ChessBase Magazine 115
As this year comes to an end we should be able to rejoice in the so-called reunification of chess, which after a long and tedious process has been brought to a conclusion with the match between the FIDE-World Champion Veselin Topalov and the Classical Chess World Champion Vladimir Kramnik in September/October in Elista. Anyone who followed this spectacle and war of nerves could see how painful this rebirth was. May the formal unity of chess last for a long time. After all the World Chess Champion is the visiting card which the chess world can present to that other world. The more splendid that card looks, the better chess will be able to keep up in the competition with other sports.
The chess played in the match is one of the high points of this the Christmas issue of ChessBase Magazine. Almost at the same time, the Europa Cup for teams was taking place in Fügen. At it there was gathered a large part of the remaining chess élite. A further high point in terms of chess were the World Youth Championships for boys and girls in Batumi, a veritable exhibition of talent. German chess fans are happy to have a World Champion in Arik Braun. After two German championships and his place as runner-up in the European Youth Championship, this was the greatest success yet for the 18-year old. Another 18-year old is a step ahead in his development. When Teimour Radjabov beat Garry Kasparov three years ago in Linares, the young man from Baku was reckoned to be a possible future world champion. At the rapid chess tournament in Cap d'Agde, he came in first and gave his opponents the chance to admire his strength.
A plethora of publications has earned for the Hamburg grandmaster Karsten Müller the reputation of a first-class author in the world of chess. Nowadays he is counted as one of the leading experts in the realm of the endgame. In our new ChesBase Magazine, he is responsible for the endgame and at the beginning of the magazine he also gives an overview of its content in Fritz Trainer video format; in it he points out the most important content.
Technical note: if you read this DVD with the ChessBase Reader you should start by installing the new version of the Reader from the DVD. Go to Start -> Run and enter: D:\Setup.exe (if D: is your DVD-drive). If you are using ChessBase 9.0, you should first install the update from the DVD. For the moment ChessBase Magazine is being reorganised, which also has its downside and means that the program frequently has to be updated. We thank you for your understanding and promise you that it is all worth the trouble.
Opening Surveys:Trompowsky Attack (2...g6 3 Bxf6) by Efstratios Grivas [A45]
Scandinavian Defense (4...Nf6, 5...Nc6) by Eric Prie [B01]
Sicilian Defense (2...d6 3 Bb5) by Dorian Rogozenko [B51]
Sicilian Defense (Dragon, Part 1) by Dorian Rogozenko [B78]
Sicilian Defense (Najdorf, 6 Be3 e5) by Lubomir Ftacnik [B90]
French Defense (Advance, 4...Bd7) by Hannes Langrock [C02]
Petroff Defense by Leonid Kritz [C42]
Ruy Lopez (Open) by Mihail Marin [C83]
Slav Defense by Viktor Gavrikov [D15]
Slav Defense by Lukacs and Hazai [D19]
Semi-Slav by Lukacs and Hazai [D31]
Queen's Gambit by Viktor Moskalenko [D36]
Gruenfeld Defense by Michal Krasenkow [D87]
King's Indian (Saemisch, Byrne Variation) by Efstratios Grivas [E80]
Daniel King: Move by Move His legendary CD “Attack!” proved that Daniel King was a specialist in complete games with training questions. Characteristic of his column will be:
- a carefully chosen game
- almost all moves will have training questions
- feedback for almost all moves (including alternatives)
- not only the move played will be evaluated, but also other plausible movesThis time it is a game by Magnus Carlsen which is the subject of the discussion. In it, the super-talented youngster showed his countryman Johannessen how to win with the Volga Gambit (as Black).Oliver Reeh: Tactics The Europa Cup in Fuegen and the World Championships for Juniors in Yerevan were full of material and Oliver Reeh was able to find for you some of the prettiest combinations and tactical shots; he has provided them with training questions. In addition, he has recorded his favorite combination in Chess Media Format.Peter Wells: Strategy The strategy column contains the second contribution to the theme "Passed Pawns – Under Lock & Key." Peter Wells teases a lot of new ideas out of his theme.Karsten Müller: Endgames Tin addition to his endgame database with 35 games, Karsten Müller has also recorded someChess Media files which feature mating attacks in the endgame.ICCF: Telechess The two Argentine correspondence GMs Alvarez and Morgado have put together a database which contains six texts with news along with over 700 games.Rainer Knaak: Opening traps This new column is based on the CB program 1000 Opening Traps. Every isuse of CBM will highlight a new trap.New Products A nice overview of new releases to help you find what is right for you, including this issue new software by van Wely, King, Shirov, Jacoby alongwith video excerpts from the DVDs.
During the World Championship, grandmaster Yasser Seirawan commented live (in database Elista 2006) for spectators on the Fritz server and discussed and analysed with the grandmasters present and with a lot of knowledgeable spectators. There can be no other commentator who has so intensively experienced the games as he has done. For all those who wish to enjoy this unique match once more in retrospect, looking at the chess and forgetting the hectic day-by-day events, the comments that Seirawan makes in this magazine, in Fritz Trainer format, should be extraordinarily informative. For German speaking readers, Hamburg chess trainer and author Gisbert Jacoby also gives a résumé of the openings used in Elista, also in Fritz Trainer format - see text Openings. He also explains the match strategy which underlies the choice of openings. Jacoby has himself been able to gain experience of match play as a second. He was on the support team for Robert Hübner in his candidates finals match against Kortschnoj in Meran 1980 and his candidates match agains Smyslov in Velden.
