Two European team championships constitute the main theme of this new issue of ChessBase Magazine, on one hand the Club Championship of Europe (in Kemer, Turkey) and on the other the recently finished European Team Championships (in Heraklion, Crete). Whereas in the club championships non-European players were also allowed to take part, including the newly crowned World Champion Vishy Anand, the Europeans were on their own in the national team championships. This did not, however, make much difference to the Elo average, since with the exception of Kramnik and Leko all the top European players were appearing in their team colors.
The title of the best European club team went to the Spanish team Linex Magic Merida, which featured Kamsky, Adams, Rublevsky, Sargissian, Cheparinov and Perez Candelario. Though nominally the strongest team, OSC Baden-Baden lost a lot of ground in rounds 3 and 4 and finished in 4th place. Alexei Shirov, who annotates his game against Azarov elsewhere on this DVD, just made it into second place with his team Ural Sverdlovskaya. All the games from the tournament are on the DVD, 41 of them with annotations provided, e.g., by Avrukh, Berg, Bologan, Movsesian, Radjabov and Sasikiran.
In the competition for national teams, Russia won both the mens and the womens titles. The mens team of Svidler, Morozevich, Grischuk, Alekseev and Jakovenko were quick off the mark and not until the final round against Spain did they concede a team point.One of the stars of the Spanish team, Vallejo Pons, has annotated two of his games for this DVD, and also one player from a (slightly) lower placed team in the championships, Michael Roiz, whose ELO performance of 2855 was the third best individual result, demonstrates two games from the championships. A new piece on the wider international chessboard is Ahmed Adly. Adly is 20 years old, comes from Egypt and is the new Youth U20 World Champion. So for the first time in the history of chess the youth world champion is from an African country. The proud new champion has annotated two of his victories for ChessBase Magazine.
The introductory video with Hamburg grandmaster Dr Karsten Müller will give you a convenient overview of the highlights and the various contributions to chess training. What about, for example, the Classical King’s Indian with an early Nh5 (by GM Stohl) or the so-called Rio de Janeiro Variation in the Ruy Lopez (by GM Marin)? That is one you shouldn’t miss in any case!
In the Europa Cup it is often difficult for the top players to decide for which club they should appear. Perhaps, for example, Alexei Shirov would have been better playing for "his" Spanish club Merida? In any case the Latvian was satisfied with his own personal result (6 out of 7), although not so satisfied with the objective quality of the games. However, once more the entertainment value of Shirov’s games was in no way lacking, as for example the encounter with Azarov, which Shirov analyses in his over 20 minute long video. To avoid the threat of a short draw, Shirov committed himself on a full board with the rook maneuver Re1-e4-g4-g5. In the long run, boldness was again rewarded. Click on the video symbol on the right and let Shirov describe for you the game with its decisive turning points and critical variations.
In the game Ivanchuk – Radjabov, the top Azerbaijani grandmaster was once again able to make successful use of his King's Indian. he managed to surprise Vassily Ivanchuk with the rare continuation 7...Qb6. However, Teimour Radjabov did not choose the correct continuation with his13...c5 and this allowed his opponent to close the position and at the same time gain space by playing d5 and e4.
An active player in the Bundesliga for OSC Baden-Baden, Sergei Movsesian has over the year been working his way back upwards in the world rankings, for example with his win in the traditional Bosna Sarajevo tournament. In the Europa Cup the Armenian appeared for the team of the same name ("Bosna Sarajevo") and was able to confirm his good form. On this DVD he has annotated two of his victories from Kemer two in which we witness an almost amazingly similar course of events.
In Movsesian,S - Bacrot,E the French GM chose a rare continuation with 9....0-0 in the Scotch Game and quickly found himself in a very unpleasant position. His mistake with 17...Bd3? meant the loss of his f-pawn and when you get down to it the end of the game.
In the game Areshchenko,A - Movsesian,S 0-1 the protagonists managed to keep all the pieces on the board until the 19th move of a Giuoco Piano. But then Movsesian set to work and with the help of a fine intermediate move 21...Bf7 secured an extra pawn and a central one at that. As he did in the game against Bacrot, Movsesian played accurately and clearly to build on his material and positional advantage and decided the game in his favour by advancing both his e- and f-pawns and breaking open Whites king position.
