
rook, you can use it to invade into the opponent’s position, whether it would be the
last rank to attack the opponent’s king or the 7th rank to attack his pawns. But, in any
case, it can give you great prospects for your attack.
Now let’s go ahead. So, you have already successfully realized the first main idea:
you placed your rook on the open line, the line where there are none of your pawns
and now it is already pretty active. However, there is no way for you to make any
direct attack. For instance, like in the position we have right now.

OK, the white rook is attacking the pawn on a7, but Black’s rook is protecting it, so
there is no way for White to make progress. What should you be doing here?
Rule 2: The next step of your plan is to double rooks. So, what do you do if you
need to place both of your rooks on these open lines? You play Ra2 –and after a
random move for Black, just to illustrate White’s idea–, you place your other rook on
the a-file and now you have both rooks there. So, in the next move, you can finally
grab the pawn on a7. Now you have two attacks against this pawn, while Black has
only one defense.
Let’s see how the same idea works in a situation within a totally open line. So, you
start doubling your rooks on this open line; you play Ra2 –and again I will make a
random move for Black. Then you play another rook on the a-file. And, finally, you
see that again there is a new opportunity for you. Previously, you could not invade
into the last rank because this square was controlled by Black’s rook; but now, since
you have two rooks here, you can finally do that. You can invade there, which will
ultimately deliver a checkmate on the last rank. Once again, you see how doubling
rooks increases your chances for a successful attack.

To sum up, your plan to use the rooks consists of 3 steps:
1) First, you put the rook on an open file and then

2) You double rooks there and
3) Finally, you invade into the opponent’s camp.
And now, let’s see how these theoretical ideas work in a practical game.
Mednis,Edmar John - Fischer,Robert James [B99]

USA-ch New York (9), 1959
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Be7 8.Qf3 Qc7 9.0–
0–0 Nbd7 10.g4 b5 11.Bxf6 gxf6 12.a3 Bb7 13.f5 e5 14.Nde2 Nb6 15.Nd5 Bxd5
16.exd5 Rc8 17.Nc3 Nc4 18.Bxc4 bxc4 19.Kb1 Rb8 20.Ka2 h5 21.gxh5 Bf8
22.Rhg1 Ke7 23.Qe2 Bh6 24.Rg4 Rhc8 25.Qf2
Black to play

This is the game between Mednis and Fischer. Fischer is playing with black pieces
and it is Black to play. What do you think about this position? How would you play
here?
It is pretty interesting that the computer suggests the move 25….Qb6 or 25… Bg5,
and Bg5 looks a bit odd, but anyway the computer suggests some random moves.
But let’s look at this from the point of view of Fischer. He knew his maneuver; he
knew that the thing that he needs to think about is how to put his pieces on the most
active positions.
In this situation, let’s have a look at Black’s rooks. The rook on b8 is already standing
well, and we know that the rook should be on an open file, and it already controls this
b-file. But, how about the rook on c8? It has no good squares to go to, no attacking
prospects and, most importantly, it does not have any open line. Therefore, for sure,
we may conclude that the rook from c8 needs to be relocated on an open file.
If we look at this position, the choice of where it can possibly be placed is not that
huge. In terms of the open files, there are the b- and g-files. So, for the c8-rook there
are only these two choices where it can be placed.
Now let’s also recollect the general theory of using an open file. So, first you place
the rook there, which is already done by Black; and the second step is to double rooks
along this open file. That is exactly what Fischer did: he played 25...Rb7. It seems
really easy: When you know this general theory, you just follow it. It is that easy.
White played 26.Rb1, protecting the b2-pawn in advance, and Black played 26…
Rb8, doubling rooks; and White played 27.Ne4. Here Black had another question of
what to do next. So, Black has already doubled the rooks along the b-file, but the b2-
pawn is already protected by White; so Black needs to find a way to increase the
pressure. Therefore, he decided to triple the heavy pieces along the b-file, by placing
the queen there as well.
So, he played 27…Rb6, preparing the move Qb7, then installing this powerful battery
which will be able to break through the b-file. White was also creative: he took with
the knight on f6 28.Nxf6, inviting Black’s king to go forward, which will be a
dangerous walk, since White is willing to continue with Qh4+ in case Black grabs the
knight. But there is no reason for Black to react to White’s ideas; he can simply
finalize his own plan.
And therefore, Fischer just ignored White’s idea and simply continued with his plan:
he played 28…Qb7, with a direct threat of Rxb2 with a following checkmate.
White played 29.Ng8+ and once again Fischer just ignored it. He wants to realize his
plan, he does not want to deviate and pay attention to what his opponent is doing
29…Kf8. Now finally, White has to protect the pawn on b2 and he played 30.c3, and
here Fischer found an interesting tactics to put more pressure on the pawn on b2.
Currently, the pawn is attacked and protected by 3 pieces from each side. Therefore,
there is no way for Black to grab the pawn right away. But Fischer found a tactics to
attack the b2 pawn one more time, he played 30….Bc1. The point is that Black is
attacking the pawn one more time, and if White takes the bishop, then Black can
finally invade into White’s camp, Rxb2, leading to checkmate.
So, in this game, you can clearly see the right usage of the open file: First, you put the
rook there, then you double or even triple your heavy pieces along the b-file; and
finally, you find a way to break through the opponent’s defense and invade into the
opponent’s position along this open file, gaining material or even delivering a
checkmate.
Conclusions
We are talking about the right usage of your rook, where it should be placed, and the
bottom line here is that you need to place your rook on an open line. An open line
means that it should be free of pawns, primarily your own pawns. In that case, there
will be nothing that will block the way of your rook; so it will be able to control a lot
of squares and to attack your opponent.
In case you see that your rook’s file is blocked by some pawns, think about the ways
to exchange them or even to sacrifice them in order to open up the line for your rook
to ensure it can enjoy an open file.
After that, you have the very straightforward plan which consists of three steps.
1) Put your rook on an open line

2) Double rooks
3) Invade into the opponent’s camp
This is the very simple and straightforward plan. And what made Fischer’s game so
special is that he just followed it, he did not get distracted by any other ideas, and
tried not to react to the opponent’s moves; but just to follow this very straightforward
plan. And if you do the same, you will be able to crush your opponents using the
rooks just as much as Fischer did in his own games.

Lesson-4: The King of Chess (14mins)
Welcome into the Lesson number four, called “The King of Chess”. The purpose of
this lesson is to help you improve your chess skills, so that you can beat your
opponents and feel like the King of Chess.
Well, since the course is about Fischer, perhaps another photo would be more
suitable. And also the purpose of this lesson is to help you play with your king, so that
you know how to use it properly in different stages of the game and throughout the
whole game.
Let’s have a look, once again, at the game that we have already analyzed in the lesson
about bishops. This is the game between Fischer playing White and Petrosian playing
Black.
Fischer,Robert James - Petrosian,Tigran V [B13]

URS-World Belgrade (1.2), 29.03.1970
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.c3 Nf6 6.Bf4 Bg4 7.Qb3 Na5 8.Qa4+ Bd7
9.Qc2 e6 10.Nf3 Qb6 11.a4 Rc8 12.Nbd2 Nc6 13.Qb1 Nh5 14.Be3 h6 15.Ne5 Nf6
16.h3 Bd6
At this point, it was White to play and he made the correct move –castling.

White’s turn
Now, what is the purpose of castling? The purpose, well, there are actually two points
of this idea. The first thing is that you put your king in safety because previously it
was standing in the central files, which often times can be opened with some central
exchanges. Then your king may appear to be exposed in big danger, so that is the first
point of making castling. This is what everybody pretty much knows.
In this game, Black played Kf8, with the same idea of removing his king from the
central files to the corner or closer to a safer location. However, Black made a terrible
mistake by this move. You see that Fischer castled his king while Black simply
removed the king from the central file. What is the major drawback of this move? The
drawback is that currently Black’s rook is locked there in the corner and does not take
part in the battle. So, compare it with the white rook on f1, which is so active that it
can play anywhere along the first rank. Or, as it happened in the game, White pushed
the pawn forward, and now this rook is also ready to work along this open file. White
could possibly push his f-pawn forward, open up this file and the rook would be
active there. Once again, compare it with Black’s rook on h8, which is dozing doing
nothing at all.

So, the second major, even the most important, purpose of castling your king is that
you also bring your rook into play. Since Black refused to do that, he struggled a lot.
Now, let me skip a few moves from this game to show you the position that would
happen if he moves later on this game. Once again, I already analyzed this game in
the lesson about bishops, so you can check out the entire game there. So, for now,
let’s just skip a few moves.
So, this position appeared in the game, and now you can see even clearer the
difference between the castled and the uncastled king. Since White’s king is castled,
the rook is so much powerful and active: It has the open file, it has lots of squares to
go to, it controls a larger territory, and it can make a lot of damage to Black. Now,
compare it once again with Black's rook on h8: It is almost like this rook is not
present on the board; it is present but it is not doing any job. So, we may even say that
it's almost like you're playing a game with odds, like you are giving an extra rook to
your opponent. You know, sometimes, when a much stronger player plays against a
weaker opponent, he may give odds to his opponent; for instance, playing without a
rook to equalize the chances. When you don't castle, it's almost like you're giving
odds to your opponent by playing without your rook. So, it is as significant as it is.
That is how in this game, White was winning so easily. Thus, never forget to castle
your king; that's one of the major things that you should be doing at the very early
stage of the game. So, in an opening, the main thing that you should be doing with
your king is to castle it; never forget about it.
17.0–0 Kf8 18.f4 Be8 19.Bf2 Qc7 20.Bh4 Ng8 21.f5 Nxe5 22.dxe5 Bxe5 23.fxe6
Bf6 24.exf7 Bxf7 25.Nf3 Bxh4 26.Nxh4 Nf6 27.Ng6+ Bxg6 28.Bxg6 Ke7 29.Qf5
Kd8 30.Rae1 Qc5+ 31.Kh1 Rf8 32.Qe5 Rc7 33.b4 Qc6 34.c4 dxc4 35.Bf5 Rff7
36.Rd1+ Rfd7 37.Bxd7 Rxd7 38.Qb8+ Ke7 39.Rde1+ 1–0
Lehmann,Heinz - Fischer,Robert James [B84]

Capablanca Memorial Havana (1), 1965
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 Nbd7 7.0–0 e6 8.f4 b5 9.Bf3
Bb7 10.e5 Bxf3 11.Nxf3 dxe5 12.fxe5 Ng4 13.Qe2 b4 14.Ne4 Ngxe5 15.Nxe5 Nxe5
16.Ng5 Qb6+17.Kh1 Qb5 18.Qe1 Be7 19.b3 0–0 20.a4 Qc5 21.Qe2 Rac8 22.c4
bxc3 23.Ba3 Qc7 24.Bxe7 Qxe7 25.Qxe5 Rc5 26.Qe2 Rxg5 27.Qxa6 Qb4 28.Rfb1
Rd8

White to play
Here is another game and, this time, we will talk about the right usage of your king in
the middlegame. It was the game between Lehmann and Fischer; Fischer is playing
Black. Currently, it is White to play. You may think about this position for a moment:
how do you play here as White or as Black? Actually, White played a5, which seems
to be entirely logical, to push his passed pawn forward. How would you play here as
Black? Well, you may think about a number of different options: you may push your
passed pawn forward or maybe you would think of attacking White’s king somehow,
like playing Qe4 and threatening Qxg2 to checkmate. Or, maybe you want to double
rooks along the d-file. So, there could be many options that you can take. Or, maybe
you would like to double your rooks on the open file as we have analyzed it in the
previous lesson about rooks. There could be many other moves worth considering for
Black.
However, Fischer did an entirely different thing. Instead of making any of those
aggressive moves, he made the cautious decision of playing h6. Now, what is the
purpose of this move? It is simply to give an escape square for his king. Why is it
important? Well, we will see it in a few moves. White played Qc4, proposing an

exchange of queens; Black traded the queens and played c2. And now after Rc1,
Black has a winning shot. Can you find it?
The winning move for Black is based on the weakness of the first rank and the
weakness of White's king –it is Rxa5. It looks like Black is giving up the rook, but in
reality, it’s not the case because if White captures the rook, after Rd1, it is checkmate
on the first rank. White would have to grab the rook and then Black can take it and
promote his pawn into a queen or, even into a rook; and this is still a checkmate.
Now, you can see why it’s so important to make the escape square for your king.
Currently, White’s friendly pawns are blocking the way of his king, so that it cannot
escape from check –and that is why White is losing. By the way, you may notice that,
of course, potentially the same danger exists for Black; as White would also be able to
play Ra8, making this check. There could possibly be a danger for Black's king, but
Black, foreseeing this situation in advance; he secured himself by preparing that vital
escape square for his king. That is why it's so important to make a flight square for
your king in the middlegame.
Let us check, once again, exactly how you should be creating that flight square in the
middlegame for your king. You may do this with your h-pawn, as it happened in the
game when Fischer played his pawn to h6. This is definitely a good option and I
would even say that this is the most common situation, in which you're moving your
h-pawn to make an escape square for your king. But also, a good option is to move
your g-pawn forward. You may push the g-pawn by playing g6, which also gives a
safe position for your king.
Now the final note: Why shouldn't you be moving your f-pawn to make an escape
square for your king? Well, in this particular position, it is pretty obvious that this
move is just bad for Black because this e6-pawn is weak. But, even if that were not
the case, usually moving your f-pawn, would be more dangerous because you are also
exposing your king to the eventual threats along this diagonal. Therefore, the
advancement of the f-pawn is not advisable. So, instead, you should be considering
either the g6-move or the h6-move; and both of them are usually good options.
29.a5 h6 flight square 30.Qc4 Qxc4 31.bxc4 c2 0–1
Uhlmann,Wolfgang - Fischer,Robert James [A75]

Palma de Mallorca Interzonal Palma de Mallorca (18), 03.12.1970
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nc3 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6 7.Bf4 a6 8.a4 Bg7 9.Nf3 0–0
10.Be2 Bg4 11.0–0 Re8 12.h3 Nxe4 13.Nxe4 [13.hxg4 Bxc3 14.bxc3 Nxc3]
13...Rxe4 14.Bg5 Qe8 15.Bd3 Bxf3 16.Qxf3 Rb4 17.Rae1 Be5 18.Qd1 Qxa4
19.Qxa4 Rxa4 20.f4 Bd4+ 21.Kh1 Nd7 22.Re7 Nf6 23.Rxb7 Nh5 24.Kh2 Be3
25.Be2 Bxf4+ 26.Bxf4 Rxf4 27.Rb6 Rxf1 28.Bxf1 Rd8 29.Rxa6 Kg7 30.Bb5

