Chinese Heading for World Domination by Tim Harding As most readers will recall, the People's Republic of China won the chess Olympiad for the first time in Tromsø last August. The question began to be asked, how long before a Chinese player challenges for the world championship. China, it will be recalled, has already had three women's world champions, including the current holder. Several young players performed excellently and the whole team had only one lost game in the 44 played. Ding Liren, on board two, was particularly impressive. Then in December Yu Yangyi, who was also on that team, won the very strong open in Qatar, confidently crushing early leader Anish Giri in the … [Read more...]
Further Investigations of a Standard Structure
Further Investigations of a Standard Structure There are some openings where this structure (with doubled pawns on Black's f-file) appears from the very first moves. Rauzer's Attack in the Sicilian is too complex and wide-ranging a topic for us even to touch on here. And as for the French Defense variation 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 de5.Nxe4 Be7 6.Bxf6 gf, or the Caro-Kann variation 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 de4.Nxe4 Nf6 5.Nxf6+ gf - they have long since gone out of style, so there's no point in delving into them. I shall only present one example each of the above-cited openings. Sigurjonsson - Dvoretsky Wijk aan Zee 1975 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Bb4 5.ed (this was a popular … [Read more...]
Chess Mazes #381
Chess Mazes #381 There are two types of chess mazes: checking and mating. For bishop, rook, and knight mazes the play is to check the black king. For queen, pawn, and king mazes the object is to checkmate the enemy king; here checks are not allowed. The rules in common for each type of maze are as follows: Black never moves. Only the maze piece (in the case of pawns – the maze units) may move. A maze piece may never move to a square where it can be captured by enemy forces. A maze piece may capture undefended enemy forces. Plus we look for the shortest solution. Helpers in queen and king mazes are frozen to the diagram position, unable to move or be removed. In pawn mazes p … [Read more...]
Bishop’s Opening [C25]
Bishop's Opening [C25] The topic for this February is a back to basics Bishop's Opening in a variation where slightly inaccurate play by Black lets White get an early and powerful Qg4. 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 This move targets the f7-square, which is always the weakest square for Black at the start of the game since only the king defends it. 2...Bc5 This is sort of unusual because it is committal: Black knows that the knights belong on c6 and f6, but the bishop may be useful on several possible squares. For example, Black does give up the possibility of playing ...Bb4 versus the Vienna Game and has to be prepared for the game to transpose to the King's Gambit Declined if White pursues … [Read more...]
Old Fashioned
Old Fashioned by Gary Lane What are the good and bad points about a line in the Trompowsky? Jeremy Mitchell from the United Kingdom e-mailed to comment on the variation 1 d4 Nf6 2 Bg5 Ne4 and now 3 Bh4. His questions is "What should I do next because White is supposed to play 3 Bf3. Is it any good and if not how do I win?'' It is certainly true that the variation with 3 Bh4 is considered to be old fashioned having been particularly popular in the 1980s. However, the current craze to revive old lines with the help of computer software has reinstated some openings that were previously dismissed by the books. Here is a glorious game by an elite grandmaster from Azerbaijan who beats … [Read more...]
Two Pounds of Bologan and Pick Up the Czech
Two Pounds of Bologan and Pick Up the Czech by Jim Rizzitano Reviewed this Month New In Chess Yearbook 112 edited by Genna Sosonko Bologan’s Black Weapons in the Open Games by Victor Bologan The Czech Benoni in Action by Asa Hoffman and Greg Keener This month I will review two titles from New In Chess: New In Chess Yearbook 112 and Bologan's Black Weapons in the Open Games, along with the Mongoose Press title The Czech Benoni in Action. New In Chess Yearbook 112 by New In Chess 2014, Figurine Algebraic Notation, 256pp. Hardcover, $39.95 (ChessCafe Price $32.37); Paperback, $33.95 (ChessCafe Price $27.47) Condensed Contents: Opening Highlights (2 pages) Your V … [Read more...]
Chess Mazes #380
Chess Mazes #380 There are two types of chess mazes: checking and mating. For bishop, rook, and knight mazes the play is to check the black king. For queen, pawn, and king mazes the object is to checkmate the enemy king; here checks are not allowed. The rules in common for each type of maze are as follows: Black never moves. Only the maze piece (in the case of pawns – the maze units) may move. A maze piece may never move to a square where it can be captured by enemy forces. A maze piece may capture undefended enemy forces. Plus we look for the shortest solution. Helpers in queen and king mazes are frozen to the diagram position, unable to move or be removed. In pawn mazes p … [Read more...]
The Marshall – Jaffe Series, Part One
The Marshall - Jaffe Series, February 1909: Win a Match, Drop a Tournament Part One by John S. Hilbert By January 1909, Frank Marshall, considered by most the rightful though unofficial United States chess champion, had been out of the country for nearly twenty months. He returned to New York on the steamer Batavia, arriving Friday, January 8, 1909, after a voyage of 17 days. Marshall's young son, Frank Rice Marshall, turned three during the voyage, on December 28. Eager to see Marshall perform, members of the Manhattan Chess Club, then housed in in the Carnegie Hall Building, were disappointed when the night after his arrival, Marshall's "indisposition" prevented him from starting a … [Read more...]
Outranking by Outflanking
Outranking by Outflanking by Bruce Pandolfini In the opening, when you flank, you develop a bishop to the side and aim it at the center. In the endgame, when you outflank, well, you don't do the opposite. That is, you don't develop a bishop to the center and aim it at the flank. Good old endgame. It's full of all kinds of themes and fancy names to designate those themes. The concept of outflanking: that's a military term in real life, but what's it got to do with chess? Chess experts and theorists seem to use it in slightly different ways. Nevertheless, for many endgame enthusiasts, outflanking tends to refer to maneuvers by which one king, primarily using the opposition, is able to … [Read more...]
Clash of the Titans: Fischer-Weinstein
This month we present a lightly edited excerpt from Chess Evolution Newsletter #150. CEWN is released every Friday of the week, the newsletter contains twenty-plus pages of great chess material written by top grandmasters Arkadij Naiditsch and Csaba Balogh. Clash of the Titans: Fischer-Weinstein by Kamil Miton Fischer,Robert James - Weinstein,Raymond Allen USA-ch New York (1), 18.12.1960 French Defense [C19] 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 Ne7 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 c5 7.a4!? In general this move is very useful but in this concrete position White usually plays other moves: 7.Qg4 0-0 (7...Qc7 leads to very complex play after 8.Qxg7 Rg8 9.Qxh7 cxd4 10.Ne2 Nbc6 11.f4 Bd7 12.Qd3 … [Read more...]
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