CHESSBOOK REVIEWS 
Latest book reviews of 1 August 2006
BOOKS REVIEWS BY JOHN ELBURG.Wilhelminalaan 33John Elburg
7261 BP RUURLO
The Netherlands.
Chess Books
Play the queen’s gambit by Chris Ward
2006
Everyman Chess
http://www.everymanchess.com/
175 pages
Price $23,95
ISBN 1-85744-411-6
The former British Champion GM Chris Ward handles here in these 55 model games a complete repertoire line for white with the Queens gambit,a opening that dates back to Damiano in 1512.
A fellow chess book author once said to Chris Ward;What I like about you is that you are prepared to play what you have written,
and indeed in this book you shall find not only six great example games from Ward with his favourite line but also many other Ward games between the lines of this heavy loaded book.
As head line Ward prefers the sharp and risky 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e4! and that is good for a hefty percentage of this book, well counted 54 pages and good for twenty readable model games.
There has been a time that 3.e4 was dismissed because of 3...e5 but there have been improvements found for white and now we see top players as Onischuk and Van Wely playing it and black has to be very careful.
By the years the opinion from Ward on the queen’s gambit has changed on 1.d4 d4 2.e4 dxc4 3.e4 Nc6 4.Nf3 Bg4 he prefers the pawn move 5.d5 and not the older 5.Bxc4 e6 6.d5 exd5 7.Bxd5 Qf6! which Baburin played so successful again Ward in the Isle of man open from 1997.
This game is covered in Chris Ward older book The Queen’s gambit accepted Batsford 1999 and the first 64 pages from this book can not stand-up against this latest more up to date work from Ward.
Interesting but not correct is the queen’s gambit declined with 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 f5?! where Ward recommends 4.Bf4!? Nf6 5.e3 Be7 6.Nf3 c6 7.Qc2 0-0 8.Bd3 Ne4 9.g4!? and white is doing very fine. But be aware this is a repertoire book and please don’t use it as a gps system!
Conclusion: A instructive openings book!
New in Chess Yearbook issue 79
2006
244 pages
Price € 24.95
ISBN 90-5691-173-2
New in Chess Yearbook issue 79 comes with 32 so called NIC surveys and this time I shall not mention all the 32 openings surveys but shall pick out some exciting highlights as the superb. article from the Dutch chess master A.C.van der Tak who has inspired by the years many chess players with his razor sharp openings articles.
This time he his digs in the Spassky’s line of the Marshall gambit with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.c3 d5 9.exd5 Nxd5 10.Nxe5 Nxe5 11.Rxe5 c6 12.d4 Bd6 13.Re1 Qh4 14.g3 Qh3 15.Be3 Bg4 16.Qd3 Rae8 17.Nd2 Re6 18.a4 Qh5
This move was introduced by Spassky against Tal in there 1965 Candidates match.This survey from van der Tak is mainly based on two important games and well from Polgar against Adams,San Luis Wch 2005 and Leko – Kasimdzhanov,Linares plus some latest not less interesting correspondence games.
A other interesting surveys comes from Rene Olthof the super visor from these Year books and he concentrates on the English attack with 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be6 8.f3 Be7 9.Qd2 0-0 10.0-0-0 Nbd7 11.g4 b5 12.g5 b4 13.Ne2 Ne8 and covers some interesting games from the German correspondence chess player and author Hagen Tiemann from Templin. Tiemann was last year a candidate for the world championship in correspondence chess but was unfortunately not very successful.
Tapani Sammalvuo wrote about this in his book the English attack, Gambit 2004,This is one of black’s most solid optains against the English attack and has been the constant favourite of players as Sutovsky,Vallejo and Ftacnik, the only problem that black has here is his weak c6 square so take care of that!
The creative Sosonko holds in his famous Corner all kind of strange checks in the opening as 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5; Sosonko: Of course there are several ways to deal with this ‘loose’check.After 3…Bd7 white will swap bishops and gain some space advantage with 4.Bxd7 Nxd7 5.Nc3 Nf6 6.d4.
3…Nc6 is the relatively passive Steintz variantion of the Ruy Lopez,while 3..c6 4.Ba4 leads to a positional struggle very much in the spirit of modern Ruy Lopez set-ups.It reminds one of 4.d3 against the Berlin Wall, a line that leads to slow manoeuvring.