This is a game between Uhlmann and Fischer. It is Black to play. Before we begin
analyzing this position, let me draw your attention to one good fact that we just
analyzed before. Pay attention to the fact that, in the middlegame, both opponents
took the time to make the flight square for their kings.
White advanced his h-pawn to h3, providing an escape square for his king; and Black
did the same, by playing g6, so that his king is now in safety on g7. Therefore, both
opponents secured themselves from an eventual back rank mate.
Now, let's think about this position and what should Black play right now. In the
endgame, the rule for your king is very simple: You need to centralize and activate
your king; and therefore, Black played Kf6. In the middlegame, the king is a
vulnerable piece, so you need to keep it in safety somewhere in the corner, to castle it
as we discussed earlier. And, in an endgame, it all changes; you need to bring your
king forward, centralize it just as much as you do it with any other piece that you
have. That's why, after White’s move, Bc6, Black just continued with Ke5,
centralizing the king. By the way, there is another question. I have just told you that in
an endgame, you need to centralize the king. The question is: when does the endgame

begin? Even though there is no very strict answer to this question, usually, the
endgame begins after the queens are exchanged.
Therefore, once you see that the queens are exchanged, your next impulse should be
to activate your king. Anyway, let's see what happened next. White played Ra7,
attacking Black’s pawn on f7, and Black protected it. Then White made check, Black
played Kd4, advancing the king even further to a more advanced position. Now
Black’s plan is very simple: just to move his knight somewhere –to f6–, and to grab
this pawn on d5. Black is already a pawn up and he's going to grab one more.
White tried to counterattack with the move Rd7, but it failed because Black, anyway,
played Nf6. And White, all of a sudden, realized that Rxd6 does not work because
after Ke5, the rook will be trapped. Therefore, White may not grab this pawn; he will
have to remove his rook somewhere from attack, and Black would be able to simply
grab that pawn on d5, getting the winning material advantage.
Now, why did Black manage to win this game so easily? You may notice why. It is
because Black is using three pieces to play, while White is using only two. White’s
king is standing in the corner doing nothing, while Black has almost an extra piece in
the game.
In an endgame, the power of the king is approximately equal to the power of the
knight. Therefore, if you don't use the king in an endgame, it’s almost as if you're
playing without the knight. As we said that, in the opening, if you do not castle, it is
almost as if you're giving odds to your opponent, it’s almost as if you're playing
without a rook. And, in the endgame, if you don't activate your king, it is almost as if
you’re playing without a knight. You see that those rules are extremely significant, so
always remember: in an endgame, centralize your king.
In the previous lessons, we were talking about the art of positional play which was
mastered by Bobby Fischer in a phenomenal way. The positional play is all about the
art of putting your pieces on the most favorable positions. In this lesson, we were
talking about the king and what you should do with your king in different stages of
the game. In the opening, you need to castle your king. By doing so, you move your
king into safety and, even more importantly, you activate your rook. In the
middlegame, you need to take one tempo, one move to create a flight square for your
king. This will secure your king from eventual back rank mate threats and, also, it will
free your rooks and queen from protecting the back rank, so that they will be actively
involved in the game. That is why it's so much important to create flight squares and
prevent any eventual tactical motifs of bank rank, which your opponent could
possibly take advantage of.
Finally, in the endgame, you need to centralize your king. In general, talking about the
game of chess, with any piece offside the game, in the opening and in the
middlegame, you should try to centralize it. In the endgame, this rule starts to apply
for your king as well. So, after you traded off the queens, move your king forward and
try to centralize it. The power of the king in the endgame is almost equal to the power
of the knight. Therefore, this rule is extremely important. So these are the three very
simple and straightforward rules about how you should use your king throughout the
game of chess.
Once again, the power of Bobby Fischer was the fact that he clearly formulated the
rules of chess for himself and he just followed that. And that’s why people will say
that he's playing like a machine, he's perfect, he does not make mistakes, he wins all
the games and stuff like that.
But in reality, you see that we can easily demystify that stuff by just formulating the
same rules. If you follow the same rules in your games, you will definitely almost
always play that perfect chess and will win a lot of games.

Lesson-5: Crush Opponent's Weaknesses (25mins)
Hi and welcome into the continuation of the course “Play like Fischer”. This fifth
lesson is called “Crush Opponent's Weaknesses”. Fischer was really great at taking
advantage of the opponent’s weaknesses and winning the games through exploiting
opponent’s weaknesses.
The main chess piece which is used in order to attack and occupy the opponent’s
weak squares is the knight. And therefore this lesson will mainly be dedicated to the
right use of the knights, how to place them well and how to attack the opponent’s
weaknesses. Fischer could handle these animals really well, as you can see, and in this
lesson, we’ll try to figure out exactly how he managed to do that.
And, first of all, let’s check out what Fischer himself said about his extraordinary
skills and the way he could crush his opponents using their weaknesses. Here’s the
quote: “You know, I can beat all those guys”. As always, Fischer is concise and does
not provide us with too many information about his secrets. And therefore, I’ll have to
make this job for you and reveal the secrets of Bobby Fischer’s play.
In order to start, let me show you another interesting quote said by Fischer. Here it is:
“Chess is like war on a board”. And, I believe that he treated chess like the war not
only psychologically as the way to, you know, break the opponent’s ego and to try to
dominate but also, it is that chess is a strategic game and therefore, the strategy of the
chess game and the strategy of the real war in many ways are the same. In light of
that, let me recall a quick thing from the very first lesson of this course.
There, we’ve been talking about that the main theme of the chess game is controlling
a large amount of territory. And here, we can compare it with an illustration of the
real war when there are different parties who are competing, who are in this military
conflict and each of them control a certain territory. And, if we imagine that you are
one of those parties, then your goal is to control the largest territory possible. Then
you will dominate, there will be no space for your opponent and you’ll be able to
expand and easily can corner your opponent.
If we take in mind this idea –this bottom line idea that your main theme is to control
the largest amount of territory, then it will be easier for us to understand how to use
the chess knight.
What is the best position for your knight? In order to answer this question, let’s
compare the different positions of the knight and let’s see what the territory under the
control of the knight on different positions is.

For example, if the knight is standing in the corner, on h8, like in this example; he
controls two squares. This is actually the worst position for the knight because the
territory under the control of the knight, under the fire of this piece, is minimal.
Now let’s relocate the knight into the center.

This time, the knight controls eight squares, which is certainly much better and this is
the maximum that the knight, theoretically, can control. And therefore, such central
position is the ideal placement of the knight.
Let’s try out one more situation.

Here, the knight stands somewhere in the middle, not in the corner, not in the center;
and we may see that it controls six squares, which is worse than compared to the
central position where it was controlling eight squares.
You may easily understand why the knight is controlling less squares. And it’s
because the edge of the board cuts off a few squares which the knight could
theoretically control. And, in light of that, we may conclude that the best position for
the knight would be the central position.

Let’s see the area marked by the green color. All the squares inside this area are the
ideal positions for the knight placement. If your knight stands on any of these squares,
it will control eight squares, which is the maximum that the knight can possibly
control. Sometimes, such center is called the large center. Compared to the four
squares in the very center of the board which are called simply center, these sixteen
squares marked by green color sometimes may be called large center. So, the large
center is the ideal placement for the knight. In fact, this is a very practical idea and, if
you follow it in the real game, it will make it a lot easier for you to decide which
moves are correct.

Here is one of the very standard positions of the chess opening and currently, it is
time for White to develop his queenside knight. So, what do you think about it?
Where should the knight go? We know that we should develop the knight towards the
center and therefore it can possibly go either to d2 or to c3. Which square is better?
If you keep in mind the idea of the large center, and that it is the ideal placement for
your knight, then the answer is pretty straightforward, right? The knight should
definitely go to c3. At the same time, you will see a lot of players who do not
understand this simple idea, and who keep placing their knight on d2 –on the second
line instead of the third rank– and then they don’t even realize that this is a mistake.
And, you see, even if you don’t know the opening theory; you can play the correct
moves easily just by understanding this simple principle of the knight should stand in
the large center.
OK. Now, we know that the knight should stand in the large center. Now, let’s move
on and see how this may work in a practical game.
1.d4 …Nc6 2.e4 …Nf6

Imagine that Black is trying to place his knight in the large center right away. So, he
goes with Nc6, following with Nf6. And, so far so good, Black has placed both of his
knights into this large center. There is one problem though. White could start
attacking these knights, trying to push them back. For instance, White could push the
pawn to e5, forcing Black’s knight to retreat. And let’s say, Black tries to keep the
knight in the center and goes to d5, but White can continue chasing the knight. And
now, finally, the knight has to go away on an undesirable position outside of the large
center. And, as you may see, currently this knight on b6 does not have any available
square to go to, so it is in a very bad position.
Moreover, White can continue chasing Black’s knight with his pawns. And he can
continue with d5, followed by c5. And you can see that the misplaced knight on b6 is
now almost captured and the only available square is c4, but currently both knights
are in a very insecure position. For instance, White can keep pushing pawns, f4. Now
the e5 knight is under attack and at the same time, it can’t go away because it supports
the other knight on c4. And therefore, one of the knights would be lost.

In this example, we have seen that Black tried to place his knights in the center, and
although, in general, this idea is correct; in this case, it simply didn’t work for Black
because White could easily attack and push away those knights with pawns. Thus, we
may conclude another rule: You need to find secure squares for your knights, those
squares which cannot be attacked by the opponent’s pawns.

Let’s think about this position: Here the knight is correctly placed into the center and
also it cannot be attacked by White’s pawns. Does that mean that it is an ideal
position for the knight? Well, almost. It cannot be attacked by the pawns and it cannot
be captured. However, White still can use his pieces to attack the knight. For instance,
White may use his bishop or the queen and play something like Qf3, attacking the
knight. And therefore, you may notice that the knight’s position is unstable –It can
pretty easily be pushed back. And, although the knight can’t really be captured by the
pawn, Black still cannot fix the knight in the center. So, pretty soon, Black would
have to go back with his knight; for instance, in this variation (Qf3 …f5, exf5 …Nf6).
In light of that, you may see that the black position was pretty good: I mean, Black’s
placement of the knight is still not ideal.
Now let’s compare it with another situation.

The position is almost the same as in the previous example, but this time Black has
the pawn on d5, which supports that knight on e4, which makes the knight’s position
much stronger, and currently the knight is really at its best. And even if White plays
the move Qf3, well, it doesn’t do anything –the knight is already protected. White
could also try to attack the knight with the bishop, but that wouldn’t still create any
problems for Black because, again, the knight is already protected. And even if White
exchanged his bishop, we know that, generally, the bishop is a little bit stronger than
the knight; so this would be a favorable thing for Black.
We may conclude that, currently, the knight is in its ideal position and you may
remember the three main criteria for the best position of the knight: First of all, it is
located in the center –in the large center– and, therefore, it controls eight squares.
Secondly, it is supported by the pawn and, therefore, it is a strong knight. It is stable
and it cannot be pushed away that easily. And finally, the knight cannot be attacked
by any of the white pawns, and, therefore, his position is really secure. So, these are
the three main criteria for the great placement of the knights. And now, let’s go to
different practical examples and see how Fischer followed these rules in his games.
Fischer,Robert James - Gligoric,Svetozar [C69]

Havana ol (Men) fin-A Havana (8), 1966
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.0–0 f6 6.d4 Bg4 7.c3 exd4 8.cxd4 Qd7
9.h3 Be6 10.Nc3 0–0–0 11.Bf4 Ne7 12.Rc1 Ng6 13.Bg3 Bd6
White’s turn
How would you play here as White? Can you find any maneuver which would
improve the position of one of White’s knights? There is such a maneuver. White
found a way to activate his knight. The maneuver in it proved to be Na4 to the great
square c5. There is one thing that I‘d like to clarify here. You may say that, well, both
of those squares are put in the large center, right? And then, currently, the knight is
already standing within the large center, so why should you move it elsewhere? Well,
it is true that currently the knight is placed well and it is controlling eight squares.
However, it controls the squares mainly on White’s territory –on the white half of the
board. And if you would imagine this knight on c5, it would also control many
squares on the black side of the board; and, therefore, it would cause a lot of troubles
for Black. And that is why there is this general rule that says: In general, you need to

advance your pieces forward. There, they are the most active and they’d also cause
troubles for your opponent. And, in light of that, Fischer just moved his knight to a4.
14.Na4 Here Black decided to trade off the bishops, which is a noticeable mistake. If
you have a weak square, like in this case Black had on c5, which White may use to
penetrate into Black’s territory; it’s very useful to keep the bishop, which could
possibly control those squares. Because, if you imagine that right now White would
move his knight to c5, Black could easily trade it off with his bishop.
14…Bxg3 15.fxg3 Kb8 But once the bishop was traded off, there’s no defender of
that weak square anymore. And therefore, in the next move, White could very easily
move his knight there. 16.Nc5
Now you may notice that the knight really occupies the most ideal position. As we
know, it should stand in the large center and it is currently the case. The knight is
supported by the pawn and, therefore, it has a stable position as a strong knight. And,
finally, even though, theoretically, Black could play b6 to kick this knight away; then
you would notice that this pawn covers Black’s king and also supports another pawn,
a6. And therefore, it would not be easy for Black to push this pawn forward because it
could weaken the position of his castle. Therefore, we may say that the knight is
pretty much secure there on c5.
Well, right now the black queen is under attack, therefore Black played the queen to
d6. 16…Qd6 And now, just look at this knight on c5 and how many squares it is
controlling, both in the white and in the black territory. The knight takes so large
territory under fire. The black bishop is under attack and, therefore, Black’s queen
may not go away because his bishop will be lost. Also, the knight is putting strong
pressure over Black’s queenside –where Black’s king is standing– and White just
decided to continue the attack there and to bring one more piece which can support
the knight in his attack on the black king.
17.Qa4 So, right now, White has a very straightforward threat: He is going to play
Qb4, threatening Qb7 and checkmate. Black decided to cover his positions somehow
and he played Ka7. 17...Ka7 but it didn’t help because White used the knight to
destroy the pawn’s cover of Black’s king and White played Nxa6.
18.Nxa6 which wins the game because in case the knight is captured, White would
continue grabbing those pawns and he’s going to be mated in a few moves; for
example, in a variation like this: 18…bxa6 19.Rxc6 Qd7 20.Rxa6+ Kb8 21.Ra8+ Kb7
22.Qa6# and the king is checkmated.
In this game, you have seen how a single knight dominated the entire game basically,
and how White has developed the mating attack on the queenside. And it all started
from the right maneuver of the knight, due to the strong square.
18…Bxh3 19.e5 Nxe5 20.dxe5 fxe5 21.Nc5+ Kb8 22.gxh3 e4 23.Nxe4 Qe7 24.Rc3
b5 25.Qc2 1–0
Fischer,Robert James - Czerniak,Moshe [B13]

Netanya-A Netanya (3), 19.06.1968

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.c3 Nf6 6.Bf4 g6 7.Nf3 Bg7 8.Nbd2 Nh5
9.Be3 0–0 10.0–0 f5 11.Nb3 Qd6 12.Re1 f4 13.Bd2 Bg4 14.Be2 Rae8
White to play
Let’s think about this position. What do you think about the placement of White’s
knights? Should it be improved? And if yes, then what is the ideal square for White’s
knight?
First of all, we know that the knight should stand on the large center. And if we talk
about this, we may say that the knight on f3 is already standing there; but the knight
on b3 is outside of the large square and therefore it should be improved. Next, we
know that you should place the knight on the square under the protection of your
pawn and then it will be a really strong protected position. In light of that, you may
notice that there are two central squares, which are protected by your pawn. And
therefore, ideally, White would like to place the knight there.

