ChessBase Magazine 139

Introductory videos

What awaits you in this issue of ChessBase Magazine? Karsten Müller gives in his Video introduction an overview of the numerous top tournaments, high class analysis, training videos and repertoire suggestions from our authors. As a little appetiser, Müller introduces two of the openings articles on the DVD in brief videos: on one hand the "Accelerated Bogo-Indian" (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 Bb4+) by GM Marin and GM Kuzmin’s analyses on the Ruy Lopez Four Knights, which should be equally interesting both for White and for Back players.

The Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk in Siberia takes up the most space in Dorian Rogozenco’s first video survey of the top tournaments of the last two months. The Romanian GM lays special emphasis on the outstanding performance of Ivanchuk, who, on first board, led the Ukraine to victory in the Olympiad. Rogozenco presents in detail two strokes of genius by the Ukrainian. On one hand Ivanchuk’s amazing novelty in the  Volga Gambit Declined with 4.Qc2 and his grandiose victory over Jobava in the Caro-Kann "Fantasy"-Variation. At the same time Rogozenco takes a look at the European Cup in Plovdiv and honours the performances of Moiseenko and Andreikin, who collected the decisive points for the renewed victory of their team "Economist".

In his second, video surveyDorian Rogozenco presents the high points of the recent top tournaments. From the Grand Slam Final in Bilbao he comments on Kramnik’s convincing first-round victory over Carlsen, which laid the foundation stone for the Russian’s splendid victory in the tournament. The Tal Memorial in Moscow is singled out particularly by Rogozenco on account of the large number of exciting games. For example, he annotates for you the strategic subtleties of Aronian’s innovation in the Catalan against Gelfand and Karjakin’s crashing attack on the king against Kramnik’s Petroff Defence.

05.11.-14.11.2010

 Mihail Tal
in the legendary GUM

Tal Memorial Moscow

The Tal Memorial finished only a few days prior to the printing of this ChessBase Magazine. The race at the top was close to the very last moment. Before the final round, Sakhriyar  Mamedyarov occupied the first place with 5,5 out of 8 and half a point lead. Yet Boris Gelfand, who apart from that didn't do too well in Moscow, duped the top player from Aserbaidschan and with a dashing victory prevented solitude on the winner's podium. For Levon Aronian and Sergey Karjakin both drew their last games and thus managed to join the top of the table.

GM Marin has examined the final round game Gelfand,B - Mamedyarov,S on the DVD. It was a short and painful affair for the hitherto leader. In the Gruenfeld Indian, Mamedyarov selected an unusual setup with 7...Nc6 and with 9...Be6 swiftly went on to produce a novelty on grandmaster level. In the unorthodox position resulting from Black's opening choice, Gelfand was the one who in the following made less inaccuracies. In the diagrammed position Mamedyarov went wrong with 23...Nf3+, since after 24.gxf3 gxf3 25.Qd3 White can close the f-file while on g2 there is no danger looming for him either. Better would have been 23...Bh6  24.Qe2 Nf3+ 25.gxf3 gxf3 26.Qxf3 Bxf4, followed by a transition to a drawish rook endgame. Yet the way it came, Gelfand managed to liquidate into a winning major piece endgame. Click on the link below the diagram to replay the game with Marin's analyses.

Vladimir Kramnik had no say in the tournament victory in Moscow. Already in the first round he had to acknowledge defeat versus Levon Aronian in a complicacted game with an unbalanced distribution of material. And in round 8 it was Sergey Karjakin who managed to break Kramnik's Petroff Defence with a spectacular attack on the king. The bold sacrifice of the knight on g5 - after Kramnik's 14...h6 it simply stayed put - provoked very complex tactical complications which the ex-word champion avoided by declining the sacrifice. But the powerful advance of the f-pawn via g6 to f7 sealed the fate of Black's king. Click on the link under the picture and enjoy this brillant game of Karjakin with the analyses of GM Stohl.

20.10-30.10.2010

I am the boss here
Magnus Carlsen

Pearl Spring Tournament in Nanjing

How similar the pictures are. Unfazed by the rather mediocre results (for him) at the Olympiad and in Bilbao, Carlsen dominated the field in Nanjing almost at will as in the previous year. And that though this time the tournament was even stronger and more star-studded due to the presence of Vishy Anand. Before the tenth and final round Magnus Carlsen had already won, because his 6.5 out of 9 put him a point and a half ahead of Anand and Bacrot. The fact that Carlsen’s desire to play chess had not suffered from the busy schedule of the past months can be seen from his final round game against Gashimov. Many players would have been happy with a colourless draw. Carlsen wanted more and went the full distance of 71 moves. 

In round seven, when Carlsen’s lead over the surprisingly strong Bacrot consisted of a bare half point, the Norwegian had White against World Champion Anand. The latter aimed, as he has done a lot recently, for the Berlin Defence, but Carlsen decided on the quieter 5.Re1 and thus avoided the "Berlin Wall". After Anand’s unusual 7...Nf5 Carlsen played 8.Nf3 and counted on his slight lead in development. To judge by the rest of the game, this was a wise decision. With clever strategic play (see diagram - in the position material on the board counts for more than the e-file) Carlsen bit by bit constructed a winning position. But on move 63 he slightly wavered on the tightrope and overlooked a perpetual check motif, which the world champion was able to use to save his game.