Conclusion: Buy it before your opponent does!
The big book of chess by Eric Schiller
2006
Cardoza Publishing
http://www.cardozapub.com
313 pages
Price $ 17,95
ISBN 1-58042-133-4
The cover of this book promises a lot of blurb as this is the most compressive book ever published on chess and that is of course ridiculous, but this inside work from Eric Schiller on chess with all the necessarily basics and interesting curiosities is certainly one of Schiller’s better works.On Internet I saw that Eric Schiller is complaining that the publisher sent out the wrong cover of the book and
that John Watson is a co-author of this work ,but I inside this book I could find no information about a co-author Watson.
Besides how to take up chess Schiller describes the origins of chess where he walking by the way on eggshells,but he also has some exciting stories as from Nils Renman who thought is was necessarily to jump out of a speeding train to reach on time his game of chess.
All together this work is a nice invitation in to the world of chess and did you know that Kasparov stopped shaving after playing some bad moves?
As a teenager,Garry Kasparov used to wear a very intimidating leather jacket and later he went over to Armani suits, but that time he was already millionaire!
Conclusion: A nice invitation in to the world of chess!
Botvinnik’s secret games by Jan Timman
2006
Hardinge Simpole publishing
http://www.hardingesimpole.co.uk/
199 pages
Price £ 16.95
ISBN 1-84382-178-8
Botvinnik played throw his live quite some trainings games and this latest book from the former third in world Dutch GM Jan Timman, is a collection of 97 such games all played between 1936 and 1970, where many of these Botvinnink games have seen no print before.
Timman starts this book with a interesting chapter on the theoretical importance of Botvinnik’s trainings games and interesting enough there are nearly no trainings games that helped him to become world champion except the two games that Botvinnik played in 1947 against Ragozin, which may be considered as a general preparation for the 1948 world championship.
Interesting to mention is the game Ragozin - Botwinnik game from 1944, where black played the so modern French with the moves: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Nf3 Qa5 8.Qd2 Nbc6 9.Be2 Bd7 10.a4 Rc8!? a move that was related to the game Foldy – Portisch ,Hungary 1959 but Botvinnik played it all ready in 1944!
This game is pleasantly analysed by Timman with around six pages of text but the major part of these games in this book cover nearly no annotations at all.
Included is a four page chapter from Yuri Averbakh where he describes his games with Botwinnik;These games took place in Botvinnik’s country house at Nikolina Gora outside Moscow.I was frankly flabbergasted by the conditions he laid down:
We were to play with the radio switched on. Imagine this scene: we are sitting at the board cogitating over our moves, to the regular ticking of the chess clock-while the black speaker hanging on the wall pours forth a stream of information about the achievements of the local collective farmers about the stock of hay, the milk yield, the prospects for the harvest, and the currently fashionable” square cluster” method for stepping up agricultural production. After five hours play to such an accompaniment I felt like an utter zombie.
Unfortunately the layout of this book is not so good as Botvinnik his games with all then lost space between it.
Conclusion: Poor layout but this book covers great games!
Tony Miles England’s Chess Gladiator by Raymond Keene
2006
Hardinge Simpole publishing
http://www.hardingesimpole.co.uk/
247 pages
Price £ 17,50
ISBN 1-84382-176-1
This latest book from GM Raymond Keene on the chess legend Tony Miles features 100 of Miles best games, starting with his game against Corden, Birmingham 1973 and ending with his 30 move win against the strong GM from Ireland Alexander Baburin, again in Birmingham but than 27 years later and one year before his tragic death.
Between this lays tragedies and great chess success as Miles his wins against five different world champions.
Keene has manage to write a very readable work on Miles with a lot of interesting back ground information as for example about the Dutch chess talent Roy Dieks who played that time so successful at the 1974 World Junior Championship,Keene writes; Dieks always stood worse against tail-ender Sunye who left the game drag on to 59 moves, so it was only at 5.30 pm that I could the news to Tony in his room that he was formally Champion-he was resting {or possible hiding}from the many reporters who had been interviewing him, so it seemed, interminably since Kochyev’s resignation. The Russian was so shattered that the players did not have a post mortem.
