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Today, I played against my friend who has been recently been using the hypermodern systems. Basically, rather than classical openings where you start with pawns in the centre, the goal rather is to defer this, and to undermine the opponent’s centre with pieces from the flank. Fianchettoed bishops controlling the long diagonals and potentially staring at the opponent’s rooks are typical. I don’t do well against these systems and they often make me feel a bit anxious so I thought I would do a review of this one.

The insight for me is that if I want to improve, I will need to study against the common hypermodern systems, like the Modern Defense, and the Pirc Defense. I spent a good part of this game convinced that I was in a losing position, even though Stockfish thought that I was doing fine! And ultimately, I was on the edge of being checkmated, except that my mate got stuck in the “mate in 1 tunnel vision” that I spoke about in a recent video, and missed a checkmate threat against his own king.

I hope you enjoyed this video, and thanks for watching!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/daily/382293477

[Event "Let\\'s Play!"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.01.27"]
[Round "?"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "aadhilaziz"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B06"]
[WhiteElo "1040"]
[BlackElo "841"]
[TimeControl "1/604800"]
[EndDate "2022.01.27"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]

1. e4 g6 2. d4 b6 3. c4 Bb7 4. Nc3 Bg7 5. Nf3 c5 6. Be3 f5 7. exf5 gxf5 8. Bd3 f4 9. Bxf4 cxd4 10. Ne2 Nc6 11. Qd2 e5 12. Bg5 Nce7 13. O-O Bxf3 14. gxf3 Nf6 15. Ng3 h6 16. Bh4 Rg8 17. Kh1 Qc7 18. Rac1 h5 19. Nf5 Nxf5 20. Bxf5 Rh8 21. Rg1 Bh6 22. Bg6+ Ke7 23. Qb4+ d6 24. Bg5 Qc6 25. Qb3 Rag8 26. Bxf6+ Kxf6 27. Be4 Qe8 28. Rcd1 Bf4 29. Qb4 Qe6 30. Bd5 Qh3 31. Qxd6+ 1-0