CHESSBOOK REVIEWS 
Latest book reviews of 1 September 2006
BOOKS REVIEWS BY JOHN ELBURG.Wilhelminalaan 33John Elburg
7261 BP RUURLO
The Netherlands.
Chess Books
The fearsome four pawns attack by Jerzy Konikowski & Marek Soszynski
2005
Russell Enterprises
Offered for review by http://www.niggemann.com/
283 pages
Price $ 24,95
ISBN 1-888690-27-5
The four pawns attack was considered in the early 1920s as the refutation of the King’s Indian defence till the correct methods where discovered for black to tackle the dangerous looking pawn storm.
But till to day it is the most aggressive set-up against the King’s Indian defence but there are also drawbacks to it as Joe Gallagher once wrote in his book Play the King’s Indian defence {Everyman Chess 2004};Pawns don’t move backwards and as the game progress white may regret his rash start to the game as key squares deep inside his camp become vulnerable to invasion by enemy pieces.
Andrew Martin speaks in his book King’s Indian battle plans of a pawn to far but Anatoli Vaissaer and Angus Dunnington have complete other thoughts about this opening.
Jerzy Konikowski & Marek Soszynski speak about a aggressive system and cover the whole Four pawn attack with even a extra 63 model games where these games can help you to acquire a excellent feel for the resulting middlegame positions.
In this book the reader is provided with a detailed move to move coverage with use of excellent sources where the reader is insured of every important game that is played with this opening.
The Balance between text and variations is not completely what I like to see in a openings book ,personal I would have preferred more text and longer summary’s.
But there is also a lot of good news as an excellent coverage of the speculative move from the German gambit player Gerhart Gunderman{1904-1992}1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f4 0-0 6.Nf3 c5 7.d5 e6 8.Be2 exd5 9.e5!?
a move that enjoyed great period of popularity in the 180s but has virtually disappeared from practice after the replay 9…Ne4.
Konikowski and Soszynski cover this whole line in a impressive 19 pages where the both authors recommend also the interesting alternative 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f4 0-0 6.Nf3 c5 7.d5 e6 8.Be2 exd5 9.e5 Ne4 10.Nxd5!?
A move that has been only half so popular as 10.cxd5!
Conclusion: A very important reference work on the four pawn attack!
Chess openings for white explained by GM Lev Alburt,GM Roman Dzindzichashvili and IM Eugene Perelshteyn
2006
W.W.Norton & Company Ltd
548 pages
Price $ 29,95
ISBN 1-889323-11-X
The extraordinary chess legend GM Roman Dzindzichashvili and his companions GM Lev Alburt and IM Eugene Perelshteyn are providing the reader in this over 540 page repertoire book with a so called move to move openings book.
The authors claim that every opening in this book had to pass a tough set of criteria as it has to be completely sound even up to the largest level in chess so it is certainly very suitable for all tournament players who are searching for reliable openings lines.
In many repertoire lines we can feel the breath from the great Dzindzi as for example in the Alekhine defence, where he suggest the sharp: 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 2.d4 d6 4.c4 Nb6 5.exd6 exd6 6.Nc3 Be7 7.Bd3!?
Or in the Sicilian where the authors go for the Grand Prix attack where they leave a lot of place for explanations and suggestions.
There are many diagrams in this book that include a lot of extra analyses and it is even possible to work throw this book with out the use of a chess board!
Other suggested repertoire lines in this book are the Giuoco Piano with {1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6.cxd4 Bb4+ 7.Bd2 Bxd2+ 8.Nbxd2 d5 9.exd5 Nxd5 10.Qb3 Nce7 11.0-0 c6 12.Rfe1 0-0 13.Ne4 Nb6} and now the three chess musketeers give the move 14.Nc5! as a theoretical novelty.
