The Italian game was probably one of the very first openings you learned. The reasons are clear: The center is dominated, the minor pieces are active, the king is safe. The Giouco Piano is played by almost every top player in the world. Svitlana is teaching us the "slow" variation, the so-called Giuoco Pianissimo Variation in this episode. The move d3 is giving White the choice to prepare their attack with a bit more time. In a game between Sven Magnus Carlsen, and Christopher Hikaru Nakamura, Svitlana presents us the White plans, and Black's counter ideas.
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Akiba Rubinstein was one of Polands greatest chess players. Svitlana is showing us two of his incredible games. In the first game, Rubinstein achieved a small tempo advantage with the Black pieces, and quickly unleashes a beautiful, tactical combination to crush his opponent. Furthermore, in the second game, his endgame skills shine, and we can learn a lot about pawn endgames in general.
In the 1980s Vasyl "Chucky" Ivanchuk became one of the world's top 100 players and he will probably remain one for another ten years, or longer. Svitlana shows us how the Ukrainian GM plays the Sicilian - in two wonderful games we see how Ivanchuk defeats Kasparov and Vallejo Pons with White, and then we see how he plays the Sicilian with Black to smash Anand.
The world champion Svitlana is talking about today, is one of the world's best chess players, since the late 80s. The five-time world chess champion has played some gorgeous games, and we will take a look at two of them. Anand beat Aronian with the Black pieces in 2013, and it is one of Svitlana's favourite games used for teaching. The second game is from 1997 against Joel Lautier, and Anand managed to trap the opponent's bishop for the whole game, without ever having the need to capture it.