The top Moldavian player Viktor Bologan comments on his King’s Indian game against GM Michael Roiz. Against Blacks setup with 6...Nc6 Roiz tried first with the innovation 14.Bc5 and later with the help of the double-edged pawn advance c5 to achieve a dominating position on the black squares. In his game and in his analysis Bologan gives an impressive demonstration of how Black can first neutralise these efforts and finally exploit the weakness of the white c5-pawn.
All the games from the Europa Cup, some annotated by GMs Boris Avrukh, Mihail Marin, Dorian Rogozenko etc can be found via the link Europa-Cup 2007. Niclas Huschenbeth, who put in a tremendous performance in Kemer for the Hamburg Chess Club and, though an untitled played, achieved a GM-Norm, has also extensively annotated three of his games.
European Team Championship
In the encounter between Spain and Germany there was the fantastic game Vallejo Pons,F - Naiditsch,A, which, on account of the styles of the two protagonists, has been compared in his introductory video by Karsten Müller to the games of the great romantic school of chess of the 19th century. In a Two Knight’s Defence with 4.Ng5 and the sharp 5...b5, the players got down to work just like in the good old days. After Arkadij Naiditschs 9...Bf2+ sacrifice, the Spaniard had to defend with great accuracy in order not to be mown down. However, Paco Vallejo Pons according to his annotations counted it during the game as a partial success to have avoided being mated. In the position in the diagram the move 16.Ke2 is the start of a king march to the queenside, linked to which the Spaniard was able to start a counterattack on the black king by opening the h-file and finally to realise the clear advantage in material which he had.
In his game against the English GM Gawain C. Jones, Vallejo Pons spotted the opportunity to wander away for once along unusual paths in a Maroczy System with 12.Bd3. But not only did the young Englishman defend himself well but, by means of 16...d5, 17.Nd7, 18...Nc5, he set up a massive fortress on the black squares and shortly thereafter he avoided a repetition of positions. This was a misjudgement, as is pointed out by Vallejo Pons in his analysis. Instead of doing so, Jones chose a continuation which allowed the Spaniard the advance f4-f5 and the transposition to a clearly more active endgame and soon brought him a decisive gain of material.
The Ukrainian team, on account of its top boards Vassily Ivanchuk and Sergey Karjakin, belonged to the group of favourites to win the European Championships. In the long run, they could only manage 5th place. This was hardly, however, the fault of the young Ukrainian star Karjakin since the 17-year old scored a total of +2 and was amongst the highest-scoring individual players.
The game Karjakin,S - Shirov,A was a theoretical duel in the Sicilian Sveshnikov Variation, in which the experienced player tried out the new move 15...a5, which was in Karjakins judgment dubious. In the game the Ukrainian gains a clear advantage, by moves such as 17.a4. In the long term, White used it to paralyze the weaknesses in Blacks queenside; also Blacks dark-squared bishop was not contributing anything.
In the match against the French team, the young Ukrainian was on the opposite side of the board from the reigning European Champion Vladislav Tkachiev and after only five moves found himself in a no-man’s land of opening theory. In the Anti-Meran Variation of the Queens Gambit the Frenchman had played the unusual 5.Bd2. Karjakin did not let himself be fooled and aimed for rapid development and then an opening of the centre. Since Ivanchuk appeared to be losing on board one, Karjakin adopted a high risk strategy and was rewarded for it in mutual time trouble.
The Ukrainian was surprised in the opening on another occasion, in his game against the Israeli GM Michael Roiz, who was in sparkling form during these ECh. Roiz has given extensive annotations to this and to one other game on the DVD. Against his "young but experienced opponent Roiz rolled out the Breyer Variation of the Ruy Lopez for the first time in several years and immediately uncorked an innovation he had prepared at home: 17...c5. The idea, which is atypical of this variation, is to close the queenside with b5-b4 and a6-a5. Karjakin meanwhile directed his pieces against the black king and invested in his attack a knight with 20.Nf5. As Roiz points out in his analysis, the sacrifice was completely correct, but only a few moves later his opponent was guilty of a lack of attention which allowed Black to re-establish the coordination between his pieces and to convert the advantage in material into the full point.