But dear reader the great Emanuel Lasker already mentioned this move and it is also covered on the old book from Harding and Botterill on the Italian game and that was published back in 1977 {Batsford},so we can better speak from a old wine in a new bottle {Please see chapter7:Giuoco Piano-New wine from an old bottle}
More exciting and in the style of the masters is the Scotch Gambit with 1.e4 e5 2.Nfe Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4! and eventual a transposition in to the Two knights defence with 4…Nf6 5.e5 Ng4 6.Qe2 Qe7 7.Bf4 and white is already threatening!
Chess openings for white explained by GM Lev Alburt,GM Roman Dzindzichashvili and IM Eugene Perelshteyn
2005
W.W.Norton & Company Ltd
551 pages
Price $ 29,95
ISBN 1-889323-12-8
GM Roman Dzindzichashvili and his companions GM Lev Alburt and IM Eugene Perelshteyn are providing the reader in this Chess Openings for Black,explained book with a detailed but aggressive repertoire for the black side of the board.
It does not matter what white plays even it is the Bird openings you shall find a suitable answer to all first moves where I must say that some obscure lines as for example 1.g4 the so called Grob did get no chance for a place in this book.
On 1.e4 the authors prefer for black the Sicilian defence with the Maroczy Bind,a opening that had for a long time a reputation of semi-obscurity till the great Bent Larsen revealed it against top world players.
Interesting is the black set-up against the Businessman’s opening the so called Colle System named after the Belgian master Edgar Colle,who played it in the early 1920s but it was his compatriot George Kotanowski who brought it to life.
But after the authors black can neutralize this dangerous opening with the simple moves1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.e3 c5!
Seven pages of this book are devoted to the wing gambit 1.e4 c5 2.b4 once the darling as we can read from the swash-buckling Frank Marshall.
The best way to meet it is 2…cxb4 3.a3 d5! Where black strikes back in the centre but after 4.exd5 Qxd5 5.Nf3 e5 6.axb4 Bxb4 7.c3 Bc5 8.Na3 Nf6 9.Bc4 Qe4+ 10.Be2 0-0 11.Nb5 Na6 and black easily finishes his development and keeps the extra pawn as in the game Poramaa – Kask,USSR – Finland 1987 but dear white did win this game so dear reader please watch out for the Wings gambit!
Conclusion: Two very instructive written repertoire books!
Starting out:1.e4 by Neil McDonald
A reliable repertoire for the improving player
2006
Everyman Chess
http://www.everymanchess.com/
200 pages
Price $23,95
ISBN 1-85744-416-7
Most players don’t have a good openings repertoire usually they have accumulated in one way or the other there openings lines more or less by accident.
The English GM Neil McDonald comes in this easy reading starting out book with a exciting and well thought collection repertoire lines based on many important main line approaches as the Scottish and Sicilian defence, and than with important main moves as 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 so Neil McDonald did not make it of with one or other a easy Anti Sicilian move as we usually see in these kind of easy written repertoire books.
Against the Alekhine McDonald goes for the Exchange variation, funny enough the same as the same line in the above mentioned book from Dzindzichashvili.
In the Caro-Kann McDonald goes for the Panov-Botvinnink attack:1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 which is after the author easy to play and easy to understand, whilst at the same time being hard for black to meet.White achieves a smooth ,active development of his pieces, with immediate pressure on d5.
Aganst the Scandinavian McDonald suggest the interesting alternative move 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qx5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Bd2!? and in the Pirc he goes for the so dangerous 150 attack.
Included are 56 excellent analysed model games where I would like to end with the excellent recommendation from McDonald against the Latvian Gambit with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5 Qf6 4.d4 d6 5.Nc4 fxe4 6.Be2! the so called Bronstein variation but after 6…Nc6 7.d5! black must not play as Wojnar did agaunst the great Garry Lane with 7…Nd4?! but 7…Ne5!? please see The Latvian Gambit lives by Tony Kosten.
All together I would to recommend this book to all who want to start with a very reliable repertoire line!
Conclusion: Highly recommended!