Finally, we need to take into account secure positions. Those positions for the knight
will not be able to be attacked by an opponent’s pawn. And, in light of that, we may
conclude that if you place your knight on c5, then Black would be able to kick it away
by pushing his b-pawn forward. But, if you place the knight there, on e5, then there’s
no Black’s pawn that can possibly attack this square. Therefore, the position on e5
would be just perfect. In light of that, White started the maneuver of his knight aiming
at that ideal square. White played Nc1.
15.Nc1 As you can see, if you understand the right placement of the pieces, then the
positional play becomes very natural for you. You know that the positional play is just
the art of placing your pieces on the good positions. And that’s what you keep doing,
you keep thinking about your pieces and what the ideal positions for them are. And
then, you transfer your pieces to those best positions. By the way, a little note about
the maneuver of White’s knight: White could also have maneuvered through the c5
square and then played to d3, which will also be possible.
Ok, let’s see what happened next in this game.

15...Bxf3 16.Bxf3 e5 Black decided to prevent White from this maneuver and he gave
up the bishop against the knight and then played e5 to eliminate his weakness.
Although the weakness was eliminated, Black had to trade off his bishop for the white
knight, which as we already know, is a favorable exchange for White. And also that,
in a way, activated White’s light-squared bishop, which White used by playing Qb3.
17.Qb3 counterattacking Black’s pawn on d5, which is now under the fire of White’s
both queen and bishop. It’s also worth noticing that Black can not just push the pawn
forward because in that case this pawn will simply be captured and, due to the pin,
Black cannot recapture the rook. So, it would just lose the pawn for Black. [17...e4
18.Rxe4]
In the actual game, Black did not push his e-pawn forward; instead he captured
White’s pawn on d4.
17...exd4 And here, White could have taken Black’s central pawn on d5, which was a
good option for Black; but Fischer instead just brought his knight back into play –
back inside of the large center.
18.Nd3 Rd8 Black played it to protect the central pawn and here, there was another
very instructive moment. You may notice that, right now, White could have possibly
captured the black pawn on b7, which looks like the right way to do things just to win
the pawn or rather to regain the pawn. However, Fischer made another thing instead:
He played a great positional move –pawn to c4– which forces the exchange.
19.c4 dxc4 20.Qxc4+ Kh8 Now Black is under check and goes away. And now we
may really evaluate the greatness of the c4 pawn move. Take a look at White’s knight
on d3. Currently, it’s doing a really terrific job. First of all, just once White was in the
large center, which is a great thing, then the knight is placed well. Secondly, although
the knight is not supported by the pawn; then you may see that Black’s own pawn on
d4 is somewhat like a shield for the knight because, otherwise, Black’s heavy pieces
would definitely attack the knight along the d-file. But now, they are blocked by
Black’s front d-pawn on d4, so the knight uses the opponent’s pawn somewhat like a
shield. And, that is why the position of the knight is really safe and secure, stable. So,
this is another example which you really need to remember: If you can put the knight
in front of the opponent’s passed pawn, that is also an ideal placement for the knight.
It would not only blockade the opponent: It would not let it go forward, but it would
also keep the knight in a very secure position, where the pawn will be used as a
shield.
Ok, let’s see how the game continued.
21.Re6 Qb8 White just played rook to e6 –as you already know from the lesson about
the rooks: That once you have the rook on an open file, you need to double rooks
there, so now you can easily understand Fischer’s moves.
22.Rae1 And then, after 22…Rc8, White just grabbed the knight because it wins the
pawn. 23.Bxc6 Rxc6 24.Rxc6 bxc6 25.Qxc6. In reality, it doesn’t win the pawn
because it just gains the pawn back, which White sacrificed earlier. Black decided to
trade off one of White’s active pieces, so he played queen to c8.
25…Qc8 26.Qxc8 Rxc8 and now after this exchange, Black has a bunch of weak
pawns which White can easily attack. And, by the way, there is one more question
which I would like to ask you about: Do you remember from the lesson about the
right way of the king usage, what should you do with your king in an endgame? What
should you do once your queens are exchanged like it happened in this position? In
and endgame, you need to centralize your king. In the light of that, Fischer just played
Kf1.
27.Kf1 Once again, you may see that White possibly could have captured the pawn on
f4, which was also a fine option. But instead, Fischer decided to improve the
placement of his pieces. And that is why I’ve told you that Fischer was really all
about that, all about the right placement of his pieces. And he just formulated the rules
for himself, which he followed all the time and tried not to deflect himself to anything
else. And that is how Fischer’s game became so perfect and people said that he plays
like a machine, the perfect moves, that he’s always great. And it is just because he
always followed the rules which he formulated for himself. And now you are learning
these rules for your games.
Ok. Coming back to the actual game, we’ll all see the rest of the endgame. It was a
long game but you may notice that Black’s pawn on f4 is weak under the fire of the
white pieces. White can invade into the seventh rank, attacking also the weak pawn on
a7, and something like that happened in the game. White grabbed the black pawns and
then promoted his own pawns. And therefore, he won this game later on. You’ll be
able to see the rest of the game, if you wish. Find it in a database with all the games
from the video lessons in the practical part.
27…Bh6 28.Rc1 Rxc1+ 29.Bxc1 g5 30.b4 Kg8 31.b5 Kf7 32.Ba3 Bf8 33.Ne5+ Ke6
34.Bxf8 Kxe5 35.Bc5 Nf6 36.Bxa7 Ne4 37.f3 Nd2+ 38.Ke2 Nc4 39.b6 Na5 40.b7
Nxb7 41.Kd3 h5 42.Bxd4+ Kd5 43.h3 Nd8 44.a4 Ne6 45.Bb6 g4 46.hxg4 hxg4
47.fxg4 Ng5 1–0

Conclusions
In this course, we talked about the art of positional play by Bobby Fischer. And we
already know that the positional play is the art of putting your pieces on the most
favorable positions.
In this fifth lesson of the course, we were talking about the knight. There are three
main rules for the right placement of your knight. First of all, you should put it in the
large center. When your knight is standing in the center, it controls eight squares,
which is the maximum damage that the knight can produce. This idea helps you to
develop your knights properly right at the very beginning of the game, where you can
already clearly see where the knight should be developed from its original position.
Secondly, put the knight in a position where it cannot be attacked by the opponent’s
pawns. In that case, the opponent will not be able to attack and push away your
knight. One of such cases is that you blockade the opponent’s passed pawn with your
knight. In that case, the opponent’s pawns cannot attack your knight and also the
opponent’s passed pawn will be used as a shield to protect your knight.
Finally, find a position where your knight will be supported by your pawn. In that
case, the knight will be protected in advance from any eventual threats from your
opponent. Thus, the knight will be strong; it won’t be possible for your opponent to
push it away.
These are the three main principles for the ideal position of your knight. And, so now
you know how to place your knight properly throughout the entire game: Put it in the
large center on the position protected by your pawn, where it cannot be attacked by
the opponent’s pawns. If you can correspond to all these three principles, it would be
an ideal placement for the knight. If all three are impossible to meet simultaneously,
well then try to follow them as much as you can. So, at least follow two of those rules
or at least one of those principles. So just follow them as much as you can and you
will ensure the best position possible in the current situation that you have on the
chess board. So, follow these simple rules, as you have seen Fischer just very simply
and mechanically even following those rules, and which ensured his great success.
Therefore, you can implement the same techniques in your games and you will
acquire similarly great results.

Lesson-6: The Strongest Attacking Force (15mins)
Hi and welcome into the next lesson of the course “Play like Fischer”. In this course
we’re trying to analyze Fischer’s games and reveal the secrets of his phenomenal
performance. How could Fischer outperform his competitors so significantly? Is it
that he trained under some very unique conditions? Or should you bring your
preparation even to a deeper level? Well, probably not. J
Fischer himself did not reveal very much about the secrets of his preparation. And,
nevertheless, he said some separate things. For instance, here’s one quote from
Fischer “I prepare myself well. I know what I can do before I go in.” And what I
think he meant to say by that is that he prepared a list of guidelines for himself –the
guidelines for playing a game of chess. And, while playing, he simply followed those
rules which he composed.
In this course we’re doing, let’s say, the backward work. We’re analyzing his games
to understand what those rules are that he followed, so that you can follow the same
rules and get the same results. These rules are all about the art of positional play –
where should you put your forces? What are their most favorable positions?
Because if you know that, then while playing a game of chess, you would simply
follow these guidelines and you will simply place your pieces to those favorable
squares; and that is exactly what Fischer was doing.
In this lesson, we’ll talk about the strongest attacking force of chess, which is the
strongest chess piece –the queen. Your queen attacks even distant objects in multiple
directions simultaneously. And that is why you should really use your queen to attack.
While some of other pieces of yours may be used for some defensive purposes, the
queen should almost, exclusively, be used for attack: It’s such a great attacking piece.
What should you attack? You should attack the opponent’s weaknesses. What are
those weaknesses? Those are the objects that are not protected by a pawn.

For instance, in the current situation, you may see that Black’s pawn on a5 is
protected by Black’s pawn from b6. And therefore, even though the queen
theoretically attacks that pawn on a5, in reality this pawn is very well protected and
there is nothing the queen can do against it. Thus, we may say that there is simply no
reason for you to try to attack such an object. Hence, you should focus on the objects
that are not protected by a pawn.
In this position, these objects are the rook, the knight and the g5-pawn. Theoretically,
you can also attack the opponent’s king; this is also a very good target for your queen.
Therefore, that is the first main conclusion about the right usage of your queen –you
should use it for attacking the opponent’s weaknesses.
You may be wondering “But, what if the opponent’s weakness is protected by another
piece, not by a pawn but by a piece?” Then it cannot be captured by the queen either.
Like in this example, the g5-pawn is supported by Black’s bishop and therefore
cannot be captured by White’s queen.

So, do we still consider this g5-pawn to be a weakness or not? Well, we still consider
this to be a weakness, because it is not protected by a pawn. Even though it is
protected by the bishop, the bishop is tied down to the defense of this pawn. And
therefore, Black cannot use this bishop for any other more active purposes.
We’re talking about the pawns –they are the weakest, slowest part of your army. And
therefore, for a pawn it is perfectly fine to make the defensive function; but, for all the
other pieces, you ideally want to use them for attacking purposes, not for defense.
Therefore, when your queen attacks an opponent’s weakness and your opponent has
to keep the piece just to protect that weakness, this still causes troubles for your
opponent. So, even though you cannot capture that g5-pawn, it still causes trouble for
your opponent.
So, once again, to conclude, you need to attack opponent’s weaknesses which are not
protected by a pawn.
There is one more advice for the proper usage of your queen. You should bring it into
attack or into the area where you plan to begin the attack. Well, in reality, of course,

this principle is very close to the previous one. In both cases, it talks about attack and
about attacking opponent’s weaknesses. Here, it just highlights the fact that the queen
can be transferred to the area of your attack very quickly.
White’s turn
Like in the above position, although your queen currently stands in the corner, very
far away from Black’s army, you can move it forward very quickly and start attacking
Black. You can play Qe5 with a check and attack the g5-pawn or you can go all the
way up to g7 and again start attacking your opponent.
Therefore, you can bring your queen to the area of your attack both quickly and with
great effect. Because whenever you bring your queen into a certain area, it will
increase the power of your attack very significantly. Therefore, if you even only
intend to start an attack, it makes sense to bring your queen into that area in advance.
Now, let’s see how Fischer used those general guidelines in his practical games. For
instance, in the Najdorf variation of the Sicilian Defense, which Fischer played all the
time against White’s 1.e4.

One of the main lines starts from the moves, Bg5 and f4.
Black’s turn
Currently, it’s Black to play. And let’s think here. In order to attack the opponent’s
weaknesses, first of all you need to detect them. So, think about this –what is the
weakest square in White’s position? What is the object of White’s position which is
not protected by a pawn, and ideally not protected by anything? In fact, there is only
one object which is not protected by any other White’s pawn or a piece. It is White’s
pawn on b2.
Therefore, Black can use his queen in order to take aim of this weakness right away.
Thus, Black can play Qb6 –which Fischer often times did in his games. And although
this threat of Qxb2 seems to be very straightforward and easy to deal with, every
eventual defense has some drawbacks for White.
For instance, if White plays Rb1, he will place the rook in a very passive position, and
it would be impossible for White to castle queenside in the future, which was White’s
plan in this variation.

If White tried to protect the pawn with the queen, then Black’s queen would find
another target –the d4-knight, which is left unprotected, which can be captured. So,
this is certainly bad for White. And finally, if White simply tried to cover the pawn
with the knight on b3, then the knight would be removed out of the center to a least
active position and this could also be considered as some achievement for Black.
Therefore, all the eventual White’s possibilities have one or another drawback. And
all this was caused by Black’s attacking move, Qb6, which properly detected White’s
weakness and took advantage of it right away. Since the queen is so mobile, you can
bring it to attack the opponent’s weaknesses very quickly.
Kholmov,Ratmir D - Fischer,Robert James [B07]

Skopje Skopje (16), 1967
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2 0–0 5.0–0 d6 6.Nc3 Nbd7 7.b3 e5 8.dxe5 dxe5
9.e4 Re8 10.Ba3
Black to play
Here is another game of Fischer playing Black against Kholmov. It’s Black to play.
What do you think about this position? Can you detect White’s weaknesses here?
What are the objects (pawns and pieces) which are not protected by the pawn, or
ideally speaking, not protected by anything?
If you think that way, you will easily spot those weaknesses, which are White’s
bishop on a3 and the c3-knight. The next question is: How can you use your queen to
attack those targets? That’s a pretty straightforward thing –you can play c6, preparing
Qa5 for the next move, which will simultaneously attack both of White’s pieces. That
is exactly what Fischer did in the game.
White decided to remove one of those weaknesses and he played Bd6. Fischer,
anyway, continued with Qa5, attacking the c3-knight. By the way, the knight cannot
go away because the e4-pawn will be lost. Therefore, White has to protect the knight
somehow, and he played Qd3.
And now Black found the way to continue his attack: He played Re6, preparing the
move, Rxd6, which would win two minor pieces against the rook, which would bring
Black the material advantage.
For example, if White plays Rd1, or any other move, Black would play Rxd6,
deflecting White’s queen from the protection of the knight and, on the next move, the
knight will be captured. Now Black has got two minor pieces for the rook, which is a
material advantage.
Therefore, in the position, all of a sudden, it became almost impossible for White to
find a proper defense. He tried to play b4, desperately trying to kick away Black’s
queen. But the queen should try to stay in an active position where it will keep an eye
on White’s weaknesses. So, where should the queen go? It should go to a3, where it
keeps aiming at White’s knight on c3.
Now, White is defenseless against the threat of Rxd6. White finally decided to play
Bc7, but that gives up the pawn for nothing. Black simply grabbed the pawn, got a
material advantage and, later on, won the game.
You can see, by this example, how easy it is to use the queen properly and how just
by creating the threat to the opponent’s weaknesses, you can develop a significant
attack almost out of nothing.
While talking about the right usage of the queen, we were talking about the fact that it
makes sense to bring the queen into the area where you plan to attack. In light of that,
I would like to have a quick look, once again, at the game we’ve already seen in the
lesson about the knight.
10...c6. 11.Bd6? [11.Qe2 >=] 11...Qa5!–+ 12.Qd3 [12.b4 Qa6] 12...Re6!

