These videos are fantastic and very helpful. He makes some very useful instructional videos on how to handle a typical Bg5 knight pin, and how to successfully defend fianchettoed bishop positions.
For anyone who doesn't know, I will post here what GM Igor Smirnov has to say.
In this partial position here, white may typically play Bg5, pinning the black knight to the queen. I have always viewed this move as a huge mistake, and so does GM Igor Smirnov. The only way to benefit from the pin would be to then attack the knight with a pawn. White should not presume black will be dumb enough to move the knight and hang the queen, credit your opponent with some intelligence! Black need not waste time playing h6 before white plays Bg5, since Bg5 is an awful move, let him play it! If he takes the knight, then the queen recaptures and is in a strong place pointing at the white king position. Or you can take with the pawn.
Igor also says if you have not already castled, then do not castle. Your first move after Bg5 here should be h6. Now if the bishop takes the knight, recapture. If you take with the pawn you get an open file for your rook without playing 0-0 and can leave the king in the centre, or play 0-0-0 later if you must.
White loses a powerful bishop for no good reason and loses time to throw the bishop away. Yet there is no shortage of players who insist on playing it. As we should know, as the board opens up, bishops are far better than knights. Giving up a bishop can make you weak on those colour squares the bishop was on. We are usually told when learning to play, that knights and bishops are worth about 3 pawns, but really, the relative strength of the bishop increases compared to knights as the board opens up. A fairer evaluation would be that a knight, later in the game, may be worth about a quarter or half a pawn LESS than a bishop, and we know that a king and 2 bishops, or a king, bishop and knight can checkmate a lone king, whereas 2 knights cannot, so clearly a bishop is worth more. So why give it up so early?
It also ties with another theme in Igor's vidoes: To take is a mistake! Being the one to initiate a capture which is just a straight exchange means the player making the recapture expands his position and you do not. Here, black gets either his queen in a strong place, or rook on an open file, and white gets zilch!
Since watching his videos I follow his advice in absolutely every game and it rarely fails.
What if the bishop chickens out and decides, after h6, to move to h4? Then play g5 and you can imagine from the partial position, chasing the bishop with pawns back down to g3 and trapping it there.
Everyone who plays moves like Bg5 here, should watch Igor Smirnov's fantastic videos, then they may find better moves like Bd2 or Bd3!
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