Roiz preparation also served him well against the Hungarian GM Csaba Balogh. He had looked into the setup frequently used by Balogh (1.Nf3 Nf6 2. g3 d5 3. 3.Bg2 e6 4.0-0 Nbd7) and was able to trot out his prepared innovation 9.e4. Roiz explains in his analysis of this game that Black already had severe problems at this point. Sooner or later he will have to allow the advance e4-e5. This will allow White control over the c6-square, which Roiz took in the game with his mighty knight, which paralyzed all of Blacks pieces. By move 20 the Israeli decided the game with the lovely Nd8.
At the Essent Tournament in Hoogeven in the Netherlands, Loek van Wely's Najdorf Sicilian had to be on guard against the energetic play of Ruslan Ponomariov. In his analysis of the game, the top Dutch player admits that after the unpleasant move 20.Bg4 Black is at a slight disadvantage. Shortly thereafter in the game, however, Ponomariov was slightly careless and allowed his opponent to take the initiative with the exemplary pawn sacrifice 27...Nd6. "Aaron Nimzowitsch lives!" is what van Wely had to say. After following up with an exchange of the white rook on e4 and taking possession of the e-file Black can make his oppressive domination on the black squares tell.
U20-World Championship (Yerevan)
The young Egyptian Ahmed Adly is not quite a total unknown. In 2004 he became Egypts youngest grandmaster of all time and shared first place, for exampl, in the strong open in Reykjavik in 2006. Nevertheless his victory ahead of a series of players with much higher Elo ratings (including Stellwagen, Hao Wang, Rodshtein) came as a great surprise. He is the first African in the history of chess to win the title of Youth World Champion. Ahmed Adly writes: "I will never forget my historic success in the Youth World Championships" and he describes how his friends and trainer had given him advice before the final round against Georg Meier. Considering his already superb performance they had advised caution. But Adly staked it all on a single card and won the said final game to take sole first place with 10 points from 13 games.
The new Youth World Champion has annotated two of his victories on this DVD. In round 8, contrary to his usual habit, Adly chose to open 1.e4 in order to go point-hunting with the King’s Indian Attack. In a sharp game in which neither side always chose the best continuation, the young Egyptian first opened the centre and then regrouped his pieces on the kingside. Finally he started a deadly mating attack with his knight sacrifice 23.Nf6.
Nor should you miss the game Adly,A - Melkumyan,H, which the Egyptian also won in an attacking style worth seeing and which he has annotated extensively on the DVD. As an introduction to the game you will also find Ahmed Adlys short retrospective on the WCh. You will find the commented games from the Youth WCh via Recent Tournaments, including three games from the German contender Georg Meier, whose 5th place was a very considerable achievement.
Further training lectures and titbits in video format are to be found under the various headings, e.g. in Dr Karsten Müller’s Endgame analysis, in the Trap presented by Rainer Knaak or Tactics column by Oliver Reeh, etc. The column New DVDs gives some more video snippets in Chess Media Format offering insights into coming Training DVDs, including Rustam Kasimdhzanov’s three part issue "Beating the French Defence".
Daniel King: Move by Move
In Daniel King’s column, every move for one side is provided with a training question from a certain point on. All plausible replies are taken into account and awarded points and or provided with feedback. For CBM 121 King has selected the game Speelman Macak, Sunningdale (England) 2007.
This time Oliver Reeh has brought together a few examples under the heading “Mad Rooks” and provided them with training questions. The lion’s share of the games comes from the Europa Cup. In addition there is once more Reeh’s favourite combination in Chess Media format; it finishes with an unusual mate.
Once again there is no strategy column from Peter Wells, but a contribution from our English author is planned for CBM 122.
Rainer Knaak: Opening Trap
This column is a supplement to our product 1000 Opening Traps. New or as yet undiscovered traps are presented here. In this issue there is a very aggressive trap in which Black starts with the moves g6, g7 and c5. It can be used in almost any opening.
Karsten Müller: Endgames
Karsten Müller’s endgame column contains three texts. The first one gives access to seven endgame videos in Fritztrainer format (in German). The second text contains a test on pawn endings, like a sort of warm-up. The title of the third text is “Liquidating to Pawn Endings.” Then come 19 games, including the solutions to the endgame positions on p. 26 of the included monograph.
The two Argentinian correspondence chess grandmasters Alvarez and Morgado have put together a database, which contains seven texts with information and over 3,000 games.
The presentation of new products includes videos from the DVDs. So we have Rustam Kasimdzhanov presenting a total of three games in the French and Alexei Shirov telling us about one game with the Ruy Lopez and one with the Grünfeld Defence.