13.b4[13.Ne2 Nxe4 (13...Ne8) 14.Qxe4 Rxd6; 13.Ng5 Rxd6 14.Qxd6 Qxc3 (14...h6!–
+ Kholmov,R) 15.Qe7ƒ; 13.Rad1 Rxd6 14.Qxd6 Qxc3] 13...Qa3! /\ Rxd6 14.Bc7
Qxb4 [14...Ne8 15.Ba5 b6 16.Rab1! bxa5 17.Rb3 Nc5! 18.bxc5 Qxc5 19.Rfb1„]
15.Rab1 Qe7! [15...Qf8? 16.Ng5 Re8 17.Bd6] 16.Rfd1 [16.Ng5 Nc5–+] 16...Ne8
17.Ba5 Rd6 18.Qe2 Rxd1+ 19.Qxd1 Bf8 20.Nd2 [20.Bb4 Qf6 21.Bxf8 Nxf8–+]
20...Qa3! 21.Nc4 Qc5 22.Bf1 b5 23.Nd2 [23.Bb4 Qd4–+] 23...Qa3! 24.Nb3 Nc5
25.Bxb5 [25.Bd8 Ne6! 26.Ba5 Nd6–+] 25...cxb5 26.Nxb5 Qa4 27.Nxc5 [27.Qd5
Qxe4–+] 27...Qxa5 28.Qd5 Rb8 29.a4 Bh3! 30.Qxe5 Rc8 31.Nd3 Qxa4 32.Ne1 a6
[32...a6 33.Nd4 (33.Nc3 Qc4; 33.Na7 Rc7 34.Ra1 Qd7 35.Rxa6 Rxa7 36.Rxa7 Qxa7
37.Qxe8 Qa1–+) 33...Bg7–+] 0–1
Fischer,Robert James - Gligoric,Svetozar [C69]

Havana ol (Men) fin-A Havana (8), 1966
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.0–0 f6 6.d4 Bg4 7.c3 exd4 8.cxd4 Qd7
9.h3 Be6 10.Nc3 0–0–0 11.Bf4 Ne7 12.Rc1 Ng6 13.Bg3 Bd6 14.Na4 Bxg3 15.fxg3
Kb8 16.Nc5 Qd6
White to play
17.Qa4 Ka7 18.Nxa6 Bxh3 19.e5 Nxe5 20.dxe5 fxe5 21.Nc5+ Kb8 22.gxh3 e4
23.Nxe4 Qe7 24.Rc3 b5 25.Qc2 1–0

So, although White had this great knight on c5, he found here a way to increase the
power of his attack significantly by just bringing his queen there. So, therefore, White
just played Qa4.
Although Black currently doesn’t have any major weaknesses on the queenside, it still
makes sense to bring the queen there just because that’s the area where White plans to
begin his attack. And, as we said earlier, if you can bring your queen into a certain
area, you will increase your attacking potential significantly. So, after Qa4, White is
ready to create a lot of threats actually.
For instance, White is willing to play Qb4, creating the checkmate threat. Let’s say
Black goes Re8, White can go Qb4 with the idea of checkmate in one move. By the
way, pay attention to the fact that the queen is a great piece while attacking the
opponent’s king, because the queen can deliver checkmate almost alone, without
much support from the rest of the pieces. If you imagine that White has any other
piece on b4, such as a rook, you will see that there will be no opportunity for
checkmating the opponent, whereas the queen can do the job, almost alone.
Apart from Qxb7#, there is also the threat of Nxa6, winning the pawn due to the pin
over the b-file. The point of this was just to show you that if you can bring your queen
to the area of the board where you plan to attack, even if there are no opponent’s
weaknesses there, you will create significant attacking opportunities for yourself. And
therefore, it is very much advisable to transfer your queen quickly into the area where
you plan to begin your attack.
In the actual game, if you remember it, we can quickly recollect that Black played
Ka7, trying to cover the weaknesses, but after Nxa6, the game was decided anyway.
After Rxc6, the game will be decided within a few moves.
Conclusions
In this lesson, we were talking about the positional play with the strongest attacking
force that you have –your queen.
You should use your queen in order to attack your opponent, and especially you wish
to attack the opponent’s weaknesses –the objects in the opponent’s position which are
not protected by the opponent’s pawns.
You wish to bring your queen into the area of the board where you plan to begin your
attack. Even if there are no weaknesses there, it still makes sense to bring your queen
there. You can do this both quickly and with significant effect. Whenever your queen
appears in a certain part of the board, it significantly increases your attacking
potential.
As you may have noticed, both of these ideas are quite connected –they both talk
about the ATTACK. Because this is what the queen is really created for –it can attack
your opponent in multiple directions along the long distance, and therefore you should
really use your queen for attack– that’s the most important guideline for it.

Lesson-7: Fischer's Positional Mastery: Pawn Structure (10mins)
Hi and welcome into the next lesson where we’ll see how Bobby Fischer handled his
pawns and pawn structures.
Fischer,Robert James - Marovic,Drazen [B10]

Rovinj/Zagreb Zagreb (4), 15.04.1970
1.e4 c6 2.d3 d5 3.Nd2 Nd7 4.Ngf3 Qc7 5.exd5 cxd5 6.d4 g6 7.Bd3 Bg7 8.0–0 e6
9.Re1 Ne7 10.Nf1 Nc6 11.c3 0–0 12.Bg5
Black to play
This is the game between Fischer and Marovic. I skipped the first opening moves,
where both opponents were just developing their pieces; and now, the position
approaches the middlegame stage, where both opponents may decide what they’re
going to do next.

Here it’s Black to play and he decided to play 12…e5. Well, Black’s idea is pretty
straightforward. He is advancing his pawn to the center, creating some threats. And if
White takes the pawn, then it would help Black bring his knight to the center and also
open up the diagonal for his light-squared bishop.
Now, let me ask you a question –what do you think about this Black’s move 12…e5?
Is it a good move or a bad one or just average? What do you think?
Well, let’s have a look at the rest of the game; and then, it will be easier for us to
answer this question. The advancement of this pawn from e6 to e5 could bring
potentially some pros for Black’s position as it could help Black activate his pieces.
But, at the same time, there is a great disadvantage on this move. That is due to the
fact that, currently, the pawn on d5 became an isolated pawn –meaning that this is a
weak pawn, which cannot be protected by another pawn.
As you may see, even theoretically, there is no pawn which can possibly protect the
d5-pawn. And that means that White can bring up more and more resources to attack
that pawn, while there will be no easy way for Black to protect it.
Fischer took advantage of that immediately, by playing 13.Ne3, taking aim at that
weak pawn, right away. Now, of course, the pawn is attacked; and therefore, Black
has to address this threat somehow; because it’s not only the pawn. After the pawn is
captured, White will also attack Black’s queen on c7. Therefore, Black really needs to
do something about that; and he played 13…Nb6, in order to protect that weak pawn.
Now White exchanges the pawns on e5. After 14.dxe5 Nxe5, we can see clearly that
isolated weak pawn on the d-file. And White’s further plan would be simply to
continue attacking that pawn. So, right now, White has the knight on e3, which takes
aim at that pawn. Potentially, White can also bring up his heavy pieces along the d-
file, where they can put up pressure; and, of course, White can think of other ways of
attacking as well.
Firstly, Fischer used a tactical motif: He played 15.Bf4 to impose a pin on Black’s
knight, which will tie down Black’s pieces to the defense of this knight; so therefore,
it would be hard for Black to move many of his pieces. Black protected the knight
with 15…f6. Now White continued with his main plan of attacking Black’s pawn on
d5, that weak pawn.
So, right now, the only defender of that pawn is the knight on b6. Therefore, White
pushed his pawn, 16.a4, aiming to push it forward to eliminate the defender of that
pawn and then simply to grab it with his knight, which again made Black think of
how to protect that pawn.
By the way, at this point, let’s pay attention to one useful moment. Imagine that, in
this position, White would want to attack Black’s king. How could White possibly do
that? You may notice that there is no easy way, or at least it would take an enormous
amount of time to bring a lot of White’s pieces closer to the position of Black’s king
and then to create some threats.

And now, you can see why White actually took aim at Black’s weak pawn, instead of
his king; because the weak pawn is really the easiest target for your attack. You can
attack it very easily and you can grab it, which will ensure your material advantage
and your domination.
And that’s why it is so dangerous to create the weak pawns. Another bad thing about
it is that it is a long-term factor –there is no way for Black to fix this situation, while
White can continue attacking it.
Black played 16…Qf7 to protect that weak pawn, 17.a5 Nbc4 18.Bxc4 dxc4.
We know that, in general, the bishop is stronger than the knight, but in this position,
White is just simply going to win the pawn. White made another clever exchange,
19.Bxe5 dxe5, provoking another weakness.
And this time, it’s going to be the weakness of the e5-pawn, which is now another
isolated pawn of Black. And White continued attacking Black’s weaknesses. He
played 20.Qe2, with the very simple threat on c4, which is currently attacked twice.
And, all of a sudden, there is no way for Black to protect that weakness.
By the way, why did his pawn become weak? That is because it is too far away from
the rest of his pawns. And that distant pawn cannot be easily protected by other pawns
of Black. So theoretically, Black would like to play pawn to b5, but currently it is
impossible because White would simply take the pawn en-passant.
Otherwise, there is just no real way to protect it. If Black tries to protect it with Be6,
then White has another attacking move, Ng5, with the double attack of Black’s
pieces; and, after the exchange of the bishop, White would anyway grab that pawn on
c4. Therefore, Be6 would not help either.
In the actual game, Black played 20…h6, preventing White’s threat of Ng5. But
anyway, now White can simply start ripping the harvest with 21.Nxc4, grabbing one
pawn, and now another Black’s isolated pawn is weak and is going to be captured
next.
Once again, let’s recall why the e5-pawn is weak –mainly because it is not protected
by other pawns of Black– and it cannot be protected by other pawns of Black because
there are no pawns on the adjoining lines which could possibly be moved forward to
protect that pawn. Black is defenseless.
Black played 21…Bg4, trying to confuse White with that pin of the knight, but White
now has a nice tactical shot. Can you see it? The thing is that White can anyway grab
that e5-pawn because, after the exchange, White is counterattacking Black’s queen.
And therefore, Black’s pin didn’t work out; it was simply the exchange of queens. But
in the meantime, White also grabbed that weak pawn on e5. Therefore, along the way,
White won another extra pawn. Right now, White is two pawns up and he won this
game later on very easily.
22.Ncxe5 Bxe5 23.Nxe5 Bxe2 24.Nxf7 Rxf7 25.Rxe2 Rd8 26.Rae1 Rd5 27.b4 Rc7
28.Re3 Kf7 29.h4 Rd2 30.Rf3+ Kg7 31.Re6 Rf7 32.Rxf7+ Kxf7 33.Re5 Rd1+
34.Kh2 b6 35.axb6 axb6 36.f3 Rd3 37.Rb5 Rxc3 38.Rxb6 h5 39.Rb7+ Kf6 40.b5
Rb3 41.b6 Rb4 42.Kg3 Rb2 43.Rb8 Kg7 44.f4 Rb3+ 45.Kf2 Kf6 46.Ke2 Kg7
47.Kd2 Rg3 48.Rc8 1–0
Conclusions
Now we may draw the conclusions about Fischer’s mastery with the pawn play.
1) The main conclusion is very simple –keep your pawns connected.
When your pawns are connected, they do protect each other. For instance, look at
White’s pawn chain in the center. All White’s pawns are protecting each other and,
therefore there is no way for Black to attack them. And that is the great benefit of
keeping your pawns connected when they are protecting each other.
Or, alternatively, you may simply keep your pawns standing nearer each other;
because in that case, even if any potential danger happens anytime in the future, you
can easily make the pawns protect each other. For instance, if we imagine that
White’s g2-pawn would anytime in the future be attacked, White can easily push it
forward and it will be protected by other pawns.
So, the main conclusion is, once again: keep your pawns connected –in that case, they
will either protect each other, or it will be easy for you to make them protect each
other, in case this is required.
2) Of course, if your opponent creates weaknesses in his position, like Black made in
this game by playing 12…e5, detect those weaknesses, detect the opponent’s pawns
which cannot be protected by his other pawns, or which are standing far away from
the rest of his pawns, and take aim at them. Those weaknesses are the permanent
problems for your opponent. There is no way for him to fix them. And therefore, you
can bring up more and more pieces to attack those weak pawns, and your opponent
would be doomed to the passive defense of that weakness.
I have analyzed a lot of games of Fischer and I can tell you that it is extremely rare
that Fischer himself made weak pawns in his position. He almost always kept all his
pawns strong and connected. So, if you do the same thing, you will be sure that it will
be very difficult for your opponent to attack you.
3) Why is it good to attack pawns? Because they are much easier targets compared to
the king. You can attack an opponent’s pawn with very few pieces available in the
attack and you can grab it relatively easily.