Included in this book are a lot of cross tables to illustrate Miles tournament success and it is impressive to see some of his greatest results as Tilburg 1984 and Tilburg 1985,this last one where he played chess lying on a massage table.
Throw the book you shall find readable quotes as from Genna Sosonko and Jan Timman, the game annotations to these hundred games don't dig very deep but all together this book is a very enjoyable read on the legendary Tony Miles!
Conclusion: Recommended!
Chess college: Strategy 1: by Efstratios Grivas
2006
Gambit Publications Ltd
http://www.gambitbooks.com
E-mail info@gambitbooks.com
112 pages
Price $19,95
ISBN 978-1-904600-45-9
Chess college: Pawn play 2 by Efstratios Grivas
2006
Gambit Publications Ltd
http://www.gambitbooks.com
E-mail info@gambitbooks.com
112 pages
Price $19,95
ISBN 978-1-904600-45-9
Chess college: Technique 3 play by Efstratios Grivas
2006
Gambit Publications Ltd
http://www.gambitbooks.com
E-mail info@gambitbooks.com
112 pages
Price $19,95
ISBN 978-1-904600-45-9
Chess College is a brand new three volume middle and endgame theory book from Gambit written by the creative Grivas based on a good understanding of all fundamental strategies, and other useful chess techniques that a upcoming chess player nowadays needs to be aware of.
I found the following instructive subjects, starting with part one: Getting to know ourselves, Training, Attacking the uncastled King, Attacking the King: Castling on the same side, Attacking the king: Castling on opposite sides,The exchange sacrifice, The positional sacrifice, Outpost,Open File,Semi-Open file,Forepost etc.
Part two handles all kind of pawn play as Passed pawns,Isolated pawns,Doubled pawns,Backward pawns and more.
Part 3 digs more in technique features and useful trainings tips as Physical and Psychological factors where for example one side of the boards holds a large or decisive advantage.
But Grivas also handles here the important physical and psychological factors and the great teacher from Greece provides the reader with a wealth of instructive information.
The most fascinating of these three books are the use of instructive games all played by the phenomenal Grivas himself, and dear reader there is no better way to learn chess than from your own game experiences.
So I counted the own games from Grivas in these books book and I came out on a impressive amount of 164 games and this are all complete games, with excellent analyses to the games, which we only compare with analyses from great writers as Nimzowitsch and
Reti ,for example please see the game Grivas -Avrukh, Iraklion 1995,is covered with nearly 3.5 pages of highly instructive text!
GM John Nunnn once wrote in his book Grandmaster Chess Move by Move Gambit 2005,annotators often try to guess what was in a player's mind, but I generally try to avoid this when annotating third party games because it is usually pure speculation.
Plus that there are around 54 other complete games in these books which are not played by Grivas but well analysed by him.
Conclusion: A important step to mastership!
Beating the fianchetto defences by Efstratios Grivas
A challenging repertoire versus five King's fianchetto defences
2006
Gambit Publications Ltd
http://www.gambitbooks.com
E-mail info@gambitbooks.com
191 pages
Price $26,95
ISBN 978-904600-48-0
The phenomenal GM from Greece Efstratios Grivas provides the reader in this book with a detailed move to move repertoire book against five important fianchetto defences and well: The Grünfeld, King's Indian, Benoni, Benko and Modern defence, where the last one is a large scope of creative ideas as for instance: 1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.Nf3 f5!? but also more serious lines as 3…Nc6 and 3…c6 where he even handles a four pages transposition in to the Slav!
Nowadays a chess players must know he openings moves and can not play on general principles even in the modern defence as for examle Suttles and Day once did in there sixties and seventies.