Französisch Vorstossvariante Band1 by Jewgeni Sweschnikow
Weiss Repertoire für Praktiker
2006
Edition Olms
http://www.olms.de
175 pages
Price € 16,80
ISBN 3-283-00512-5
Französisch Vorstossvariante Band2 by Jewgeni Sweschnikow
Weiss Repertoire für Praktiker
2006
Edition Olms
http://www.olms.de
135 pages
Price € 16,80
ISBN 3-283-00513-3
Sveshnikov handles in this first volume,the so called basic course where he handles all the necessarily understanding of strategies that a player needs to be aware of, if he or she has interest to get involved with the French Advanced.
All games in these volumes are very well explained and volume one starts with a impressive collection of 80 model games, which are all overloaded with instructive text, and not to forget there are also around 70 exercises to see if you have understood the strategies of this opening.
Grandmaster Sveshnikov goes much further in this book than providing the reader with a coverage of most important strategies and tactics of this dynamic opening, for example there is a very instructive 15 page chapter with the modern view of Nimzowitsch theories.
{Der moderene blick auf Nimzowitschs Theorie}
But first to the historical overview from the advanced with interesting games from Greco,Lous Paulsen,Aaron Nimzowitsch, but also some superb. games from the great Sveshnikov and dear reader he is an leading authority on the French advanced!
Part two {band 2}is more for the advanced player seen the large amount of theory and model games where I counted a small 68 of them but the best part of this book are the theoretical surveys the encyclopaedia part of this book, which is good for around 55 pages of text al in ECO symbols.
The murderous Milner Barry gets from Sveshnikov 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6}gets a 6.Bd3? but cxd4 7.cxd4 Bd7 8.Nc3 Nxd4 9.Nxd4 Qxd4 10.0-0 Qxe5?! Get also a interesting remark from the great Sveshnikov,Steffen Pedersen writes about this move in his book French: Advanced and other lines Gambit 2006,The acceptance of the second pawn queries the correctness of the Milner Barry Gambit, provided that black knows what to do. Anyway after 11.Re1 Qb8 12.Nxd5 Bd6 13.Qg4 Kf8 14.Bd2 h5 15.Qh3 Bc6 16.Ne3 Nf6 17.Nc4 Bc7 18.Bc3 Nd5 19.Ne5 and it is after Sveshnikov a even game but does not mention the improvement from Watson 18…Ng4!
But Junior 10 waves all these suggestions away with 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.Bd3 cxd4 7.cxd4 Bd7 8.0-0 Nxd4 9.Nxd4 Qxd4 10.Nc3 Qxe5 11.Re1 Qb8 12.Nxd5 Bd6 13.Qg4 Kf8 14.Bd2 h5 15.Qh3 Bc6 16.Ne3 Nf6 17.Nc4 Bc7 18.Bc3 Ng4 19.g3 b5 20.Ne3 and the position is even.
The best way to search for improvements is probably 19…Rh6!
Included in both books are excellent made games and players indexes,and pleasant to mention is that both book covers a interesting introduction from Anatoli Karpov.
Conclusion: A must book for all lovers of the French advanced!
Meine besten partien by Anatoli Karpov
2006
Edition Olms
http://www.olms.de
296 pages
Price € 19,95
ISBN 3-283-00511-7
Karpov became in April 24, 1975 officially world champion in chess and exactly 31 years later Karpov releases this book with 100 of his ever best games all played between the years 1968 and 2003.
In this book you shall not find much about the personal life of Karpov or his looses but a collection impressive wins against the greatest players of his time as for example Korchnoi,Spassky,Kasparov and Timman.
Karpov is a man who plays very efficient chess and does not aim for complications but he is one of those chess players became stronger with every game he played.
The games are well analysed with a lot of readable text and some games as Smejkal – Karpov ,Leninggrad 1973 are good for nearly five pages of instructive text.
Karpov has included from the famous 1978 WM match against Korchnoi {Viktor the terrible} two games but unfortnatley nothing about the atmosphere of these games not even a anecdote.
The match is passed and the enemy has become good friend and the two games specially the 14th match game is a truly master piece.
Contributions are made by Saizew {introduction} and Raymond Stolze is good for a interesting eight page article of Karpov’s way in the chess Olympics.