Lesson-8: How to Launch Your Attack Fast? (24mins)
Hi and welcome into the next lesson of the course “Play like Fischer”. Fischer was a
very competitive player with a strong fighting spirit. And of course, the course about
him would be incomplete if we don’t talk about the topic of attack.
Before we move on to the chess rules, let me also share a few quotes of Bobby
Fischer which would help you understand his approach for the game.
· “Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponent’s mind.”
· “I like the moment when I break a man’s ego.”
Well, while thinking about this kind of approach, you may be thinking that that’s not
very friendly. Well, of course it is not, and here is what Fischer himself would reply
to you: “There are tough players and nice guys, and I’m a tough player.”
So, it’s pretty simple –the chess game is a competition between you and your
opponent. And of course, your goal is to create problems for your opponent, to attack
him all the time, to make him upset, and ultimately, to destroy his position and to win
the game. So, it’s not only the chess rules, it’s also this general approach that you
need to adopt, this fighting spirit and this willing to fight for winning.
And in this particular lesson, we’ll talk about an interesting subject –how to start your
attack early in the game, right in the start of the game, the opening stage. We’ll see
how Fischer did this in his games and the technique we’re going to discuss was very
typical, which Bobby used in many of his games. We’re going to look at the game
between Fischer and Addison.
Fischer,Robert James - Addison,William [B01]

Palma de Mallorca Interzonal Palma de Mallorca (3), 11.11.1970
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd8 4.d4 Nf6 5.Bc4 Bf5 Let’s take a look at this
moment. At this point, of course, White could have possibly just continued his
development and play something like 6.Nf3, which would be perfectly normal and a
good move. However, Fischer found an even more aggressive option. He played
6.Qf3. Why is this move aggressive and potentially more powerful?
Well, it is because it does not only develop your piece, but it also causes troubles for
your opponent. Currently, the queen is attacking the f5-bishop and also Black’s pawn
on b7. We’ve talked before that the queen is good for attacking opponent’s
weaknesses and we can see that White managed to use that idea –to bring the queen
into the game and to start attacking the opponent’s pieces and pawns which are not
protected by other pawns.
What is the power of attack and why should you always try to find and play attacking
moves when possible? It is because your goal for the game is not only to realize your
own plans, but also to prevent your opponent from doing so. While playing attacking
moves, you force your opponent to react. Like in this case, Black could not just
continue developing his other pieces. He had to play 6…Qc8 to protect his

weaknesses. And that’s the power of attacking moves. White managed to develop his
queen to an active square, while Black simply wasted time by making a defensive
move, which neither develops anything nor improves Black’s position in any way.
Right now, Black is attacking White’s pawn on c2. Of course, there are multiple ways
how White can protect that pawn. For instance, White can just play Bb3 and there are
other ways as well; and those would be normal moves. But, the only problem for
White in making those defensive moves is that those moves would be a waste of time.
They are just protecting the pawn, but not activating any of White’s pieces.
And we remember that the whole point of playing chess is all about putting all your
pieces on the best possible positions. And therefore, Bb3 would not follow that
guideline as it would not improve the position of the bishop –the bishop is similarly
active in those both squares.
And that is why, instead, Fischer decided to sacrifice that pawn to gain the extra time
for his attack and his development. He played 7.Bg5 and that is one of the very typical
motifs in Fischer’s games. If you can sacrifice a pawn in the opening to speed up your
development and to win extra moves that you can utilize for development, that’s a
great thing to do and you should always consider such options and many times you
should go for them. 7…Bxc2. And now, White can gain one more tempo. He played
8.Rc1, bringing the rook into play and simultaneously attacking the opponent’s
bishop.
This is also a very typical thing. When you sacrifice a pawn, usually your opponent
actually should spend two moves to take that material advantage, because the first
move is to grab the pawn, Bxc2, and the second move would be to retreat with that
piece back into safety. In reality, Black spent two moves to grab that pawn 8…Bg6.
It is also a useful idea that you may remember: If you can sacrifice a pawn in an
opening to win two tempos, that’s a good thing to do. There is another instructive
moment, because really the game is very good in everything that White’s doing here.
At this point, many players would start thinking in this way: “Okay, I sacrificed a
pawn, I’m down in material. Now I really need to go into creating some powerful
attack to compensate my material deficit.” But Fischer took a totally different
approach, quite an opposite thing.
He simply continued his development with 9.Nge2. Why did White sacrifice the pawn
and did not go for a quick attack? And once again, the right strategy to play the chess
game is to place all of your pieces on good positions. And Fischer never tolerated bad
pieces in his positions. When there was a piece standing on its original square or very
offside, doing nothing, Fischer never tolerated such situations. He always tried to put
all of his pieces on good positions. And that is why you should not start attacking
when you still have some of the pieces that are undeveloped.
9…Nbd7 10.0–0 e6. Therefore, first of all, Fischer finalized his development and
only on the next move, he really started to think how he can start the real attack of the
opponent’s position.

White’s to play
In this position, White made a very interesting move. He simply took the knight with
11.Bxf6 and, what is the point of that move, when we know White is going to attack,
not trade off the pieces?
The point is, when you start an attack in an opening, it is really useful to trade off the
opponent’s key defenders. Let’s take a move back and have a look at this position.
You may notice that the majority of Black’s pieces are still standing on their original
squares (last rank) doing nothing. So, if we consider the black pieces which are
currently active (already in the game), you would notice that there are only a few of
them –Black’s two knights and the g6-bishop.
Therefore, if White could possibly eliminate those three pieces which are already
active, Black would be left with no active pieces at all. Black’s king will be
defenseless, with no defenders around it. That is why it is so useful for you to
exchange the opponent’s key defenders –those pieces which are already developed.

10…gxf6 [He could have played 11...Nxf6, but White would proceed in the similar
manner like he did in the actual game. 12.d5 exd5 13.Nxd5 Nxd5 14.Bxd5 c6 15.Rfe1
Be7 16.Nf4].
Now there is another question for White –How can he actually start a very direct
attack of Black’s king? Well, ideally speaking, you would want to place your heavy
pieces across the e-file and hit the king, but currently the e-file is blocked by the e6-
pawn, which is covering Black’s king.
That makes you think that it will be really useful for White if you can eliminate that
e6-pawn, and that’s why White played 12.d5. That is another typical motif which is
worth remembering –in the opening, when you are ahead in development often times
that means the opponent’s king still stands in the center. In order to attack it, you need
to open up the position in the center.
This will let your pieces attack the opponent’s position directly by removing the pawn
shield around the opponent’s position (particularly, around his king). For instance,
you may see that if Black takes that pawn –which he didn’t play in the game–, White
would simply recapture and, all of a sudden, there are so many threats that White can
create. White’s knight is threatening that pawn on f6, potentially the c7-pawn may
become vulnerable because White also has the rook on c1, which can also take part
into that attack. Now the e-file is open –for instance, White can play Qe3 or use his
rook to attack along the e-file and directly attack the opponent’s king.
You can see how many attacking opportunities appeared just after White exchanged
one pawn of Black. That’s the big power of opening up the position, especially in the
center, when you are ahead in development and when you wish to attack in the
opening.
Black actually played 12…e5 in order to keep the position closed, which is the correct
strategy for a defender. And now, it is time for White to think about direct attacking
threats. Once again, let’s pay attention to the fact that, at the moment, most of Black’s
pieces are standing in the back rank, doing nothing; but it is a temporary situation. If
given enough time, Black would finalize his development and bring his pieces into
play.
Therefore, White really needs to attack quickly, so that Black does not have enough
free time to bring all of his pieces into play; and how can you do that? It’s very simple
–by creating threats!
For instance, White played 13.Bb5, making a pin on Black’s knight and, therefore,
creating the threat of Qxf6. Since Black’s knight is pinned, it is not protecting the
pawn anymore. To do so, Black played 13…Be7 14.Ng3, aiming at some advanced
squares: the knight can go to f5 or the other knight can go to e4 and those advanced
knights of White will start attacking Black’s position.
You can also see how well the idea of the attack works in line with the general idea of
the positional play. We said that the idea of positional play is all about putting your
pieces on the best possible positions. And as you improve the position of your pieces,

they start controlling more and more squares and, at some point, they will start
attacking squares within the opponent’s position.
And therefore, you will start attacking opponent’s pieces, pawns and his king. In the
game, Black played 14…a6.
Let’s also check out what would happen if Black made a more natural move 14…0-0,
how can you attack Black’s king here? Well, you may have noticed that there is the
key defender g6-bishop, which is covering the file which could have been used to
attack Black’s king. If you notice that there is a key defender of the opponent’s
position, you should think about how you can possibly eliminate it.
In this position, White can do so by pushing the h-pawn forward, threatening h5,
which would actually even trap the bishop entirely. So, in order to vacate the square
for the bishop, Black would have to play something like h6. Then, you can kick the
bishop away, and the g-file would be open. Therefore, you can attack Black’s king
directly. After Qg4+, it is a double attack because the queen not only attacks Black’s
king, but it also attacks in another direction, the d7-knight. The knight will be
captured in the next move and he would get the material advantage in addition to his
very strong attack.
That’s why in the actual game, Black attacked the bishop with a6 and Fischer played
15.Bd3.
It’s also interesting to notice Fischer’s approach to the game. I’m pretty sure that
many players in such a position would seek for some very direct attacking
opportunities –How to attack the opponent’s king or his weaknesses? And instead, by
playing Bd3, Fischer is offering an exchange of light-squared bishops, which would
help White occupy the weaknesses, the weak squares. And White really wants to
place his knight there.
Ideally speaking, we know that we should place the knights on the opponent’s weak
squares, those squares that cannot be protected by opponent’s pawns. Thus, you will
be able to place your knight there and keep it there for a long time. So, White would
wish to place his g3-knight on f5 and his c3-knight to e4. Those would be the ideal
positions for White’s knights.
However, currently, there is the g6-bishop, which is protecting those weak squares
and potentially can trade off White’s knights. That is why White is offering an
exchange of the bishop, which is protecting those weak squares. Again, it’s interesting
to notice that Fischer not only thinks about how to attack the opponent’s king, but he
also thinks how to utilize the opponent’s weak squares and how to place his knights
there. So, Fischer was always focussed on how to ensure the best positions for his
pieces.
15…Qd8 16.h4, just continuing the same plan, White wishes to push the pawn
forward to h5 and force the exchange of the light-squared bishops. Black played
16…h5 himself to stop White’s idea. And then Fischer played 17.Bf5. He decided to
secure at least one good square for his knight. He wants to place his c3-knight on e4,
and also to save this knight from an eventual exchange with Black’s bishop.
17…Nb6. Although now it looks like Black creates some sort of pressure on White’s
d5-pawn, White simply ignored that threat and just continued with his plan of
occupying the opponent’s weak squares with his knights. 18.Nce4. It may be
surprising that White has sacrificed a pawn, but let’s remember that one of the main
ideas of attack in an opening is to open up the lines in the center.
Therefore, after the pawn was captured with 18…Nxd5, this actually enabled the new
open line which White immediately used for his rook, 19.Rfd1. And now, we can see
that the rook has become extremely active. We know that rooks want open lines, and
currently the rook is putting pressure on Black’s knight and queen.
Therefore, now White can attack the opponent’s position more directly. There are no
pawns which blockade the way of White’s pieces. In order to protect the knight, Black
played 19…c6. And now, White needs to think again how to open the position.
Therefore, he played 20.Nc3, took that knight and opened up the d-file for his rook
and also the c-file for his other rook. Of course, White could also win that pawn after
the exchange on d5. And finally, you may notice that, at the moment, the d5-knight is
the only active piece in Black’s position. Therefore, we may conclude that it would be
extremely useful for White to exchange this key defender.
Black removed his queen from the line and played 20…Qb6, but now he falls into
another problem. Instead of taking on d5 with the knight, which was a good option
and it would also give White a very good position, White found a tactical shot. He
played 21.Rxd5. It’s not actually a sacrifice because after 21…cxd5 22.Nxd5, White
is going to put his knight on c7, making a check and hitting the a8-rook.
Right now, the knight is threatening Black’s queen and; therefore, Black has to move
the queen somewhere, after which, White would play Nc7+. In the game, Black tried
to counterattack by playing 22…Qxb2, attacking White’s c1-rook. Thus, White
should have done something about it, but he simply removed the rook with an attack
and also with a tempo 23.Rb1 Qxa2. Even, instead of Nc7+, which was also possible,
White simply played 24.Rxb7 in order to activate the rook and to have a more active
position. Of course, right now, White is also creating the direct threat of capturing the
bishop on e7. And actually, in this position Black resigned. 1–0
Let’s think what could have happened if Black had continued the game. Black has to
move his bishop away from the danger and, at the same time, the bishop has to protect
the f6-pawn, which is attacked by White’s knight. Therefore, Black would probably
play Bd8 and then, there are many ways for White to continue his attack. One of them
is very straightforward: to start going for Black’s king, so, to exchange on g6 and then
to play Nxf6. Then, after the next exchange, White creates the very straightforward
Qe7# or Qxh8# and Black is defenseless.
It is very useful to pay attention to the fact that, at the end of the game, Black’s both
rooks never made any single move and they’re still on their original squares doing
nothing. That happened due to the fact that White launched his attack so quickly that
Black never had time to finalize his development. Black was always forced to react to
the threats created by White. That is why it is so good to launch your attack
QUICKLY in the opening and win the game.

Conclusions
Now let’s summarize how to launch your attack fast in Fischer’s style. How can you
start attacking straightaway in the opening?
1) You Should Sacrifice Your Pawn for 2 Tempi.

You sacrifice a pawn in order to use this time for developing your pieces. Thus, you
will be ahead in development, you’ll have a greater activity of pieces and you will be
able to launch an attack.
2) Open Up the Center

The opponent’s king originally is standing in the center. And in order to attack it, you
need to clear the lines for your pieces. Therefore, you need to exchange or even
sacrifice the central pawns which are blocking the way of your pieces and covering
the opponent’s king.
3) Keep Attacking all the Time!

If you’re ahead in development in the opening, this is a temporary advantage. Your
opponent certainly would want to finalize his development and to hide his king away
too. Therefore, you should keep attacking all the time, with your every move, creating
threats for your opponent and leaving him no free time for finalizing his development.
4) Exchange the Key Defenders

Exchange those defenders which are covering or protecting the opponent’s king.
Usually, in the opening stage, your opponent only has a few pieces which are already
developed. Most of his other pieces are still standing on their original squares doing
nothing. Therefore, if you can exchange those few pieces which are already
developed, your opponent will be left with no active army at all, and his king will be
defenseless.
These are the four rules that Fischer used very actively in order to win games very
quickly, in the opening stage. Although we’ve analyzed only one game, in the
practical part of the course, you’ll find many examples where Fischer followed
exactly the same rules to win many games in his chess career.
Follow this advice in your own games and I’m sure you’ll crush a lot of opponents.
And one final advice: in order to simplify the matters, you can play opening gambits.
Those are the openings where you sacrifice a pawn or some material for a quick
development. Then you’ll be in this situation of fast attack in the opening, even by
simply following the theory/book moves that you may learn. Otherwise, just follow
these general guidelines which we analyzed in this lesson and you’ll win a lot of
games in a brilliant manner.