Grivas digs now and than awful deep and I would consider this repertoire book as one of these winning from the book works. For example in the Modern Benoni Grivas goes for:
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nc3 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6 7.Nf3 Bg7 8.h3 0-0 9.Bd3 b5 10.Bxb5 Nxe4 11.Nxe4 Qa5+ 12.Nfd2 Qxb5 13.Nxd6 Qa6 14.N2c4 Nd7 15.0-0 Nb6 16.Nxb6 Qxb6 17.Nxc8 Raxc8 18.Rb1 Rcd8 19.Bf4 Qb7 20.d6 Bf8 21.Qd3 Bxd6 22.Bxd6 Rc6 23.Rfd1 Qd7 and Skembris – Pisgusov,Cap d’Agde 1998 was drawn but Grivas points out that white has rather more than this, as the two rooks are stronger than the black queen. Although five out of six games serious games played so far ended in draws, the feeling is that white has good winning chances, and the great Efstratios Grivas gives some fine explanations over this position,and good for around 1.5 pages of text plus some instructive endgame analyses.
In the Grünfeld Grivas goes for 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Bg5,Benko Gambit 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5 4.Nf3,Modern Benoni 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nc3 d6 5.e4 g6 6.Nf3 Bg7 7.h3 0-0 8.Bd3 and if 8…Na6 9.0-0 Nc7 10.dxe6!? Plus that there is in this chapter a excellent coverage of the Snake from around 3.5 pages.
Modern defence with 1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.Nf3 and at last the King’s Indian with 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.h3 plus all kind of early deviations.
Included throw this book are Starting out introductions where you shall find a short but instructive introduction to the suggested repertoire line.
Grivas writes in the introduction of this book: The book in front of you is the fruit of several years of both practical experiences and theoretical research. I have tried to describe the suggest system in detail, giving my assessments as clearly and responsibly as possible, and have generally aimed to provide useful guidelines.
Conclusion: A very strong repertoire book!
How to calculate chess tactics by Valeri Beim
Gambit Publications Ltd
http://www.gambitbooks.com
E-mail info@gambitbooks.com
175 pages
Price $ 26,96
ISBN 978-1-904600-50-3
GM Valeri Beim provides the reader with a lot of instructive examples as game extracts, complete games and a lot of exercises to help the reader to find his or hers way between intuition and the more complicated way of calculation.
Beim handles all kind of techniques as for example the so called candidate moves,which where first mentioned in the books from Kotov,but some of these techniques where already discussed in Beim’s earlier work Chess recipes from the Grandmaster’s Kitchen {Gambit 2002} but the author digs here in "How to calculate chess tactics" further on this subject.
But first some instructive words from Beim;The following example not only comes from a classic game,but is also very little –known, although without doubt the commentary is of the higest class.It comes from Botvinnink’s excellent book The return match Alekhine – Euwe.This was published in 1939,but only in Russia,and only in a limited edition of 5000 copies. It has recently been reissued, though again only in small numbers;Alekhine,A - Euwe,M World Championship 17th NED (10), 26.10.1937
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 d5 5.cxd5 Qxd5 6.e3 c5 7.a3 Bxc3+ 8.bxc3 Nc6 9.Nf3 0-0 10.c4 Qd6 11.Bb2 cxd4 12.exd4 b6 13.Bd3 Bb7 14.0-0 Rac8 15.Qe2 Qf4 16.Rad1 Rfe8 17.h3 Na5 18.Ne5 Be4 19.Rfe1 Bxd3 20.Qxd3 Red8 21.Bc1 Qh4 22.Qe2 Re8 23.g4?
Most annotators awarded this move an exclamation mark, and only Botvinnink identified it as a mistake and showed why.
Indeed this all is extremely interesting yes indeed most annotators give 23.g4 a exclamation mark and Purdy in his Extreme chess {Thinker press 1999} book wrote;This is more trappy than strong,but it was good psychologically,as Euwe had 18 moves to make in 30 minutes.This all is well explaned by Beim in readable words and good for one page of this book, all under the importance of a preliminary logical analyses.
Some games as Polugaevsky – Nezhmetdinov,Russian Federtion Ch,Sochi 1959 get a lot of attention and is good for nearly 4.5 pages of text!
I would like to end with a wise advice from Beim;The first important point is to work regulairy.If you work on tactics and calculation 5 or 6 days in the week,than it will be quite sufficient to spend only 10-15 minutes per day,no more. But it must be done regularly!
Conclusion: Highly instructive!
Who Was The Strongest?