Included throw the book are short anecdotes, statistics and excellent made players/openings indexes.
Conclusion:Impressiv
Chess Informant issue 96
2006
Beograd
http://www.sahovski.com
340 pages
Price GBP 20.50
These Informators have become the leading chess books {There is still some discussion if the Informator is a book or chess magazine!} for the experts and lovers who enjoy to play throw the best played and analysed games.
Issue 96 comes with 428 annotated games and 517 game fragments from important tournaments that where held between January 1st and April 30th of this year.
And that means games from Wijk aan Zee,Gibraltar,Moscow,Cappelle la Grande,Monaco,Nisipeanu – Topalov {Match} etc.
The best game of the preceding volume goes to Dreev – Bareev of the Russian Championship 95/329 and the most important theoretical novelty goes to Van Wely – Radjabov T,Khanty-Mansiysk {m/1}2005-95/405.
The move from 13.Ne6!?N { 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.b4 Nh5 10.Re1 f5 11.Ng5 Nf6 12.f3 Kh8} is from great creativity and not one chess engine on my computer could find it!
The theoretical overview from to this game from Veliickovic is as all his other contributions more than excellent.
Interesting is the choice from the editorial team on the best of Chess Informant which goes to John Nunn who gained the grandmaster title in 1978 and won the British championship in 1980.In 1981 he became a professionals chess player, having previously been a mathematics lecturer at Oxford University.
Other recommend contributions in this Informator are Endgames and Sudies!
Conclusion: A must book!
Chess CD's
Chess Assistant 9, Professional package
2006
Convekta Ltd
http://www.convekta.com
Price € 119,82
System requirements: IBM-PC compatible computer, 128 Mb RAM, 4 Gb free space on hard disk, DVD-ROM, Windows 2000/NT/XP
Avail be in the following Languages: English, Spanish, German, French and Italian
Chess Assistant allows you to download automaticlly new games and important updates!
With the release of this new Chess Assistant 9 package can look back at two years at two years intensive chess development, and when you open the new Chess Assistant 9 icon on your desktop than it is clear there is a lot of chess excitement waiting for you!
To be honest I was very satisfied with the older Chess Assistant 8.0 which I had for over two years with out any problems on my older Windows 98 computer but the new Chess Assistant 9 offers the user so much more as a much more powerful search utility where there is even possible to choice out seven different searching possibilities!
As for instance search for Header,Position,Material,Advanced,For comments, For manoeuvres and at last the Composite search which is for example possible to find all kind of endgame positions, but a combination of these seven search possibilities is even possible too.
But first what is new in ChessAssistant 9,first there is the Hugh and very clean database of over 3,002,000 games,by April 1,2006 and 36000 commented games {Only in the professional package!},Test opening mode {A new utility on openings knowledge}but the best of all is of course the use of Shredder 9.11 which is free included in this package!
In the past the users had to do with all kind of Tiger programs but with Shredder you have a giant of a world champion in house!
For all who are not satisfied with Shredder 9.11 including other UCI engines as Shredder 10 and for example Fruit 2.1 gave me no problems at all.
They all run perfectly and super fast!
Interesting to mention is that the engines can run in the infinite mode or in tree mode and if you have not closed the analyse window, the engine can learn from it’s mistakes, accumulating his knowledge in to his hash tables.
Other interesting possibilities here are infinite analysis with several different engines simultaneously or analysing a set of positions in the background, and with CA9 you can play against the built in engines and the utility engine – engine rom the current position is highly recommended!
Searching for duplicates is interesting too first it CA9 will produce two files one that it wants to keep and a other to delete. You can simple accept this by selecting all or some of the games by marking them for deleting and than compress the database.
Besides the new mode players encyclopaedia from about 950 photographs there are also libraries of the players with information about the places, events and sources.
And ChessAssistant is able of producing all kind of statistics from this all by advanced statistics in the main menu.
It is unique to mention that CA9 can read all kind of other databases as CBF,CBH,PGN,ZIP,EPD,BFI, and CDP and that is more than any other available commercial database program is avaible too!
