Chess Informant no. 100

Exclusive interview with editor-in-chief Aleksandar Matanovic

Recently, the famous Chess Informant reached a milestone: edition no. 100 was published. Facts, figures and an exclusive interview with 77-year-old editor-in-chief Aleksandar Matanovic. full story »

Opening Amber 2008

Yesterday night a cheerful and chique opening ceremony took place - as can be expected with a prestigious tournament like Amber. A photo report. full story »

Update your Moscow! – GM analysis World Cup

ChessVibes is proud to present the following lengthy analysis, by GM Erwin l’Ami & GM Jan Smeets, of several games played at the World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk.

When deciding which World Cup games to analyse for ChessVibes, we simply had too much choice. We chose to neglect many of the interesting, already annotated games. Instead we bring you the latest developments in the Mockba Variation of the Semi-Slav. The Moscow (1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5 h6) is one of the main tabiya’s in present day theory. 6.Bxf6 is the positional choice, with – surprisingly – Mamedyarov as its main advocate. We will focus on the sharper 6.Bh4 in this article. Anand won the world championship title using this opening as his main weapon. In Mexico most of the players joined the discussion (Kramnik, Gelfand, Aronian, Svidler, and Grischuk). In Khanty-Mansiysk the firework continues… full story »

Rybka’s Immortal Game (Part 2)

Today an article by a guest author: Jeroen Noomen, writer of the opening book of the computer world champion, Rybka.

Some time ago ChessVibes published the “immortal game” of the chess computer program Rybka, currently the strongest engine in the world. Although this game was quite beautiful, I think we have a new candidate that fits this description better. It was played in the WCCC (world computer chess championship) 2007 in Amsterdam. Rybka beat the dutch program Diep in an amazing game, full of spectacular tactics and difficult-to-find moves. After 29 moves the game was over, something that is very rare in computer games these days. Especially for ChessVibes I have analysed the new Rybka immortal game and a few other Rybka games from the WCCC. full story »

What’s your favourite opening book?

Everyone has a favourite chess book, and if you ask strong players they will probably mention Bronstein’s book on Zürich ‘53, the games collection of Tal or perhaps Fire on Board by Shirov. Today a small variation on this theme, because I suspect that many players also have a favourite opening book. An opening book that had a great influence on their play. To me that’s Beating the Sicilian 2 by John Nunn. Nunn, who turns 52 today, doesn’t write opening books anymore, as he told me in August last year. Sadly, because his books are great. full story »

An important improvement?

An opening that is currently not very popular at the highest level, is the Tarrasch Defence. You mainly see Slavs, Queen’s Indians and thanks to Radjabov many King’s Indians as well these days. Although Grischuk uses the Tarrasch occasionally, no top player seems to have seriously studied the opening since Kasparov in the eighties. The reason might be that Black players unconsciously associate it with boring positions and a draw as the best possible result. This is a misconception. full story »

Sargissian scores 3021 performance

After last week’s lengthy article on the Ruy López Festival we had to return to this wonderful tournament once more. And especially because of the big success of the Armenian Gabriel Sargissian, who won the tournament with 6,5 out of 7 and a performance rating of 3021! Winning 24 rating points in one tournament, as a 2600 player, that’s not so bad. full story »

Interview with Anatoly Karpov

There it is. The Big Chessvibes Interview with Anatoly Karpov. Wednesday morning I spoke to him about half an hour in The Hague, where he was to play a simul later that day against members of the Dutch parliament. (By the way, the score was 21 wins and 2 draws for the ex-world champion). The questions I asked him, were put forward in advance by you, the visitors, on the Chessvibes website. (Because we were limited by the clock, not all questions could be asked.) This way I think we managed to make it an interview with a nice mix of subjects that are interesting for a broad audience. Enjoy! full story »

Book review: ‘The Chigorin Defence’

What’s the first thing you do when you see a new opening book? Look up the variation you know most about and check what is said about it. Surprisingly enough, this is often a disappointment, and usually you don’t even buy it because of this first impression. “This will never work.” But it’s wrong to think like that. full story »

Gelfand demolishes Tivi’s Nimzo

Earlier this week I wrote about the Spanish team championship. Later my eye fell on the game Gelfand-Tiviakov, in which Black was demolished. A perfect example of how to play positions with ‘compensation for the sacrificed pawn’, where you have more active pieces than your opponent. full story »

Milner-Barry and his Attack

Today it’s hundred years ago that Philip Stuart Milner-Barry was born. His name seems to have been attached to the line 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 Nc6, but obviously he’s still known because of the Milner-Barry Attack, a way to play against the Indian Defences: 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4 Bg7 5.e3 O-O 6.Be2. full story »

