Alterman on the Philidor Defence

Boris Alterman writes:

Today we will have a look at the Philidor Defence. But before we start, I'd like to say a few words about Francois-Andre Danican Philidor. Although Philidor was the greatest chess player of his time, his formal occupation was that of a musician. In the 18th century Philidor was a pretty famous composer.

At that time the Italian (attacking) style dominated. Giving a pawn or piece for just one tempo was the usual method of playing a chess game. Many encounters were decided this way, not only because of the good tactical and attacking strength of the players, but also because nobody knew how to defend! Everybody dreamed only about an attack with sacrifices:

And here came Philidor, who took the "Italian style" and made some deep analysis. Francois-Andre Philidor realized that pawns play the most important role in the game of chess. Pawns help control the center; they storm bastions of your enemy. Pawn structure points you towards what plan to choose from the many opportunities you have. The well known motto of Philidor "Pawns are the soul of chess" is clearly an immortal one!

Philidor published chess strategy book was translated to the most important European languages (including to Russian) and for a hundred years was considered the most important chess book, without significant addition or modification

Since Philidor preached the value of a strong pawn center, an understanding of the relative value of the pieces, and of the correct pawn formations, it is clear that the way he solved problems in the opening showed his way of chess understanding. The Philidor Defence characterized the main principle of the Philidor's strategy – attack the center with your pawns. The Philidor Defence is still not so rare guest in recent GM games. For example, GM's Dreev and Bacrot use this opening line regularly

GM Boris Alterman is 34, and lives in Israel. He was born in Kharkov, Ukraine, where he started playing chess at the age of 7. His career highlights include earning the IM title in 1991 and the GM title in 1992.He is the winner of the following Open and GM tournaments: Haifa 1993; Bad Homburg 1996; Rishon LeZion 1996; Beijing 1995 and 1997; Munchen 1992. His hobbies include computers and swimming, his favourite food is Chinese, he speaks fluent Russian, Hebrew and English.

Boris has worked for and against Garry Kasparov. In 1999 he assisted the world champion in his spectacular Microsoft match Kasparov vs The World, and was also part of the team that built up the web portal Kasparov Chess. In 2003, on the other hand, he was part of the Deep Junior team that gave Kasparov a run for his money in the New York match.

Boris Alterman will hold his lectures on Sundays at 21:00h Server time and a simultaneous exhibition on Mondays at 21:00h server time (in the "Simultaneous Exhibitions" room).

Here are the world-wide starting times for Alterman's lectures.
The simuls are at the same times one day later.