Warriors of the Mind II by Raymond Keene,Nathan Divinsky and Jeff Sonas, with an Appendix by Harry Joe
2006
Hardinge Simpole publishing
http://www.hardingesimpole.co.uk/
394 pages
Price £25.00
ISBN 1-84382-179-6
Just from the press a new updated and expanded reprint from Keene, Divinsky and Sonas work on a mathematical research of the greatest chess players of all time.
The reader shall find in this book a mass of statistical surveys and a fine collection most important game{s} to assess the comparative strength of the players in this book.
For example the highest rated player of all time goes to the great Garry Kasparov.
New in this edition that Professor Divinsky has expanded the list of candidates,Jeff Sonas has been invited to contribute his own conclusions to the all time greatest based on statistical proof and Raymond Keene has added his reader poll that was published in The Times.but first a brief look at Keene his favorite list of best players:Kasparov,Lasker,Botvinnink,Capablanca,Alekhine,Fischer,Morphy,Steinitz,Petrosjan,Karpov,Tal and at last Anderssen.
But The Time readers went for Kasparov,Fischer,Capablanca,Alekhine,Lasker,Botvinnink,Karpov,Tal,
Morphy,Steinitz,Petrosjan and Smyslov,where the total votes where 3810.
Now and than you read amusing things between all these statistics so as you probably know Emanuel Lasker was world champion for the longest total time of 26.9 years,although Wilhem Steinitz claimed a longer time of 27.8 years.
Steinitz started counting with his first match against Johannes Zukertort in 1872 but the chess historians prefer his second match against Zukertort in 1886,and that was the time that he definitely was world champion.
But Steinitz was a great player he had the greatest rating point ever gap of 199 points ahead of Henry Bird in April 1876.
But Fischer had the highest rating ever 2895 on October 1st,1971 and he holds the highest single match performance ever,2887 with his 1971 match against Larsen.
Garry Kasparov’s highest ever match performance was 2842 in Kasparov – Kasparov II in 1985.Wilhelm Steinitz highest ever match performance was 2829 in his match victory over Joseph H.Blackburne in 1976.
The list of players in this book is a invitation for criticism because I could not find the 14th World Champion Chess Champion Alexander Khalifman!
Conclusion: Fascinating!
Chess CD's
Shredder10
2006
ChessBase
http://www.chessbase.com
E-Mail info@chessbase.com
Price € 49,99
System requirements: Pentium III, 128 MB RAM, Win98 SE, Win2000, WinXP, DVD-ROM drive.
The new Shredder 10 is stronger than all previous versions that where released by the years and after the engine experts it is around 80 Elo points stronger than his smaller brother Shredder 9.
Shredder10 has now a new directory with packed endgame files which makes him by a factor 1000 faster accessing these important files and at the same time Shredder10 calculates all his information much faster.{The endgame information is not so highy compressed and that means that the program can decompresss it faster during the search.
When I took a closer look to the 14th world computer chess championship I was not completely surprised that Shredder did not become the new world champion his limits lay in the middle game and he did played one draw to much, but the differences with the new world champion Junior are to be honest very small. Maybe Shredder has to change his settings a little with the next world championship and try to play a little more aggressive.
Interesting is there dual with each other: Junior - Shredder WCCC 2006 Turin (4), 27.05.2006
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be6 8.f3 Nbd7 9.Qd2 Be7 10.g4 0-0 11.0-0-0 b5 12.g5 Nh5 13.Nd5 Bxd5 14.exd5 b4 15.Kb1 a5 16.Bb5 a4 17.Nc1 a3 18.Nd3 Rb8 19.Bc6 axb2 20.Rhg1 Qc7 21.Rg4 f5 22.Rxb4 f4 23.Bf2 Bxg5 24.c3 Kh8 25.Qc2 Nhf6 26.Rg1 Bh6 27.Qa4 Nb6 28.Qa5 Nbxd5 29.Qxc7 Nxc7 30.Rxb8 Rxb8 31.Nb4 Ne6 32.Rd1 e4 33.a4 exf3 34.a5 Ng4 35.Rd2 Nxf2 36.Rxf2 Nc7 37.a6 Nxa6 38.Nxa6 Rb3 39.Rxf3 g5 40.Bd5 Rb5 41.Bc4 Rb7 42.Nb4 g4 43.Rd3 Bg7 44.Rxd6 Bxc3 45.Nd5 Bd2 46.Nf6 Bc3 47.Nxg4 Kg7 48.Rd5 Ra7 49.Ba2 h6 50.h4 Ra4 51.Nh2 Re4 52.Rd1 Re3 53.Rg1+ Rg3 54.Rf1 Re3 55.Nf3 Kg6 56.Bb3 Kf5 57.h5 Re7 58.Rd1 Kg4 59.Bd5 ½-½
Interesting to mention is that my Shredder10 version does not play the weak knight move 18.Nd3?! with 18.b3 the situation is all much more in the playing style of Shredder.But why was the move 18.b3 not was included in Shredder his openings book?