Vishy Anand contested in Bilbao and Nanjing two of the top tournaments in the last months. On both occasions he finished in second place with a slightly positive score. There is no question but that these are not bad results, but in the long run they will not satisfy the ambitions of a world champion. In Nanjing his ambitions for tournament victory were brought to a halt by a surprising and unnecessary defeat against Etienne Bacrot, really putting a damper on them as early as round 4.

On the other hand, he was able to successfully continue his WCh duel with Topalov in Nanjing. He had Black and the contestants chose the same variation of the Queen’s Gambit which had been up for discussion in their twelfth match game in Sofia. Once more Anand showed himself very well prepared and really thwarted his opponent. In the position on the board everything appears to turn around the weaknesses on Black’s queenside. But Anand’s 16...Bg4 abruptly transfers the action to the opposite side of the board and puts the uncastled white king right in the heart of things. The world champion himself has commented on this brilliancy for you on the DVD. Play through the game as he explains the subtleties of his successful attack on Topalov’s king.

25.10-30.10.2010

Unchallenged:
Vachier-Lagrave

Univé Tournament in Hoogeveen

Every year in the Netherlands there are various high-class all-play-all tournaments. One of these is the Univé Tournament in Hoogeveen. In the "crown group" four players measure up against each other in a double round-robin. This year there were two experienced players in Alexei Shirov and Sergei Tiviakov facing up to two young stars in the form of Anish Giri and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. After two draws the French player really hit out and secured victory in the tournament with three wins in succession. The extremely busy Alexei Shirov, who had been there at the Olympiad, the European Cup, in Bilbao, in Moscow and in Hoogeveen, occupied second place.  

Vachier-Lagrave started his victorious run in his game with Black against Tiviakov, who had a rotten tournament. In the Najdorf Variation with 6.Be3 Ng4 7.Bg5 h6 8. Bh4 g5 9.Bg3 Bg7 the old hand chose the rather un-modern 10.Be2. Vachier-Lagrave has analysed this game in detail and explains, for example, the problem of today’s highly popular continuation 10.h3. As he demonstrates by means of his game with Romain Edouard, this variation leads by force to a draw - and that cannot be what White wants. After Tiviakov’s dubious innovation 13.Nb3 the French player brought about a strange position after 13...Bxc3 14.bxc3 e5: Black has lost a lot of tempi, he is behind in development and White has some good squares for his pieces. And despite that Black’s position is not worse, but as Vachier-Lagrave points out, even better playable. In the game the future tournament winner in fact seized the initiative, sacrificed the exchange for a strong attack and stole one pawn after the other from the Dutch player.

09.10-15.10.2010

Vladimir Kramnik
may well laugh 

Grand Slam Finale Bilbao

For three of the participants in the Grand Slam Master Final, namely for Kramnik, Carlsen and Shirov, it meant a rapid trip after the Olympiad in Siberia to Bilbao in the Basque country. Only World Champion Vishy Anand had once more declined to take part in the numerically biggest event and spectacle in the world of chess. Vladimir Kramnik laid the foundations for a majestic victory with two victories over Carlsen and Shirov in the first two rounds. In the following four games the Russian was never really in any danger. With Black, Kramnik was even on the verge of inflicting a second defeat on Carlsen.

The ex world champion has annotated this game for the DVD and explains the point at which he missed the path to the win. Carlsen once more put his trust in the English Opening with 4.g3, with which he had defeated Kramnik at the end of 2009 in London. But this time Kramnik had no problems keeping the position level. In the position on the board after 18.Re1 Black even has the better of the play after 18...a6!. The idea behind this move is both to stop White’s advance and to firmly cement the outpost for the knight on b5. Because from there the knight can completely paralyse White’s play on the queenside. However, as Kramnik admits in his analysis, it is very difficult for Black to get anything tangible out of his dominating position. It was only after an inaccuracy by Carlsen (36.Bxd4) that Kramnik managed to put his opponent’s position under serious pressure. But both on move 42 and in the rook ending with an extra pawn, Kramnik made two mistakes, which meant that the game ended in a technical draw.

Kramnik’s first round victory over Carlsen has been annotated on the DVD for you by GM Igor Stohl. The Norwegian tried a Queen’s Indian with 4….Ba6. After Kramnik’s innovation 13.Qb5 and the subsequent exchange of queens Carlsen decided to force things with the committal 18...g5. But it backfired.  Kramnik first strengthened the pressure on the d-file and thus prevented the thematic breakthrough …d7-d5. After the exchange of another knight and the opening of the d- and g-files Kramnik not only had much better piece play but with the text move 39.a4 (see diagram) he also fixed all the opposing pawns on black squares. Carlsen resigned only a few moves later, because his pieces were completely paralysed by the white rooks and the mighty white knight.