Lesson-9: Counterattack like Fischer (24mins)
Welcome to the next lesson of the course “Play like Fischer”. In the previous lesson
we were talking about the very important subject about the attack.
The attack wins the game and that is the greatest thing which you can do in chess. At
the same time, the things not always go the way you want it. Sometimes, your
opponent starts attacking and then you have this very important question.
What to do when you are attacked? How should you react? This is a pretty
uncomfortable situation for most of the players because when you are under pressure,
you are not sure what to do while your opponent keeps creating new threats. Of
course, it is not the situation that you want to be in.
However, sometimes it happens and you need to know how to react. Let’s see what
Fischer’s approach was for such situations. Before we go to the chess examples, let
me show you a few quotes of Bobby Fischer, so you can understand his general
attitude.
Here is the first quote:
“You have to have the fighting spirit. You have to force moves and take
chances.”
And here is another one:
“I like to make them squirm”
As you can see, he was a true fighter over the chessboard. He always wanted to
dominate, to strike back, and he never wanted his opponent to impose new attacking
threats. Therefore, Fischer’s motto for the games, as far as I can conclude, was this
one: “Return every stroke”, always strike back! Whenever your opponent attacks you,
hit it back to create the threat to your opponent. In this way, you never let your
opponent dominate you. Always keep the situation at least equal and try to overcome
your opponent. So, the golden rule is that you don’t really want to defend at all –you
want to counterattack. Let’s go and see how this works in real game situations.
Lehmann,Heinz - Fischer,Robert James [B84]

Capablanca Memorial Havana (1), 1965
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 Nbd7 7.0–0 e6 8.f4 b5 9.Bf3
Bb7 10.e5 Bxf3 11.Nxf3 dxe5 12.fxe5 Ng4 13.Qe2 b4 14.Ne4 Ngxe5 15.Nxe5 Nxe5
This is the game between Lehmann and Fischer. And in this position, it’s White to
play and he played 16. Ng5.

Black to play
By the way, the overall situation is pretty typical. This is the opening stage and both
opponents are still developing their pieces and, at this point, White decided to go for
an attack. Pretty often, situations like these may happen in your games and you really
need to know how you can react to that.
Well, the point of the move 16. Ng5 is simply to let the white queen capture your
knight, and that is a straightforward threat. Now it is Black’s time to think what he is
going to do.
How would you react here as Black? What do you think?
Usually, what happens to people is that they start thinking about that knight and they
start thinking where you can retreat and how you can protect it. So, let’s find out
what would happen in case you just remove the knight –simply retreat somewhere.

Then, that is going to be really bad because White is going to grab the pawn on f7
and, therefore, it is going to destroy Black’s position. So, that’s not definitely a good
option for Black.
What if you try to protect the knight? Since it cannot go away, you may decide to
protect it. You can play Bd6 –the most natural move to develop your bishop and to
protect the knight. Well, in this case, White will continue his attack. He will play
something like Bf4 and, as you can see, Black’s position is somewhat unpleasant.
White renews the threat on Black’s knight and he is ready to play Rd1 to pin your
queen and your bishop. Black’s king is still in the center, so in some variations
White’s queen can also attack directly along this e-file.
Very often, when you play games like that, let’s say in blitz games in the internet,
your position will be crushed, you will lose the game and that often happens to
people. Now let’s go back and try to take a different approach.
Let’s recollect Fischer’s quote where he said that you should have the fighting spirit
and you should force moves. You should force moves to your opponent and do not
let him just play any moves that he wishes.
So, at this point, let’s just forget about the fact that the knight is attacked, and ask
yourself: Which forcing moves can you play here, the moves that would force an
opponent’s reply, such as checks or captures? If you think about this, you will find a
few other options. For example, you can make a couple of checks with your queen
going to d4 or b6 or the bishop going to c5. All those moves would check the
opponent’s king.
In the game, Fischer compared those options and he thought Bc5+ would be just a
one-time check and would not solve the problem. But there is another move, which is
Qb6, which is a solid move. So, what is the point of this move? Once again, White’s
king is under check, so he has to make something about that. And, what would happen
if White played Be3, attacking your queen? Once again, you do not have to retreat;
you can counterattack by playing Bc5 and, after the exchange of bishops, which is
pretty much forced, you can see a nice thing.
Now, it’s not only that the queen checks White’s king, but it also simultaneously
protects the knight. The good thing for Black is that you did not spend any extra
tempo for it. Now, once the king goes away, Black can simply castle and everything is
good. Once again, you can see the benefit of those forcing moves. While playing
those forcing moves, your opponent has to react to them; he can’t do the things that he
wants and he cannot develop his attack. Therefore, Black had enough time to finalize
his development.
Now let’s go a few moves back, where Black played Qb6+. In the actual game, White
did not cover his king with Be3, which we just analyzed. In the game, he played Kh1.
How would you play here? Black’s knight is still under attack and you should do
something about that. At the same time, remember that you wish to force moves. You
wish to play moves that your opponent would have to react to. Instead of just

protecting the knight, play a move like …Qb5. Now the queen is not only protecting
the knight but also attacks the white queen.
Therefore, White can’t play the move that he wants, like Bf4; he has to react. Since
Black is currently a pawn up, White refused to trade off the queens. He played Qe1,
which is a very passive move. Once again, Black’s queen is already protecting the
knight. Now, Black has enough free time to finalize his development –he played Be7
and, on the next move, he castled. Black is a pawn up and he won the game later on.
Here is another game. Fischer is playing Black.
Szabo,Laszlo - Fischer,Robert James [E70]

Leipzig ol (Men) fin-A Leipzig (6), 02.11.1960
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 0–0 5.Bg5 d6 6.Qd2 c5 7.d5 e6 8.Bd3 exd5 9.Nxd5
Be6 10.Ne2 Bxd5 11.exd5 Nbd7 12.0–0 Ne5 13.f4 Nxd3 14.Qxd3 h6 15.Bh4 Re8
16.Rae1 Qb6 17.Bxf6 Bxf6 18.f5 g5 19.b3 Qa5 20.Rc1 Qxa2 21.Rc2
Black’s turn
Imagine a situation like that. White just played Rc2 and he attacks your queen. How
will you play here as Black? The initial impulse for most of the players is to retreat
with the queen. Now, you know that Fischer had another approach for the game, the
one that I encourage you to implement in your games. This is the approach to return
another strike. If you are attacked, think about how you can attack. So, ask yourself:
Can you attack White here somehow? If your queen is under attack, can you attack
White’s queen? And that’s exactly what Black could do by playing Re3. If White’s
queen captures the rook (it happened in the game), Black’s queen is not forced to
retreat somewhere –the queen can capture the rook on c2.
Although Black did not win any material (it was just an exchange of rooks), the queen
was left in a very active position inside White’s camp, attacking White’s knight and
the weak pawn on b3. Black won the game very quickly afterwards. Black is a pawn
up, and he has a very good attacking position. If we take a move back and see what
would happen if White just takes the queen, then you would also take the opponent’s
queen. Once again, you would have this active rook on d3 which is attacking the
pawn on b3, so everything is great for Black.
Coming back to the original position of this game, instead of making a passive move
and retreat his queen, Black found a way to counterstrike and keep a very active
position.
21…Re3 counterblow 22.Qxe3 [22.Rxa2 Rxd3] 22...Qxc2 23.Kh1 a5 24.h4 a4 0–1
Pérez Pérez,Francisco José - Fischer,Robert James [B53]

Leipzig ol (Men) qual-D Leipzig (7), 23.10.1960
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4 Nc6 5.Bb5 Bd7 6.Bxc6 Bxc6 7.Nc3 Nf6 8.Bg5
e6 9.0–0–0 Be7 10.e5 dxe5 11.Qxe5 Qc8 12.Nd4 0–0 13.h4 h6 14.Kb1 Rd8 15.f3
hxg5 16.hxg5 Bd6 17.Qe1 Ne8 18.Qh4 Kf8 19.Nf5 exf5 20.Rde1 Qe6 21.Rxe6 fxe6
22.Re1 Ke7 23.b4 Nc7 24.Qh7 Rg8 25.b5

Fischer is playing Black. Currently, Black has a rook and two bishops against the
white queen.
Therefore, Black has material advantage, but at the same time, Black’s king is
standing in the center –it is vulnerable. So, White has some counter-chances. It was
White to play and he played b5, attacking Black’s bishop. How will you play here as
Black?
The initial reaction could be to grab that pawn on b5, but White probably sacrificed it
with some idea in mind.
His idea was that, after the exchange, he can play Qxf5, double-attacking the bishop
and pawn in front of Black’s king. Although the game continues to be complex, White
has some initiative here.
Now, let’s try to apply the principles that you learned here. Whenever you are under
attack, think how you can counterattack. Can you find any moves that will attack
White here?

In fact, there are a few ones: One of them was Bg3, which was played in the game.
So, White attacked Black’s bishop and Black created an even stronger attack, by
attacking the rook. Black’s idea is that if the rook goes away to e2, then, after the
exchange on b5, you see that there is one subtle, but important difference. Currently,
the rook is standing not on e1 but on e2, and therefore you take that pawn on b5 with
a tempo, attacking the rook. White does not have enough free time to capture the
pawn on f5 with his queen; he has to move the rook somewhere. And that is, once
again, the idea to force the moves for your opponent.
Let’s take a few moves back. After Bg3, what if White places the rook somewhere
else, like on e3. What would you do here? You can apply the same logic: You can
keep attacking him by playing Bf4. If White still refuses to put his rook on e2, playing
Re1, then this time you can attack it from another angle, Bd2, double-attacking the
knight and the rook, so White will be in big trouble. Black won this game later on.
Bazan,Osvaldo - Fischer,Robert James [D38]

Mar del Plata Mar del Plata (8), 07.04.1960
1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 d5 4.d4 Bb4 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Bg5 h6 7.Bh4 c5 8.e3 Nc6
9.Be2 g5 10.Bg3 Ne4 11.Rc1 Qa5 12.0–0 Bxc3 13.bxc3 Nxc3 14.Qe1 Nxe2+
15.Qxe2 c4 16.e4 Be6
Fischer is Black. This game is really beautiful so it’s not only useful to watch it but
it’s really a lot of fun. So, let’s have a look.
So, it was White to play here and, all of sudden, White played a shocking move, Bc7.
It attacks Black’s queen and it looks like White is putting the bishop under attack so
Black can capture it, which happened in the game, but Black had a tricky idea in
mind.
17.Bc7 Qxc7 18.exd5
After deflecting the queen, White takes the pawn on the d-file, using the pin on the e-
file on the bishop. Currently, the d5-pawn double attacks Black’s minor pieces.
White’s idea is that he sacrificed a piece on the previous move, but on the next one,
he is going to take back one of the two double-attacked pieces and, at the same time,
somewhat to destroy Black’s position.

Black to play
Now it’s my question for you. How would you play here as Black? You know what I
am expecting from you. You need to return every strike of your opponent. Therefore,
think how you can put some pressure on your opponent, how you can attack him. If he
attacks your pieces, think how you can attack his pieces. In this position, there is a
way to counterattack which is g4. Now, the knight is attacked and White does not
want to let Black capture it because, in that case, Black would save his material
advantage. White simply wants to save all his pieces and just grab one of Black’s
minor pieces. So, White removed his knight.
But now, you can see that, after the knight went away, this enabled a new opportunity
for Black. Now, the knight on c6 can not only retreat back, as it was possible before
but it can go forward, grabbing the pawn on d4, attacking the queen, so we can
already see the first results of Black’s counterattack on the previous move. However,
the situation is not so easy. White played Qe4 and it looks like Black is still in big
danger.

So, the knight is being attacked and the bishop is still under pin and attacked. Also,
White has some ideas to take the pawn on c4. White has multiple threats. If you try to
protect yourself from them, it is going to be a very difficult task.
That is why Fischer once again refused to defend and instead found how he could
attack. He found a way to counterattack with a move, which is a pretty sudden blow,
Qf4. The queen is attacking White’s queen and knight, but the move is pretty
shocking because the queen is quite defenseless. It looks like White can simply take
the queen. But of course, it is not that Fischer blundered the queen. Black can
continue with Ne2+, which forks the white king and queen. On the next move, he can
take the queen back. Although White can finally grab that bishop on e6, the queens
were exchanged, therefore it’s and endgame, so the black king is not in danger
anymore. Black can save his material advantage, by playing something like b5. You
see that Black is a pawn up and has very powerful passed pawns on the queenside.
Therefore, it will be a winning endgame for Black.
In the actual game, after Black played Qf4, White did not take the queen, but instead
took the pawn on c4. After that, Black traded the queens. Again, Black’s both pieces
are under attack (his knight and his bishop) and now you should be thinking about the
forcing moves you could possibly play. Fischer found the move Ne2+ where he can
remove the knight from attack with a tempo. The king has to go away.
Now, Black’s bishop is under attack. The situation remains to be tricky. There are not
a lot of squares where the bishop can go to. For example, the bishop cannot take the
pawn on d5 because, after that, there will be a knight fork on f6, winning the bishop
on the next move.
Let’s go back. If the bishop goes to f5, then there will be a fork from another side, this
time, Nd6; once again, with a check to the opponent’s king and a simultaneous attack
to the black bishop. So, it is also a bad option for Black.
The only option left is to retreat to d7, which Fischer played. Now it looks like the
queens are traded off and Black is just a piece up and he should be winning, but White
plays Re1, attacking the knight and indirectly attacking the king.
So, if Black plays Nf4, White will play a discovered check on d6 with the knight and
will take Black’s knight on f4, so, here White is winning. That’s a pretty bad option
for Black. Therefore, he should do something else. Fischer found another interesting
trick; he played Kf8. It seems like he is leaving the knight defenseless, but he planned
some counter-trick. In case White grabs the knight, Black has the counterattack in
Bb5, attacking two rooks along the diagonal and Black will win some material
advantage on the next move.
The game is really brilliant because both opponents are very creative and they are
constantly finding new resources to counterattack and create problems for their
opponent.
In the actual game, instead of taking the knight, White played another
counterattacking move, Nf6, attacking the bishop. But this time the bishop can go to
b5, to the square which he actually intended to play. After Rb4 and Ba6, it looks like
Black is winning; he saved his material advantage, but it is still not that simple. White
played Nd7+ and, all of a sudden, Black is in some trouble again because if the king
tries to go to the kingside with Kg7, then after, Rxg4+, he can only play Kh7 and
then, all of a sudden, boom!, Nf7# –this is checkmate.
The white player was very resourceful in this game. That did not happen in the game;
Fischer noted the threat and he played something else. Let’s take a few moves back
and see what happened in the game. After Nd7+, Fischer played Ke7 and White
played Nc5. That actually renews the same threat on Black’s knight on e2 because
now, White plans to capture the bishop on a6 and after that to grab the knight on e2.
It still looks like there is no way for Black to save his pieces, but after some thinking,
Fischer found another brilliant trick. He played Re8 and White grabbed the bishop,
Nxa6. It looks like everything is good for White; but, suddenly, Fischer played Kd6.
Now, Black is attacking White’s knight, so White has to capture the pawn with Rxb7.
He is very happy about that, but Black found another counterblow. This time it is
Ng3+, a discovered attack on White’s rook. This checks White’s king, therefore he
has to take it, then Rxe1 and Black grabs the material advantage. He won the rook
versus the knight. White played Kh2.
It may look like that the position is still relatively unclear, because although Black
won the rook for the knight, there is not a big material advantage. Black’s pawns are
under attack, for instance, the pawn on f7. However, Fischer continued to be true to
his style, instead of protecting that pawn, he found ways to counterattack. He played
Rc8, after Rxf7, played Rc1; and, all of a sudden, White is defenseless against a
straightforward checkmate-in-one-move threat, Rh1.
That was a great game for both players, where both of them were very creative and
were creating counter-threats all the time. It also illustrates the style of Bobby Fischer
really well. Throughout this entire game, he always thought about the way to
counterstrike.
18…g4 19.Nd2 [19.dxe6 gxf3 20.exf7+ Kf8 21.Qxf3 Qxf7] 19...Nxd4 20.Qe4
20...Qf4 21.Rxc4 [21.Qxf4 Ne2+ 22.Kh1 Nxf4 23.dxe6 b5 24.exf7+ Kxf7] 21...Qxe4
22.Nxe4 Ne2+ 23.Kh1 Bd7 [23...Bxd5 24.Nf6+ Kf8 25.Nxd5; 23...Bf5 24.Nd6+]
24.Re1 Kf8 [24...Nf4 25.Nd6+ Kf8 26.Rxf4] 25.Nf6 [25.Rxe2 Bb5] 25...Bb5 26.Rb4
Ba6 27.Nd7+ Ke7 [27...Kg7 28.Rxg4+ Kh7 29.Nf6#] 28.Nc5 Rhe8 29.Nxa6 Kd6
30.Rxb7 Ng3+ 31.hxg3 Rxe1+ 32.Kh2 Rc8 33.Rxf7 Rcc1 0–1
Conclusions
In this lesson, we were talking about the technique of counterattack and how can you
counterattack like Fischer did in his games. When you counterattack, there are a
number of good things that you achieve.
1. You can push away or capture the opponent’s attacking pieces.
Therefore, you will not only counterattack, but simultaneously you will protect your
position by eliminating opponent’s attackers.

