Chessbase Magazine 124
Baku, Plovdiv, Sofia – the last few months have seen the great chess circus more or less far away in the east. Of the four highlights in this issue, two were classical all-play-all tournaments: the FIDE Grand Prix in Baku and the M-Tel in Sofia. The other two highlights were championships, on one hand the European Individual Championships and on the other the Russian Team Championships.
Whereas the circle of participants and potential victors in the major all-play-all tournaments tends to be constant and predictable, the FIDE Grand Prix in Baku was an exception, thanks to the nomination of Vugar Gashimov and Wang Yue. And who would have thought that it would be those two players who (almost) completely dominated the field of established players and who would share the final victory with Magnus Carlsen. Co-winner Vugar Gashimov has annotated two of his brilliant games fromBaku for this issue of ChessBase Magazine.
As in previous years the M-Tel in Sofia must have anticipated as a victor Veselin Topalov, had the tournament but followed a normal course. But Vassily Ivanchuk surprised everyone and in the first series of the double round robin ran up 5 victories out of 5, a run of victories which had for a long time never been seen at this level. He then carried forward this lead into the second half of the tournament and majestically went on to win ahead of Topalov. As a highlight Radjabov has annotated his game against Bu Xiangzhi, which was chosen as the best game in the tournament.
On the other hand, for the last few years the European Individual Championships have not seen the really top players. However the number of grandmasters who take part is almost overwhelming: 177 GMs with an Elo-rating of 2500 or better were at the start in Plovdiv. The victor, Sergei Tiviakov, deserves our compliments because in the final round he was concentrating on the chess and not keeping his eye on his ticket for the FIDE World Cup, for which a draw would have been sufficient. The new European champion has annotated in depth two of his wins, including his instructive last round victory over Sutovsky. In addition, the new vice European champion Sergei Movsesian explains two of his games from Plovdiv on this DVD.
In his introductory video, the grandmaster from Hamburg Karsten Müller gives you an overview of the training available on this DVD and presents a few highlights in brief, e.g. Sergei Tiviakov’s exemplary final round victory at the European Championships with the Sicilian Alapin over Emil Sutovsky or the two repertoire suggestions against 1.d4 by GM Lubomir Ftacnik (Slav with 4...Ba6) and IM Andrew Martin (1.d4 g6, 2.c4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c5 4.d5 Bxc3+), which are both available in Fritztrainer format. As an example of the total of 13 opening contributions, Müller rapidly describes both GM Mihail Marin’s suggestion as to how to combat the Berlin Defence in the Ruy Lopez and Alexei Kuzmin’s contribution on the Marshall Gambit in the Slav Defence (4.e4).
Dorian Rogozenko once more reviews on this DVD the major tournaments of the last few weeks in two introductory videos. The first one concentrates totally on the highlights from the “Grand Slam” tournament in Sofia. He explains in depth two victories by Ivanchuk and in doing so gives examples of the qualities which the Ukrainian was able to display so impressively in this tournament. Thus the game Ivanchuk - Cheparinov is used to represent Ivanchuk’s outstanding positional understanding. And Ivanchuk - Bu Xiangzhi is brilliant proof of just how valuable extensive opening knowledge can be, even at the very highest level. Over and above that, Rogozenco examines in detail in his video the games Topalov - Bu Xiangzhi, Radjabov - Bu Xiangzhi and the final round game Topalov - Radjabov including the Azerbaijani’s queen sacrifice which is worth seeing.
If you play the Slav against 1.d4, the modern 4...Be6 offers you a surprise weapon, against which no real refutation has yet been found. Last year, even players like Movsesian, Dreev or Bu Xiangzhi have successfully tested this variation. The Slovakian GM Lubomir Ftacnik introduces in a video the ideas which are linked to the move 4...Be6 and gives an overview of how theory developed and where it is now. His conclusion: still an exciting system in which much remains to be discovered for both sides and which is always useful as a surprise weapon.
Andrew Martin is starting on this DVD with “Structural Damage” a series of video contributions in which he presents powerful little systems which are outstandingly useful in the creation or extension of one’s repertoire. He starts with one of the most radical systems against 1.d4, the line 1...g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c5 4.d5 and then 4...Bxc3. In his half-hour long video, the International Master first presents the ideal setup for Black, then turns to the consideration of critical moves and lines and explains the typical course of events by means of games, some of which are his own.
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nc3 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6 7.Nf3 Bg7 8.Be2 0-0 9.0-0 Re8 10.Nd2 a6 11.a4 Nbd7
1.d4 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nf3 g6 4.g3 Bg7 5.Bg2 0-0 6.0-0 d6 7.Nc3 Qe8 8. d5 Na6 9.Rb1 Bd7 10.b4 c6 11.dxc6 bxc6
Prié: Scandinavian Defence B01
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bf5 6.Bc4 c6 7.Bd2 e6 8.Nd5 Qd8 9.Nxf6+ gxf6
Ftacnik: Philidor Defence C41
1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 4.Nf3 Nbd7 5.Bc4 Be7 6.0-0 0-0 7.Re1 c6 8.a4 b6
Langrock: Philidor Defence C41
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Be7 6.Bf4 0-0 7.Qd2
Kritz: Ponziani Opening C44
1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 4.Nf3 Nbd7 5.Bc4 Be7 6.0-0 0-0 7.Re1 c6 8.a4
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5 4.Nc3 fxe4 5.Nxe4 Nf6 6.Nxf6+ Qxf6
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.Re1 Nd6 6.Nxe5 Be7 7.Bd3 0-0 8.Nc3 Nxe5 9.Rxe5
Ftacnik: Slav Defence D11
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 dxc4 4.e3 Be6!?
Grivas: Queen's Gambit Accepted D23
1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Na3!?
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.e4 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Bb4+ 6.Bd2 Qxd4 7.Bxb4 Qxe4+ 8.Be2 Na6
Schandorff: Semi-Slav D45
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Qc2 Bd6 7.g4!? h6 8.Rg1 e5 9.cxd5 cxd5
Krasenkow: Grünfeld Defence D82
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4 Bg7 5.e3 c5 6.dxc5 Qa5
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