Funny enough the openings book that comes with Shredder10 does not include 18.b3 either and it cover around one million games!
Slowly computer chess is nearly the same as correspondence chess and I believe both could learn a lot from each other and am sure that a better openings preparation would help Shredder to become the next world champion!
Shredder10 comes with the original Fritz 9 interface that includes interesting training and entertainment features plus a year free access to the ChessBase Playchess server (at least for for one year), where you can play a lot of exciting chess and even engine chess,
this is a fascinating hobby simple go to work and let your engine do all the work!
Conclusion: Buy this program for it’s excellent endgame skills!
ChessBase magazine issue 112
2006
June
ChessBase http://www.chessbase.com
E-Mail info@chessbase.com
ISSN 1432-8992
Price Euro 19,95 per issue
Annual subscription costs Euro 99,70
The master file of this CD is good for 1588 entries where a small 366 of them carry excellent annotations.
For example from Robert Hübner where I found ten analysed games and GM Karsten Mülled does it even with 21 heavy loaded games ,but the great endgame expert takes you also in a enjoyable avi file from 17 minutes throw the highlights of this heavy loaded CD.
But there is more avi enjoyment as the five files from GM Yasser Seirawan and two multimedia files from Jacob Aagaard and Andrew Martin who has a nice openings surprise for the readers of this well filled ChessBase magazine.
The four theory files of this CD go to A20 English; 1.c4 e5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.0-0 Nb6 7.d3 Be7 8.Nbd2 0-0 9.a3 a5 10.b3 Be6 11.Bb2 f6 12.Qc2 Qd7 by Gm Zoltan Ribli, the Elephant gambit C40 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d5 3.exd5 e4 by Peter Leisebein,French defence C10 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Nf3 Ngf6 6.Nxf6+ Nxf6 7.c3
By GM Alexander Finkel,his opinion about the move 7.c3 is very interesting: As I mentioned in my previous survey, the relatively modest move 7.c3!? has become one of the most popular ways to meet the Rubinstein variation during the last couple of years. Despite a general impression that Black should be doing fine after 7...c5 which was covered extensively in issue 111 of ChessBase Magazine, many players prefer not to commit with an early advance of the c-pawn, opting for 7...Be7, 7...a6!?, 7...Bd6 or even 7...h6?!.One of the greatest specialists in the French Defence in the world, Evgeny Bareev, has opted for 7...Be7 on a couple of occasions, so it most definitely means that this line is playable for Black (other moves are rather rare, so we will just refer to them very briefly)! I would say that this move is more flexible than 7...c5, but it is probably White who enjoys its flexibility more as he can test Black's defensive set up with a variety of different plans!
And at last a superb. survey from the great Rogozenko on the Dragon Sicilian B75 with the moves: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 a6.
This time there are two historical articles on this CD first a readable article from John Donaldson on the Forgotten US Open of Seattle 1966 where I found it very pleasant to find forgotten games from Viktor Pupols and Duncan Suttles.
The German historian Johannes Fischer goes back to London 1927.
Other contributions are: Endgame {GM Dr Karsten Müller presents a instructive selections of 36 instructive endgames all taken from the main database of this CD},Tactics{A Small Anthology of Blunders by GM Valery Atlas, Strategy Exchange Sacrifices Revisited (Part 2) by GM Peter Wells and a useful booklet from 26 pages!
Conclusion: Highly recommended!
Chess Magazines
British Chess Magazine No.7
Volume 126
July 2006
Price: £3.60
This cover of the British Chess Magazine starts on the cover with a photograph from Gabriel Sargissian,23,played throughout for Armenia in there triumph in Turin, scoring 10 points out of 13!