As well as Yasser Seirawan, Mihail Marin has also annotated all the Wch games, and that in extraordinary depth. The Romanian grandmaster has in various circumstances given proof of his very thorough analysis of games, not the least as an author of some excellent ChessBase Training CDs. In his preface the author apologises for possibly having put in what some may consider too many question marks in his analysis. This should not be taken to mean that he in any way underestimated the level of play in Elista, according to Marin; instead, the extreme difference between playing styles and the large quantity of complex positions unavoidably led to errors.
The Europa Cup for teams was organised on this occasion by the Austrian Chess Federation in cooperation with the Jenbach Chess Club. An appropriate venue was found in Fügen, in the Zillertal, an event which resembled a miniature version of the chess Olympiads. The Alps all around them encouraged many a grandmaster to take a little tour of the mountains. Because of the plethora of games and the simultaneous Wch match in Elista, it was difficult for the Europa Cup to attract the attention it deserved while it was being played. However some authors have turned in retrospect to this super tournament and present in this issue analyses and comments that will offer students of the game plenty of stimulation for their own further development. One of the high points is the annotation by Alexei Shirov of his game against Kasimdzahnov; in the said annotations he casts light especially on the theory of the opening.
The best individual result in Fügen was that of the Werder Bremen player Tomi Nyback, who was the only player to score 6½ points out of 7 thus putting in a performance of 2887 Elo. The victims of the young Finnish player include such Elo-giants as Evgeny Bareev and Vladimir Malakhov. The young Finn has annotated both of these games for the readers of ChessBase Magazine. Against Bareev, Nyback was the beneficiary of a blackout on the part of his opponent, whereas the victory over Malakhov was the consequence of better strategic understanding. In his comments, the Finnish number one points out at the same time how in many positions human beings still understand more about chess than do computers. It is worthwhile playing the game over again just on account of the satisfaction which results from this insight.
The previous FIDE World Champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov who represented in Fügen Ladya Kazan managed 5 points in 7 games and an average of over 70%. The Uzbek, who lives in Germany, considers that with his move 8.Qd3! he has dealt a heavy blow to the 6...b5 variation in the classical Nimzo Indian. In his comments on the game against Arkadij Naiditsch, he explains how and why White obtains a positional plus in all variations. In his two DVDs which have recently appeared, Kasimdzhanov has also demonstrated his excellent abilities as an annotator.
Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu could almost have won the FIDE World Championship in 1999 in Las Vegas. He knocked straight out of the tournament two of the favourites, Ivanchuk and Shirov, before Khalifman was able to stop him in the semi-final. Suddenly the Romanian German was a household name in the chess world. In the previous year, after all, he had become European Champion. In the Europa Cup he made exactly the same score as Kasimdzhanov, though it was for the French representatives Clichy. Nisipeanu annotates his games against Georgiev and van Wely, when he surprised the Dutchman by castling queenside in a Sveshnikov Sicilian, a move against which all the chess programs specifically advise at that point in the game. Once more we come up against the superiority of human fantasy when it is compared to the calculations of the machines!
The top Dutch player Loek van Wely was appearing for the Spanish team Gros Xake Taldea in Fügen and turned in a solid performance on board one. He has annotated two of his victories for this number. According to van Wely, his game against Rainer Polzin of Schachfreunde Berlin is very instructive on account of "a series of interesting mistakes." On the other hand, the game against Evgeny Agrest is an interesting theoretical battle on the terrain of the Botvinnik Variation in the semi Slav. The several times Dutch champion is a great expert in that line, especially with the white pieces. A ChessBase DVD on this subject by him has just appeared in fact.
18-year old Arik Braun has for a long time been one of the promising young masters in German junior chess. After two German youth titles and the runner-up position in the European youth Championships, he achieved his as yet greatest success in the U-18 championship held during the World Youth Championships. In his comments on two of his games the young man from Backnang also demonstrates his qualities as an annotator.
If not before, then since Teimour Radjabov's fine tactical game against Garry Kasparov in Linares three years ago caught the notice of the chess public, the young Azerbaijani (now 19 years old) is reckoned to be a possible future world champion. Radjabov has in common with Kasparov not only his place of birth (Baku) but also a tactically influenced playing style, which occasionally leads to wild attacking chess. In Fügen where he was on the same team as Rustam Kasimdzhanov, he scored a victory which is well worth seeing in an extremely aggressive game against Alexander Morozevich. He goes into the game in some detail in this issue. Soon afterwards, Radjabov won the rapid chess tournament in Cap d'Agde. He has annotated for the readers of ChessBase Magazine two games from this tournament: one against Volokitin and the other against Fressinet.
As well as the previously mentioned contributors, numerous other authors also contributed to the content of this issue and annotated in particular games from the Europa Cup. These include Vlastimil Babula, Emanuel Berg, Lubomir Ftacnik, Viktor Bologan, Michal Krasenkow, Leonid Kritz, Viktor Mikhalevsky, Yannick Pelletier, Dorian Rogozenko, Lars Schandorff, Peter Wells, Arizmendi Martinez and Oliver Reeh. Any one of these authors deserved to be introduced in such detail. The only reasons for this not happening are those of time and space…
System Requirements: Pentium, 32MB, Windows 98 SE, 2000, Me, XP, DVD drive
(You need to register at the above community to see the links)
(Post links of all the CBM's available here)
Visit our new home @ Chess India Network . Join our Community forum @ Chess India Community. Visit our network site Chess India Channel to watch numerous quality chess training videos
Click here to Subscribe to FREE email updates from "Attack The King", so that you do not miss out anything that can be valuable to you !!