2. Deflect the opponent from his plan
When you counterattack, you force moves from your opponent. Remember that quote
of Bobby Fischer: “You should force moves and take chances”. So, you don’t let your
opponent do what he wishes, but you force him to react to your moves.
3. Shock him!
I noticed it many times when I played blitz games. Whenever I make a counterattack,
my opponent always starts thinking for a long time. And, of course, at the end of the
game, he will regret about that, because in blitz you can’t think for a long time. But
anyway, when you play a counterattack, this is something unexpected for your
opponent and something unpleasant. That shocks him, makes him frustrated, he
begins to be disappointed with his previous move and disappointed with the fact that
he overlooked your powerful reply; even if it is not that powerful. And if it is still
unexpected, your opponent will be shocked and will start playing very bad moves.
So those are the main advantages of playing in the counterattacking style. But the key
takeaway is this simple motto that you may remember for your games “Return every
stroke of your opponent!” Have the fighting experience and return every stroke!

Lesson-10: Fischer's Chess Secrets - Revealed (7mins)
We’re moving steadily towards the end of the video part of the course and it is time to
make a certain summary. How can you play like Fischer and win a lot of games?
Well, there are a few options: The first option is that you can become as famous as
Fischer was, and when your opponent decided to take a photo of you, you would have
some free time to quickly check the right move in the book. J
Well, to be more serious, we’ve discovered that the main power of Fischer was the art
of positional play, which implies putting your forces on the most favorable positions.
We analyzed in different lessons of this course what those favorable positions for
different chess pieces are. And here is a short summary. This is, so to speak, the
Fischer’s Chess Bible:
Put your forces on the most favorable positions
· KING: Castle. Flight square. Center

· QUEEN: Attack (weaknesses)
· ROOK: Open line
· BISHOP: Open diagonal
· KNIGHT: Centralize. Strong square
· PAWN: Keep connected
I’m not sure how it looks to you, but in reality, those rules are pretty simple and it is
possible to follow them in the practical game. At the same time, you can definitely
achieve outstanding results just by following these simple-looking guidelines. So,
let’s quickly go through this list and recollect what the main rules for every piece
were. Where should you put a certain piece?
1) KING
In the opening, your main task is to castle the king. This will help you hide the king in
safety and also bring your rook into play. In the middlegame, you need to move
forward one of the pawns of your castling position and, thus, create the flight square.
In this way, you’ll secure your king from the back rank mate. Finally, in an endgame,
you need to bring your king to the center, just like you do with any other piece
throughout the whole game.
2) QUEEN
Here the things are even simpler. Basically, there is only one guideline –it is the fact
that you should use your queen for attack. It is the most powerful piece on the board
and you want to utilize that power to destroy your opponent. It is especially good to
attack the opponent’s weaknesses.
3) ROOK

The simple rule for the rook states that you need to put your rook on an open line.
After that, you should try to double your rooks on an open line and, finally, to move
them inside the opponent’s camp.
4) BISHOP
The bishop is also a linear piece, so it also needs an open line. But, in this case, it is an
open diagonal. So there is only one rule: Ensure that your bishop has an open
diagonal. If the bishop’s diagonal is blocked by pawns or some other objects, then you
either need to relocate the bishop to another position or to trade off the pawns and
open up the diagonal for your bishop.
5)KNIGHT
It’s especially important to place your knight properly. The knight has a short range of
activity. Thus, it should stand in the area of the main battle. Therefore, you need to
centralize the knight and, also, it is great to place your knight on a strong square
(outpost) –the square which cannot be attacked by the opponent’s pawns. So, this will
be the strong square for you and the weak square for your opponent. If you can locate
your knight on a weak square of your opponent, then the knight will hit many targets
within the opponent’s position; and there will be no way for your opponent to get rid
of that knight.
6)PAWN
As far as the pawns are concerned, there is a simple rule –you should just keep your
pawns connected. In that case, they easily protect each other whenever needed.
Those are the rules and the guidelines of how you should use every chess piece in the
board. Throughout the game, you should simply follow these guidelines and all the
time you need to think how to put your pieces on the best possible positions –the best
positions available in the current situation. You look at all the pieces and pawns you
have, and you start thinking. How can I improve their positions by following this
guideline?
In short, that’s what Fischer did in all of his games. There is an additional note to
make here. We also discussed that it’s especially important in a chess game to attack
because you need to activate your pieces. But, ultimately, in order to win the game,
you should attack and checkmate the opponent’s king or perhaps win material and
then checkmate his king. At the same time, there is nothing contradictory here. In fact,
the attack and the positional play are very much interconnected and they support each
other.
Do you remember we said earlier that a chess game is similar to the real war, so
therefore, we may use the map of military activities to describe the strategic situations
in chess? While playing a game of chess, your goal is to take a great territory under
control; so that this territory will be under the control of your pieces, so to speak,
under the fire of your pieces. Any opponent’s object like a pawn or a piece which

would appear under that territory, would be under the fire of your pieces and you’ll be
able to capture or destroy it.
Coming back to chess, look at this situation:
White has just moved his knight to f3. White played that move to activate his knight,
but, at the same time, the knight has started to attack the opponent’s central pawn. So,
White brought the knight into a central position where it started to take a greater
quantity of squares under its control. And one of those squares was the square of the
black pawn.
So, those things happen automatically. When you improve the position of your pieces,
they start controlling a greater amount of territory and automatically they’ll start
hitting the opponent’s pawns or pieces which are located within that territory.
Thus, the final summary is that those are the two main guidelines that you need to
keep in mind while playing the game of chess. So, you should be thinking about how
to attack and also about the positional play in the sense that you need to put your

pieces on the best positions available. If you focus yourself just on these two
guidelines, which are very much supporting each other and pretty much talking about
the same thing from different angles, then you’ll play a phenomenal chess just like
Fischer did.
I’m waiting for you in the next lesson, where we’ll analyze the real game of Fischer
and we’ll see how those general guidelines can be applicable for the real game.

Lesson-11: Play like Fischer: Practical Guide (22mins)
We’re going to analyze the game between Fischer and Petrosian from their final
Candidates Match, where the winner of this match got the chance to challenge the
World Champion, Boris Spassky, for the World Championship Title.
Therefore, as you may see, we’re analyzing the game at the very highest level of
chess between two contenders for the World Championship Title. However, just by
following the rules that you learned in this course, you’ll be able to easily understand
and guess the moves of these two legendary players.
Fischer,Robert James (2760) - Petrosian,Tigran V (2640) [C10]

Candidates final Buenos Aires (9), 26.10.1971
The game started with the moves: 1.e4 e6. By the way, there is also one simple rule
which can help you play the opening stage right. When you need to decide which
pieces to develop, you just start from the least valuable piece and then go upward to
more valuable pieces. Therefore, you move your pawns first (central pawns), then
knights, bishops, rooks and finally the queen.
2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.Nf3 Nf6. The knights must be developed towards the central
direction. That’s what both players did here. Right now, Black is attacking White’s
e4-pawn. So, White should be doing something about it. White decided to trade off
the pawns there. 5.exd5 exd5. Probably it wasn’t the strongest decision for White
because, after this exchange, Black’s light-squared bishop got a new diagonal. But, in
this situation, Fischer was leading in the score in this match. And therefore, he was
right, simplifying the situation and maybe accepting a draw.
Anyway, he played 6.Bb5. We know that the next thing after developing the knights
is to develop the bishops. You may be wondering where the bishops should go,
because there could possibly be a few different options. For example, here the bishop
may also go to d3, where it will also control some long diagonals, which is, generally
speaking, nice. Therefore, Bd3 was a possible and good move.
The point of Bb5 is that it not only develops the bishop, but it also puts some pressure
on the opponent’s position. You remember that we want to activate our pieces and
also to attack the opponent. And that is why those forward moves, which put some
pressure on the opponent, are usually good. For example, in the next move,
potentially, White may have the threat of putting his knight on e5 to increase the
pressure on the pinned knight on c6 and to cause some problems for Black.
Maybe, Black was worrying about that, so he decided to play 6…Bg4 and impose a
pin on that knight. Of course, we should not only increase the activity of our pieces,
but also push the opponent’s pieces away from active positions. That’s why Fischer
played 7.h3, to force Black’s bishop to go back. Likewise, if the bishop goes back,
White can consider once again that threat of Ne5 [7...Bh5 8.g4 Bg6 9.Ne5].

That’s why Black just took the knight, 7…Bxf3. However, this is definitely an
accomplishment for White because we know that the bishop is slightly stronger than
the knight. So, this exchange is favorable for White.
8.Qxf3 Be7. How would you play here as White? Actually, there could be a few
normal options. In any case, we need to improve the position of our pieces, mainly
those that are standing on the first rank and doing nothing. We discussed that Fischer
never tolerated those pieces (those that are standing offside, not taking part in the
actual game). And in light of that, you can here castle or you can develop the bishop,
which Fischer did by playing 9.Bg5 a6.
The bishop is attacked and it can’t go away because then, Black would grab the pawn
on d4. Therefore, in this position, White does not have a choice; he has to take the
knight. 10.Bxc6+ bxc6. Although, in general, an exchange of the bishop for a knight
is favorable to the side with the knight; here, after this exchange, it corrupts the black
pawn structure.
The pawns should be connected so they can be strong. When they’re disconnected,
they become weak and cannot be protected by other pawns. For instance, after this
exchange, you can see that Black has a couple of weak pawns on the queenside,
which cannot be protected by other Black’s pawns. Therefore, potentially in the
future, these pawns might become an object of White’s attack.
Anyway, what should White be doing right now? What do you think? Well, White
should castle to finalize the development. 11.0–0 0–0. How would you play here as
White? What do you think?
There is one thing often times forgotten by amateur players. Pretty much, most of the
modern players know that in the opening they need to develop the pieces. But right
after that, often times they make one big mistake: They forget to bring the rooks into
play. For instance, you can see that, even though the kingside rook has already been
involved in castling, and therefore has already played a move, it is still totally passive.
We may say, of course, the same thing about the a1-rook, which is doing nothing.
Therefore, once you finalize the development of your minor pieces and you castle, the
next big task for you is to bring your rooks into play.
Where should a rook be? A rook should stand on an open file. Therefore, White
played 12.Rfe1 h6, attacking the bishop on g5. 13.Bh4 Qd7. Now let me ask you
another question: Do you remember the rules for the right usage of the rooks? What
should we do with the rooks? Do you remember it from the previous lessons? Well,
the major rule is that you should put the rook in an open file, which White already
did. And the next thing we should do with the rooks is to double them there (on the e-
file) to increase your attacking potential. The final thing would be, if possible, to
penetrate into the opponent’s territory through these open files and start attacking
something (usually the pawns). So, the next stage of activation of White’s rooks
would be to double them along the open file. 14.Re2 a5.
Black is trying to do the same. He is trying to activate his rook. Probably, he is going
to push the pawn forward and, in that way, ensure some active role for his rook.
White certainly can continue with his plan, 15.Rae1. And you can already see that
once the rooks are doubled, they start being more powerful. Right now, White is
already threatening to grab the bishop on e7, and that is why Black retreated with the
bishop, 15…Bd8, and that is a nice thing for White. Whenever your opponent
retreats, puts his pieces on a backward/passive position, this is great for you.
Here, Fischer noticed Black’s intention to activate the black rook by pushing the pawn
forward. He decided to stop that by playing 16.b3, so that Black’s a-pawn cannot go
forward anymore. b3 is one of the possible moves –there could be other good
alternatives, but b3 is good as well. Here Black realized that his rook on a8 has no
prospects there and he decided to relocate it on another position, 16…Rb8. Maybe he
wants to move it forward to b4 and attack White’s pawn or something else. Of course,
it is not so dangerous for White, so, White may think of what he is going to do here.
White’s turn
What do you think about it here? Which moves could White consider in this position?
In general, the question remains to be the same. How can you put your pieces on the
best available positions? In order to determine which piece you need to activate right