Sympathetic and slightly naive

Every Dutchman has heard of Roel van Duijn, and every Dutch chess player has heard of the Roel van Duijn Gambit, which starts after 1.e4 c5 2.a3!? It’s not the first time someone has written about his gambit; Schaaknieuws wrote about it and early this year, Gert Ligterink wrote an article about the gambit on his chess blog. In Holland, there are a number of strong players who frequently play the gambit: GM Yge Visser is the most well-known (see Ligterink’s article) and I also know that Eelco Kuijpers and Gertjan van der Hoeven sometimes move their a-pawn on move 2. Actually Van der Hoeven played the gambit against me last week. full story »

Andersson’s Rubinstein

Een belangrijke stap in mijn ontwikkeling als schaker was toen ik mij realiseerde dat er geen ’saaie openingen’ bestaan. Zwakke schakers hebben vaak de onbedwingbare neiging bepaalde openingen of varianten ’slaapverwekkend’ te noemen. Vaak zijn dit damepionspelen met snel e3 en/of Lf4, of Réti-achtige opstellingen. De toon waarop dit verkondigd wordt, is dikwijls zelfs enigszins verbitterd, ja: vijandig.

An important step in my development as a chess player was when I realised that there was no such thing as a ‘boring opening’. Weak players seem to have the urge to call certain openings or variations ‘tedious’. These are often Queen’s Pawn lines with a quick e3 and/or Bf4, or Réti-like setups. Often these words are uttered with a certain bitterness, or even hostility.

full story »

Khalifman schiet gaten in het Frans

De boeken Opening for White according to Anand 1.e4 van Alexander Khalifman zijn een soort Harry Potter voor de serieuze 1.e4-speler. Het ene boek is nog niet uit of we kijken alweer reikhalzend uit naar het volgende. Over de boeken van J.K. Rowling laat ik mij niet uit maar één ding is zeker: Khalifmans werk is hoogstaande schaakliteratuur. full story »

Ach ja, allemaal theorie

Soms zie je van die partijen die een grote indruk maken. Combinatie volgt op combinatie, het houdt maar niet op. Achteraf is het toch wel een beetje een teleurstelling als dan blijkt dat het allemaal theorie was. Dit was een beetje mijn verhaal bij de partij Ivan Sokolov-Alexander Onischuk, vandaag gespeeld in de derde ronde van het Karpov-toernooi in Pojkovski, Siberië.

Sokolov-Onischuk
Pojkovski (03), 2006
In de diagramstelling speelde wit 13.Ld6!, wat al vele malen eerder was gebeurd. Er volgden nog vele fraaie zetten in de partij, zoals een (schijn)dameoffer, en onze landgenoot bracht op zet 24 (!) een nieuwtje. De laatste combinatie, waarmee hij een pion won, was gelukkig nog niet eerder gespeeld. Helaas wist Sokolov zijn geweldige voorbereiding en krachtige spel niet om te zetten in een overwinning tegen de kersverse kampioen van de Verenigde Staten.

>> speel de partij na

Recente ontwikkelingen in de Sveshnikov

Wat een fascinerende schaakopening is de Sveshnikov toch. (De superdynamische variant van het Siciliaans is toch eigenlijk een volwaardige aparte opening inmiddels!) Talloze zwartspelers zijn de laatste jaren overgestapt op de ‘Svesh’, is het niet vanwege de activiteit die zwart krijgt voor zijn positionele concessies, dan wel vanwege de vele mooie partijen die steeds maar weer op topniveau gespeeld worden.

In de tweede ronde van Linares 2006, of beter: Morelia (Mexico), kwam bij Leko-Radjabov weer een hardcore mainline Svesh op het bord. Het is altijd interessant om te zien wat een expert van een opening speelt tegen ‘zijn’ opening. Leko is de sterkste speler ter wereld die zweert bij de Sveshnikov, en daarmee een groot kenner.

Na de zetten 1.e4 c5 2.Pf3 Pc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Pxd4 Pf6 5.Pc3 e5 6.Pdb5 d6 7.Lg5 a6 8.Pa3 b5 9.Pd5 Le7 10.Lxf6 Lxf6 11.c3 0-0 12.Pc2 Lg5 13.a4 bxa4 14.Txa4 a5 15.Lc4 Tb8,
een tabiya, heeft wit de zetten 16.b3 en 16.Ta2 tot zijn beschikking. Ze zijn volgens Dorian Rogozenko (in zijn recente boek over de Sveshnikov) ‘of about the same value’.

Leko koos voor 16.b3, maar eerst wat aandacht voor het alternatief 16.Ta2, dat in 2005 erg populair werd als gevolg van de partijen Ponomariov-Kramnik en Kramnik-Van Wely. Het aanvalsidee 16.Ta2 Kh8 17.Pce3 g6 18.h4!? Lxh4 19.g3, gevolgd door f4, b2 of b3 en een torenswitch Ta2-h2, was niet nieuw maar Ponomariov was de eerste topper die het speelde. Zeker tegen een onvoorbereide speler kan dit idee tot een snelle overwinning leiden…
>> lees verder