ChessBase Magazine Vol. 106 contains around 1640 games, 506 with expert annotations. There are section on tactics, strategy, endgames, and extensive theory articles, all by great experts in the field. The multimedia section contains interviews with players at the Wijk aan Zee tournament, including Garry Kasparov's press conference announcing his retirement from competitive chess.
Multimedia Report: In CBM 106 it is a report on the Super-Tournament which ran from February 23 to March 10 in the southern Spanish town of Linares. It was the XXII Torneo International de Ajedrez, a category 20 double round robin, with seven participants: Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov, Peter Leko, Michael Adams, Francisco Vallejo Pons and Rustam Kasimdzhanov.
The multimedia report on Linares starts at round twelve and the game between Michael Adams and Garry Kasparov. The latter had won their first-half encounter, but in their return game Adams had white, and he is known to have caused this opponent some problems with the white pieces in the past. However, Kasparov won. Our video shows the two analysing the game (with subdued voices) in the hall next to the playing stage.
The multimedia report also contains an interview with Leontxo Garcia, a Spanish journalist who specializes in chess. Leontxo has witnessed all Linares tournaments, and he tells us about this great traditional event and the people around it. Then there is a video showing the fateful final round game between Veselin Topalov and Garry Kasparov. The former won but the latter had enough points, regular and tiebreak, to take first prize.
After this we have an interview with Bulgarian star Veselin Topalov, who is a calm, cheerful personality, always friendly and quick to come up with a humorous reply. Here, at the end of the mammoth event, you can see the exhaustion written in his face.
In Linares Kasparov informed us about what was coming, so we had a video camera ready on a tripod in front of the stage when he started speaking. You can catch the entire momentous speech. It begins with the words “It could come as a surprise to many of you. But before this tournament I made a conscious decision that Linares 2005 will be my last professional tournament, and today I played my last professional game. I hoped I could do better in my last game, but unfortunately the last two games were very difficult for me, to play under such pressure, because I knew it was the end of a career which I could be proud of. I may play some chess for fun, but it will no longer be professional competitive chess.”
Theory:
A14 English
A45 Trompowsky
A69 Benoni
B01 Scandinavian Main Line
B06 Pirc Defence 4 f4
B22 Sicilian Alapin 2…d5
C12 French McCutcheon 6 Be3
C40 Elephant Gambit
D43 Semi-slav, Anti-Moscow Variation
Endgame: GM Dr Karsten Müller has selected 32 instructive endgames, some of which are defined as training positions, i.e. they ask you to find a solution in a specific amount of time and give you points for succeeding in doing so. This is the best way to improve your skill in a very critical part of the game.
Strategy: “Hanging Pawns” is the subject of GM Peter Wells’ mini-series, of which we saw the first part in the previous issue of ChessBase Magazine. He continues his lesson with the following themes:
Key breaks for use against the Hanging Pawns;
A note on the ‘Isolated Pawn Couple’;
Modifications to the ‘defender’s pawn structure;
The e- and f-pawns as Hanging Pawns;
The d-and e-pawns – the ‘Hanging Pawn Centre’.
Tactics: GM Valery Atlas writes: “Divide et impera (divide and conquer) was the preferred strategy of the Roman emperors. Many tactical examples in the tactics database illustrate this famous ancient principle. Divide and conquer the opponent’s forces in your games!”
History: Johannes Fischer writes about the great Rudolf Spielmann, whose life was a mirror to the history of his times. “Small and fat,” writes J. Fischer, “a lifelong bachelor who came from Vienna and who liked his beer, he was one of the best chess players in the world for several decades.” The attached database contains six games, annotated in German.
Demo: The database “106 Demo” contains descriptions of our new products: Garry Kasparov’s “How to play the Najdorf - Vol. 1” (Chess Media Format); Andrew Martin’s “ABC of Chess Openings” (Chess Media Format); Eva Moser/Thomas Luther: “Die große Eröffnungsschule (Chess Media Format, German); Henrik Schlößner: “Test your chess” (ChessBase-Format); Dmitry Oleinikov: “Budapest Gambit 2nd edition” (ChessBase-Format).
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