now, you should think about the worst piece of yours –the piece which does not have
many squares to go to and which doesn’t do much.
In this position, we can see that White’s rooks are already active –they’re already
doubled on the open e-file. You cannot penetrate into the opponent’s position right
now. Therefore, there is not much you can do about the rooks, but they are already
pretty active. White’s bishop is also playing quite an important role –it is putting
pressure on that diagonal, looking at some of Black’s pieces and also it’s hard to think
of ways to make the bishop even more active.
As far as the queen is concerned, it is not doing much right now, but at the same time,
it’s not that easy to come up with an idea of how the queen can be activated and be
used to attack the opponent’s weaknesses. Finally, when we come to the knight, we
can see that it is actually doing nothing and most of the squares forward are
unavailable for the knight –they’re controlled by Black’s pawns. So, we should think
about the way to relocate the knight on a better position. Where should the knight
stand?
First, it should stand on the central squares. Second, it should stand on the squares
which are under the protection of your pawns, and finally, on the weaknesses of your
opponent. Therefore, ideally, the knight should stand either on e5 or c5. And White
started the maneuver 17.Na4 aiming at Nc5 on the next move.
Black replied with 17…Ne4, attacking the bishop. Therefore, here White does not
have much choice. 18.Bxd8 Rbxd8. And now, it’s another situation where we may
think about the moves White should play. What do you think? Well, one of the ideas
could be to simply bring the knight to c5, forcing the exchange of the knights, which
would be a decent option for White.
However, that would just be an exchange of knights; therefore, White would not gain
any particular advantage. So, we may think about some other alternatives. Earlier we
talked about that Fischer never tolerated bad pieces in his position. Whenever he saw
a bad piece, he always thought about the ways of bringing it to a better square.
There is also an opposite rule applicable for the pieces of your opponent. If there is a
great piece of his opponent, Fischer never tolerated that situation. He always found a
way to push it back or exchange it, by all means, to eliminate that great piece of the
opponent.
If we think about this position, the e4-knight is centrally located, blocking the line of
White’s rooks, not letting White’s knight to go to c5. Therefore, it’s definitely the
greatest piece in Black’s position. So, White may be thinking how to push it away. In
order to push it away, White simply needs to push his pawn to f3. So, it’s pretty easy
to kick that knight away. And in order to do so, we need to move the queen
somewhere.
And Fischer played 19.Qf4. We know that the queen is good at attacking opponent’s
weaknesses. From f4, the queen potentially keeps an aim at Black’s pawn on c7, so, it
could be useful in the future. Black decided to neutralize the queen’s power and
offered an exchange. 19…Qd6 20.Qxd6 cxd6.
And here there was a little problem for White. Here, White just realized that if he
played the f3-move, which he intended to play, Black would have the tactical trick,
Ng3. And if White played Re7, which again was his original intention –to penetrate
into Black’s camp and start later on attacking some pawns there–, Black would have
the counterblow with Nf5, with the double attack of White’s rook and pawn. And that
is certainly not a very good thing for White. Therefore, unfortunately for White, this
plan failed and White had to find some other idea.
What should White be thinking about this position? Well, just as usual, you should be
thinking about the pieces that you have and how to activate them. First of all, you see
that you have the rooks which are not doing much due to the fact that Black’s knight
is blocking the line. So, there could be two options: either to eliminate the knight
somehow or to open up new lines for your rooks.
When we come to our knight, we can see that, at the moment, it’s not doing anything,
so you definitely wish to use it for more active purposes. In light of that, Fischer came
up with a new plan: he played 21.c4. This pawn move aims at a few different
purposes. One of them is that White’s rook will be able to get relocated to the c-file,
which can be opened anytime by White.
Secondly, we see that Black has a couple of weaknesses there in the center and on the
queenside –those queen pawns which cannot be protected by other pawns. Therefore,
White can start attacking them either with the rooks or with the knight, for instance,
with Nb6, attacking the d5-pawn.
So, that was Fischer’s plan and he played it in order to activate his pieces and also to
start attacking opponent’s weaknesses. It is also important to mention here that Black
cannot trade off his doubled-pawns because, obviously, if he tries to exchange pawns
on c4, his knight on e4 will be lost. So, he played 21…Nf6; and now, he is ready to
trade off one of his doubled-pawns. They are weak and, normally, you wish to save
them for your opponent and to attack them later on. Therefore, Fischer protected his
pawn by playing 22.Rc1. As we discussed earlier, the rook is ready to penetrate into
the opponent’s camp along this open file later on.
Black played 22…Rb8 23.cxd5 and now since White’s rook is attacking the weak
pawn on c6, Black has to recapture by the pawn 23…cxd5 and therefore, his pawns
are still disconnected and all of them could become an object of attack for White’s
rook and knight.
How would you play here as White? Well, for sure it was possible for White to just
bring the rook into play like Rc6 –that’s a perfectly normal move. However, Fischer
took a different approach. He played 24.f3 in order to keep Black’s knight away from
that e4-square. Fischer already suffered from having Black’s knight there and he
decided to disable that option for Black. And that is a good thing –just as much as you
wish to bring your pieces to active positions, you also wish to prevent your opponent
from doing the same.
Black played 24...Nh5, trying to find some other squares. Now, finally, White played
25.Rc6, starting to attack Black’s weaknesses. Black played 25…Nf4, attacking the

rook. Black is desperately trying to find some counterplay because otherwise Black’s
pawns would simply be attacked and captured by White’s rook and knight.
Although, normally we should keep the rooks on an open line, in this position, White
realized that Black is going to play Ne6 and to attack that pawn on d4, so that’s the
counterplay Black may possibly hope for. And Fischer decided to make the very
protective move 26.Rd2 to eliminate any counterplay of Black. And all of a sudden,
Black was in a very bad position. The only way to protect the d6-pawn is to play
Rfd8, and then White can simply continue attacking. He can play something like Nb6,
to bring his knight closer to the center and attack the d5-pawn.
Now, if you think about what Black can do here, you will realize that almost nothing.
The d8-rook is forced to protect the d6-pawn, so it can’t move. The knight on f4 has
to protect the pawn on d5, so it can’t move either. The rook on b8 almost has no
squares to go to. So, therefore, Black is totally passive and has simply nothing to do,
while White can easily improve his position. White can bring the king into the center
or he can push away Black’s knight from f4, for instance with g3; and he can start
grabbing Black’s pawn on d5 and the rest of his pawns in the center and on the
queenside.
Something similar happened in the game. Black played even less stubborn moves; he
gave up all those pawns and then resigned. We’ll not see this game until the end –it’s
a relatively easy win for White. He collected all Black’s weak pawns; he pushed his
pawns and promoted them to new queens. If you wish to see the rest of the game, you
can see it in the practical part of the course –there we have all the games used for the
video lessons.
26…Rfe8 [26...Rfd8 27.Nb6] 27.Rxd6 Re1+ 28.Kf2 Rh1 29.Kg3 [29.Nc3 Re8
30.Nxd5 Nxh3+] 29...Nh5+ 30.Kh4 g6 31.Rxd5 Re8 32.Rxa5 Ree1 33.Nc3 Nf4
34.Kg4 Ne6 35.Re5 f5+ 36.Kg3 f4+ 37.Kh4 Kh7 38.Ne4 g5+ 39.Kg4 Ng7
40.Nxg5+ hxg5 41.Rxe1 Rxe1 42.Kxg5 Ne6+ 43.Kf5 Re2 44.Rxe2 Nxd4+ 45.Ke5
Nxe2 46.a4 1–0
Conclusions
Right now, let’s just once again summarize the entire game. In this course, we
analyzed the two core concepts of Fischer’s play –which was the art of positional play
and the art of attack. These two things interconnect and they supplement each other.
When you put your pieces in the right positions, they start attacking your opponent.
When you play the game, just focus yourself on these two things. Ask yourself the
questions: How can I attack my opponent and how can I put my pieces on the best
positions available? Keep asking yourself these two questions and you’ll definitely
play a very strong chess.
As far as the attack is concerned, it’s pretty straightforward. You just think how to
attack something in the opponent’s position and possibly capture it.

When it comes to positional play, we selected the key rules about this topic –what the
best squares for your pieces are and you just put your pieces there. It’s that simple.
And if you follow these simple guidelines and focus yourself on these two elements,
you’ll play as strong as Bobby Fischer! J
Thanks for your attention. Even if you didn’t remember everything from these
lessons, don’t worry about that. First of all, you can always watch once again certain
fragments from the lesson or a certain video lesson. Secondly, now you may go to the
practical part of the course, where you’ll be able to train the skills you acquired from
the video lessons and to remember all these ideas better.
Finally, even if you can’t keep all the rules in mind right now, just focus yourself on
this KEY concept –focus yourself on the attack and improving the positions of your
pieces, according to the rules which we discussed. If you just keep focusing on that,
you’ll play a very strong chess.
One final thing: If you’ve already studied any of my other courses such as “The
Grandmaster’s Positional Understanding” or “The Grandmaster’s Secrets”, you may
notice a similarity between Fischer’s style and the principles of chess which were
stated in those courses. This is certainly very logical, because the chess rules are
always the same, irrespective of Fischer, or you or me or whoever plays it. J And
therefore, it is only good for you if you can notice that the general principles of chess
described in my other courses are, in a way, similar to the style of Fischer’s play.

Practical Part
INSTRUCTIONS
The video lessons of the course, “Play like Fischer”, give you a lot of useful
knowledge. It’s highly recommended that you watch these video lessons SEVERAL
TIMES. This will help you digest and automate the skills that separate the amateurs
from the pros.
Now it is necessary to put the knowledge received into practice. This

practical addition to the course will help you do so. I am giving you the training
program which accurately explains exactly what you should do.
Remember, you MUST train and automate these skills (especially your
thinking process) before you can use them in real games.
What will this practical part give you?
ü You will understand the ideas of the course better.

ü You will remember the ideas of the course better.
ü And the main thing: you will start putting the course’s ideas into practice.
Thus, you will acquire these practical skills fully.
The practical course contains nine tasks. Each of them is in a different folder. A
separate instruction accompanies each task. You should carry out all of these tasks
consistently (from 1st to 10th), following the corresponding instructions.
NOTES:
· In each task, you will see that it is White’s or Black’s turn.

· Remember that you should focus on the quality of your training, not on the
quantity of work performed.
· Do not use computer engines while performing these tasks. In order to train
your skills, you should think yourself.
· If something is not clear to you –watch the video lessons once again.
· Even if any task seems simple to you –I strongly recommend that you perform
it seriously.
· The chess games are in *.pgn format. Any chess program can open this.
· You should think about every single position for not less than 3 minutes and
not more than 15 minutes.
· In most tasks, you will need to find the next move in a given position. Then
you will study the answer. While looking at the answer, I recommend you to
go over the whole game (not only the first move). These games are very
instructive and you can find a lot of useful ideas in them.
Now you should start performing the tasks:

1. Read the instruction (from the relevant file) for a certain task.
2. Go to the folder with chess games/puzzles.
3. Go to the folder with chess games/tasks.
While performing these tasks, you will encounter a lot of positions where you
need to find the following move. Please take note of the main purpose of such
training: you should THINK about it, APPLY the general ideas (from the video
lessons) and UNDERSTAND more deeply how these ideas work practically.
These ideas can help you find the answers to the puzzle positions.
While you often need to find the best move in a certain position, your main goal is
NOT simply to detect the right answer. Your objective is to train your correct
system of thinking.
Please don’t be upset if you can’t find the solution to all tasks: after all, “no pain,
no gain!” JThe HARDER and SMARTER your training, the GREATER your
progress!
Good luck!
GM Igor Smirnov

The Practical Part: 1. Bishop
The first task in the practical course is to test your positional skills for the
bishop.
1) Your task is to open the file: “Task-1”. Use a real chessboard and re-
create the position there. Study each position for 1-3 minutes.
2) Check the solutions: Open the folder: “Answer-1” and check the solutions
carefully.

The Practical Part: 2. Knight
The next task in the practical part of the course is to test your positional skills
for the knight.
carefully.

The Practical Part: 3. Rook
for the rook.
carefully.

The Practical Part: 4. Queen
for the queen.
carefully.

The Practical Part: 5. King
for the king.
carefully.

The Practical Part: 6. Pawn Sacrifice
The next task in the practical part of the course is to test your skills while you
or your opponent had sacrificed a pawn.
carefully.

The Practical Part: 7. Counterblow
The next task in the practical part of the course is to test your skills on
counterblow. When your opponent makes an attacking move, you are not forced to
defend.
carefully.

The Practical Part: 8. Many Ideas
The next task in the practical part of the course is to test your skills on more
complicated examples. Usually practical games have many ideas, so it is time now to
practice your skills.
carefully.

The Practical Part: 9. World Chess Championship
The next task in the practical part is the World Chess Championship. I selected
almost all games, so your task is to check your knowledge in a real championship!
carefully.

The Practical Part: 10. Rematch 1992
The final task in the practical part is regarding the rematch on 1992. The
quality of play was obvious. Both players would like to win and I selected some
positions from this rematch. I hope you will enjoy it.
2) Check the solutions: Open the folder: “Answer-10” and check the
solutions carefully.

Play Like Bobby Fischer

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Play Like Bobby Fischer

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“Play like Fischer” is an absolutely essential course.

Play like Fischer

Remote Chess Academy| https://chess-teacher.com 1

I appreciate Olga Carreño’s effort in polishing the texts of the course.

Remote Chess Academy| https://chess-teacher.com 2

Video Lessons - TOTAL: 191 minutes

Lesson-1: Bobby Fischer: Positional Play at its Best (15mins)

How to Play like Bobby Fischer

“I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all-around

Well, definitely the guy didn't suffer of lack of self-confidence. :-)

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Put your forces on the most favorable positions.

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Fischer,Robert James - Bertok,Mario [B35]

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Aspect Number One

Aspect Number Two

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33…a5 34.c6 e5 35.Ba7 Rbe8 36.c7

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Lesson-2: Fischer's Favorite Chess Piece (21mins)

Fischer,Robert James - Petrosian,Tigran V [B13]

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4) However, what should you do if your bishop is misplaced or blocked by pawns?

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Lesson-3: Crush Your Opponent Using Open Lines (14mins)

Larsen,Bent - Fischer,Robert James [E97]

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To sum up, your plan to use the rooks consists of 3 steps:

1) First, you put the rook on an open file and then

Mednis,Edmar John - Fischer,Robert James [B99]

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1) Put your rook on an open line

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Lesson-4: The King of Chess (14mins)

Fischer,Robert James - Petrosian,Tigran V [B13]

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Lehmann,Heinz - Fischer,Robert James [B84]

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29.a5 h6 flight square 30.Qc4 Qxc4 31.bxc4 c2 0–1

Uhlmann,Wolfgang - Fischer,Robert James [A75]

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Lesson-5: Crush Opponent's Weaknesses (25mins)

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Let’s try out one more situation.

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