Grabbing the Initiative with Spassky

Grabbing the Initiative with Spassky by USCF Expert Ryan Murphy offers instruction on how to strategically build up a position and how to launch an attack from a position of strength. This course features games by 10th World Champion GM Boris Spassky as a model for how to launch devastating attacks against the enemy king as well as how to make substantial threats which stem from one side's positional advantages.

In this course, Ryan Murphy covers positions where Spassky attacks in situations with opposite side castling, same side castling or when the opponent has not yet castled. He concludes with some examples where Spassky manages to steal the initiative with the black pieces. Spassky demonstrates the need for including as many pieces in the attack as possible as well as how important it is to calculate accurately and to consider all forcing moves once the position has been coordinated against a focal point.

This course has 4 video lessons with a total run time of 1 hour and 35 minutes and 4 PGN files covering all the instructive examples. This course is aimed at players in the 1200-1600 Elo rating range, though players slightly stronger will still benefit from this course.