Georgiadis vs Jimenez Garcia

In the Dragon the bishop on g7 is half the concept. It holds h8 to a1 together, it shields the king, and it is the reason Black can live with less space against the Maróczy Bind at all. With 10.Bf4 and 11.h3 White sent the knight back from g4 and put the bishop on the c1 to h6 diagonal, and 12.Bh6 forces the trade: the g7 bishop cannot step aside without leaving h6 hanging.

After 12...Bxh6 13.Qxh6 the queen recapture is the only sensible move, and it is also the best one. The queen is not beautiful on h6, she is useful: she looks at f8 and h7, she keeps Black from castling short, and she comes back into the game later via e3 and e6. That route decided the game.

For your own practice: against the Dragon and the Accelerated Dragon, trading the g7 bishop is nearly always a success, even when it costs you two tempi. And the other way round, with Black: when your opponent sets up Be3 and Qd2, Bh6 is the threat you need a plan against before it arrives.

With 13...a5 and 14...a4 Black has chased the knight from b3 and taken space on the queenside. The a4 pawn is the price: it stands far up the board and nothing but the a8 rook defends it. A quarter of players castle here, another quarter put the bishop on d3, and both are respectable.

16.Bd1 is better, by roughly a fifth of a pawn, which is not much in this position but is everything in terms of the idea. The bishop goes back to the first rank and in doing so points at the a4 pawn through c2 and b3. White does not win it at once, he pins it down, and seven moves later the bishop really does land there with 23.Bxa4.

Retreats have a bad name because they look like lost time. You only lose time if the piece does less afterwards than before. On every retreat, ask what the piece aims at from its new square: a bishop that steps back and takes aim at a pawn has not lost a tempo, it has been given a job.

Black has invested three moves in a raid on the white pawns with 19...Qb6, 21...Qxb2 and 22...Nb5, and forgotten two things: his king is still on e8, because the white queen on h6 kept him from castling for nine moves, and that same queen now stands on e3, on the king's file. The queen on b2 and the knight on a3 are at the other end of the board.

24.Bxd7+ is the move that joins the two facts. It removes the last defender and pulls the king onto a square where it is in the way: 24...Kxd7 25.Rc3, and the rook has a clear road. Only a good third of players capture here, the others look for something bigger, and the position only gets slower for it.

The lesson is a counting exercise, not a combination. When your opponent works on your queenside with queen and knight, count how many of his pieces are still near his own king. If there is only one, trading that one piece is usually stronger than any defence of your pawns.

The rook on c3 has to move, and exactly one move keeps the game won: 26.Rb3. It saves the rook and attacks the queen at the same time, and that single tempo is the whole difference. White is a good four pawns better afterwards.

The obvious alternatives throw all of it away. After 26.Rd3 Nc2 27.Qf4 Qf6 28.Qxf6 exf6 the queens come off, the knight sits on c2 in the middle of White's position, and a winning game has become a level one. 26.Rfc1 Rxc3 27.Rxc3 Nb5 28.Rb3 Qc1+ ends the same way: Black is back in the game and White has nothing left.

As soon as a piece is attacked we look for a safe square for it and stop thinking there. Look instead for the safe square from which the piece attacks something itself. In positions where the opponent is one tempo away from counterplay, that is regularly not one good move among several, it is the only one.

Ninety-four out of a hundred players take the pawn here with 27.Rxb7+, because it falls with check and because material is countable. That move wins too. It only wins more slowly than 27.e5, and slowness is the one thing that can still go wrong against a king in the centre.

The reason stands on d7. The black king has not one quiet square, and 27.e5 builds the road he is hunted down: the pawn goes to e6, the e-file opens, and the queen travels via e3 to e6. The game went 27...Qc2 28.e6+ Ke8 29.exf7+ Kxf7 30.Qe6+, and Black resigned: after 30...Kf8 31.Rf3+ Qf5 32.Rxf5+ gxf5 the queen is gone.

Remember the order, not the moves. When the enemy king is in the centre and you are clearly better, the pawn that happens to be hanging is the slowest winning attempt on the board. Count the squares the king has left first; only when there are enough of them do you count material.