21.09-03.10.2010

So close to the stars: Olympiad victors Ukraine

Chess Olympiad Khanty-Mansiysk

They can also do it without Sergei Karjakin. The young super-GM had for years been the rising star of the Ukraine. At the Olympiad he achieved a more than solid score of 8 out of 10 – but this time for his adopted country, Russia. But it was not enough for a victory for Russia, which had a total of five teams in the starting blocks for the men’s event. Because the Ukraine triumphed surprisingly splendidly – above all thanks to a brilliant performance by Vassily Ivanchuk on top board. The Israeli team took third place behind Russia. The DVD contains 3240 games from Khany-Mansiysk, selected games from the top teams have been annotated, for example by Karjakin, Movsesian, Efimenko, Caruana etc.

As well as Ivanchuk 25 year old Zahar Efimenko was amongst the victorious Ukrainians. Thanks to his first-class result of 8.5 out of 10 (mostly on board 4) he managed to make the leap over the symbolic barrier of 2700 Elo points. His most important victory in Khanty-Mansiysk was what turned out to be the decisive match against Russia 1. The Olympiad victor annotates on the DVD his win over Vladimir Malakhov. The Ukrainian went for the latter’s Berlin Defence with the rare move 10.Ne2. After a long strategic battle the Russian committed a serious mistake when in time trouble with 30...f5 in the position on the board. Efimenko points out in his analysis that the continuation 30...Bf5 31.f3 f6 32.Kf2 Kf7 would have led to a completely drawish position. You can load via the link under the diagram the game with commentary by Efimenko. At the same time, Karsten Müller puts this ending under the microscope in his endgame columnin video format.

The new Russian Sergej Karjakin was successful for his team, for example, in the prestigious game against the USA. Playing against Alexander Onischuk he employed in an Anti-Marshall with 8.h3 against Black’s pawn sacrifice 9...d5 in the form of 12.Bd2 exactly the variation which Jan Gustafsson analyses as being critical in his new DVD on the Marshall Attack. And in fact in the game Karjakin managed to free his position with solid play (by exchanging on b4, followed by d3-d4 and Qd3) and to come out of the opening with an advantage. After two inaccuracies on the part of his opponent the game was essentially decided after 24 moves. In the position on the board after 29.Re3 the black king position is simply defenceless against the superior white forces. Karjakin himself has annotated this win for you on the DVD.

In his game against Evgeny Tomashevsky, the European champion of 2006, Karjakin had to deal with another way of treating the Ruy Lopez. In the Breyer Variation, which is known for rather leisurely strategic play, Karjakin nevertheless took the opportunity to open up the position with 18.c4 and to transpose to a struggle requiring concrete play. In his analysis Karjakin explains the complex tactical complications in which Tomashevsky underestimated a white counter after 23...Rxe4. After various exchanges, it came down to the position on the board on the left. Can you find the move with which Karjakin (on the move with White) could finally decide the game in his favour?

Amongst the star commentators in this issue there is once more the Slovakian super-GM Sergei Movsesian. In Khany-Mansiysk he was defending the colours of his country, on first board of course and had one of the best individual results (8 out of 11). In both the wins which he annotates on this DVD, he once more displayed his outstanding positional understanding, sense of perspective and patience. So he was not put off by the unorthodox Petroff Defence with 6...Ng5 played by Eduardas Rozentalis and transferred his opening advantage straight into the endgame and exploit it scientifically and subtly all the way to victory. The gameMovsesian,S - Rozentalis,E with the comments by the Slovak can be found on the DVD.

For the moment Veselin Topalov is going through a difficult phase. He had so many surprising defeats to put up with at the Olympiad and correspondingly lost a lot of Elo points in Khanty-Mansiysk. Sergei Movsesian is one of those who forced the former number one in the world ranking list to bow the knee. In his analysis of his win against Topalov it did not much look after the opening that the Slovakian super-GM was heading for the full point. But in the position on the board Movsesian installed a “Trojan horse” deep in the black ranks with the fantastic 29.Nb7. And it turned out to be extremely unpleasant, since from now on the black position began move by move to exhibit all the symptoms of paralysis. You should not miss Movsesian’s impressive winning technique and his analysis of this game.

endgame column
How can White win this endgame played in Khanty-Mansiysk?

From the opening trap to the endgame study

Training in ChessBase Magazine starts with the very first moves and includes all the phases of a game of chess. The 11 up-to-date openings articles with their numerous ideas and suggestions for your repertoire can be foundhere or above among the links. The column opening trap by Rainer Knaak (including its Fritztrainer video) contains three examples this time, click here, to get them. You will also find in video format the openings articles by Dejan Bojkov (Scandinavian Defence), Valeri Lilov (Dutch Defence), Adrian Mikhalchishin (English Opening) and Leonid Kritz (French Steinitz Variation). You will find these videos and other recordings in Chess Media format in the column Fritztrainer. Peter Wells’ subject in his Strategy column is called: "The Anatomy of a Key Pawn Push (e5-e6) Part One". In Daniel King’s long-running Move by Move it is a Mamedyarov game up for discussion. And in the Tactics and Endgames (s. Diagramm) columns Oliver Reeh and Karsten Müller have once again selected for you the best from current tournament practice.