I’ve been taking a break from chess, so you haven’t seen much analysis here recently, but this weekend I did have some friends (Gjon and Cailen) over to my house for some videos and speed chess. We watched one of Jesse Kraai’s recent videos on ChessLecture, called “An Aesthetic Chess Ideal,” from August 6.
If you haven’t seen this lecture, you really owe it to yourself to watch it. Even Jesse says that this may be one of his best games ever, and that is saying a lot. It’s not that there are lots of flashy sacrifices. Yes, there are a couple of pawn sacrifices, and a bishop sacrifice that will blow you away because it’s so unusual, but in a way the sacrifices aren’t the point. They just arise naturally out of White’s strategic play. And yet, saying “they arise naturally” also somehow shortchanges the virtuosity of Jesse’s play. They arise naturally on some mystical, philosophical level. They arise naturally if you understand the position the way that Jesse does. If not, you will never be able to find them.
We also watched a couple of lectures on chess.com, which made an interesting contrast with Jesse’s lecture. First, I had to watch one of David Pruess’s lectures on the King’s Gambit, because I’m a big fan of that opening. Well, it was okay, but he left out a couple of important lines, and the lecture just didn’t seem as cohesive or as well thought out as Jesse’s. Then we started watching Sam Shankland’s lecture on his victory over Jaan Ehlvest in the Chicago Open. We only got about a minute into it, and then Sam said, “Last time I played him, I crushed him.” Gjon pushed the “pause” button and said, “That’s just wrong.” Here’s a guy (Ehlvest) that used to be one of the top ten players in the world, and Sam just talks about him so dismissively, as if he were some patzer he had crushed at the local club. “He needs to show more respect,” Gjon says. We eventually decided not to listen to the rest of the lecture.
Finally we listened to a lecture by Melikset Khachiyan, which was good, but I wouldn’t say it was soul-satisfying in the way that Jesse’s lecture was.
Comparing these lectures made me realize that now, more than ever, Jesse Kraai’s lectures are the real reason to subscribe to ChessLecture. If he ever leaves, they should just fold up their tent. You can hear Eugene Perelshteyn both on ChessLecture and on chess.com. You can hear Dennis Monokroussos both on ChessLecture and on ICC. But you can only hear Jesse on ChessLecture, and there just isn’t anybody else who does this genre better.
(Yes, yes, I know, I’m a lecturer for ChessLecture myself. Like I said, totally unbiased.)