The first twenty pages of this heavy loaded BCM magazine are completely devoted to the Turin Olympiad, with photo’s cross tables photo’s and of course a selection finest games!
By the way Kramnik has returned after some flirting to his first love the Reti opening.
Please see Kramnik – Aronian Russia – Armenia game 350.
Others are Bosna Sarajevo,MTEL masters with report and annotations from the Bulgarian super-tournament by Ian Rogers,with Mikhail Golubev covering the second half of the event and please see also Kamsky’s return!
Russian team championship by Steve Giddins etc!
Conclusion: A very readable chess magazine!
Kaissiber Issue 24
April - June 2006
Deutschland 6.10 Euro
Offered for review by http://www.niggemann.com/
A major part of Kaissiber is divided as issue 22 and 23 to the Max Lange attack where I must admit that I am still waiting for some head lines as for example 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.0-0 Bc5 6.e5 d5 7.exf6 dxc4 8.Re1+ Be6 9.Ng5 Bf8! that was published sometime ago in Informator 62 but has been overlooked in most books but not in Sartling correspondence games from Tim Harding.
Meanwhile we have to do with the Adolf Rosentreters variantion 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.0-0 Nf6 5.d4 Bxd4 6.Nxd4 Nxd4 7.Bg5 which is to be honest not very exciting, must say you shall not find this old move in many openings books.
More fun are the pages with the Koltanowski variation called after Grandmaster George Koltanowski who both played and developed this system over three decades, he thought that a well prepared player can easy obtain a lasting advantage with this line but Gutman waves it all ways with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.0-0 Nf6 5.d4 Bxd4 6.Nxd4 Nxd4 7.c3 Ne6 8.f4 d6 9.f5 Nc5 10.Nd2 0-0 11.Qf3 a5 12.Rf2 Bd7 13.b4 axb4 14.cxb4 Na4 15.Nf1 Bc6 16.Bg5 Nb6 17.Bb3 Ba4 18.Rc1 Bxb3 19.axb3 Nbd7 20.Ne3 c6 21.Ng4 h6 22.Bh4 Qb6 23.Bxf6 Nxf6 24.Nxf6+ gxf6 and black has after Gutman a great advantage, but I am not sure about 22.Bh4 this move does not make much sense can white not go for 22.Nxh6 and make a easy draw?{And indeed! Stefan Bücker wrote me:
Dear John, thank you very much for your important find. Gutman was astonished that he overlooked this nice tactical trick. Now he said Black has to play 21. … Kh8 instead, the whole line remains difficult for White.
Probably Wind’s 9 fxe5 dxe5 10 Qf3 offers better drawing chances for White, after 10. … Qd6 11 Be3! Nf4 now I’d suggest 12 Na3 Bg4 13 Qf2 Nxe4 14 Qc2 Nf6 15 Bxf4 exf4 16 Rae1+ Kf8 17 Qb3 Qb6+ 18 Qxb6 axb6 19 Rxf4 c6 (19. … Bd7 20 Rd1) 20 h3 Bd7 21 Rd1 Rd8 22 Nc2 b5 23 Bb3 c5 24 Ne3. White may be able to hold.
Best wishes,Stefan}Bent Larsen discuses the chess amateur Wolfgand Unzicker and looks back at his great fight with Unzicker at Santa Monica 1966.
Interesting is the letter from Mr.Vetter who played The Herman Steiner variation with the move 13…Qd3 {1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 b5 6.Bb3 Be7 7.Re1 0-0 8.c3 d5 9.exd5 e4 10.dxc6 exf3 11.Qxf3 Bg4 12.Qg3 Re8 13.f3 Qd3}and I found it a great pity that Kaissiber did not did in the history of his move! After 14.fxg4 Bc5+ 15.Re3 we are in the famous game Edward Lasker – Frank Marshall played at Chicago 1926!
The great gambit master Bücker digs in the knight move 1.e4 c5 2.Na3!? and is good for ten intensive pages of this magazine.
Other readable items are the contributions from Alfred Diel and the mysterious fourth game of the Match Alekhine - Capablanca of 1927.
Conclusion: A great gambit magazine!