Within CA you can pack a database into one file to transferring or to send by e-mail but I could not find a way to generate pgn files for correspondence chess.
Chess Assistant 9 includes a database with openings evaluations stored in a direct tree and are all accessible from any database you open with this program.
There are around 500,000 opening positions and more than 8000 text annotations all made by the openings expert GM A Kalinin.
But it is of course also possible to include your own evaluations in this tree.
A other tree CAP.HSH and CAP.ELM are stored with cap data files from the ambitious Chess Analysis Project.
Included in this program is a direct interface to the Internet Chess Club and for direct guest ions you can phone them with Skype, address on the backside of the package and that is old fashion Russian service!
Conclusion: A fantastic made database program!
Junior 10
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.
Junior 10 the brand world champion computer chess written by the programmers Amir Ban and Shay Bushinsky has defeated in Turin there rival former world champion Shredder with a small half point.
Shredder and Rajlich {Also a very impressive program!} finished in a close second with 7.5/11. In round five the computer program Lion was thrown out of the tournament for being a clone of another computer program!
This does not sound so spectacular but Juniors play at the Computer Chess World championship was very impressive, not only undefeated but his play was above all extraordinary sharp, but his hardware was very impressive too,it all run on a 2x2 Inte 3 GHz PC with tablebases,but interesting enough Rajlich from Jeroen Noomen left his package of tablebases home and went for full speed on his 4x2 AMD.
But first a nice game from Junior from this tournament: Junior-Uragano3D
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nb5 d6 6. N1c3 a6 7. Na3 Nf6 8. Bg5 Be7 9. Bxf6 Bxf6 10. Nc4 Nd4 11. Nd5 Bg4 12. Qxg4 Nxc2+ 13. Kd1 Nxa1 14. Ncb6 Rb8 15. Bd3 Bg5 16. h4 Bh6 17. Ke2 Nb3 18. axb3 O-O 19. Bc4 Kh8 20. g3 Qe8 21. Rd1 Rd8 22. Qh5 Qc6 23. Kf1 Qc5 24. Kg2 Qc6 25. Qg4 Qe8 26. h5 f6 27. b4 Qf7 28. Qf5 Qe8 29. Bb3 Qf7 30. Rd3 g6 31. hxg6 hxg6 32. Qh3 Qh7 33. Rd1 Rf7 34. Rh1 f5 35. exf5 Rxf5 36. Ne7 Kg7 37. Nxf5+ gxf5 38. Qh4 Re8 39. Nd5 1-0
To see his tactical skills please look at the following position of the so called Koltanowski variation named after George Koltanowski who both played and devolped the system over three decades. :1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.0-0 Nf6 5.d4 Bxd4 6.Nxd4 Nxd4 7.f4 d6 8.c3 Ne6 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 and now Junior10 find without any difficulties the saving draw starting with the nice knight sacrifice 22.Nxh6.
In the endgame Junior does what you expect from strong chess engine, where I would like to show the reader a very difficult study for computers from Gurgenidze,taken back from the year 1985.
With White:Ka4,pawn b6 and rook d7,black Kc8,Rooks a8.b8 and at last the black king on c8.
Junior10 does not go for the pawn on h7 but find the begin of a fine draw starting with 1.Rc7+ Kd8 2.Rxh7 a5 but is not able yet to find the winning move 3.Ka3!!
So far the only engine that comes close to 3.Ka3 is Shredder 10 but on long turn he goes for the same move as Junior10 3.Rg7
Junior10 comes with the latest Fritz9 package with a latest openings book from GM Boris Altermann FROM 267 MB and a 12 months free access to the Playchess.com server and this all for only a small 50 euro!
Conclusion: A killer machine!
Test,evaluate and improve your chess by Danny Kopec & Hal Terrie
2006
ChessBase
http://www.chessbase.com
E-Mail info@chessbase.com
Price €26,99
System requirements: Pentium 166, 32 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE/2000/Me/XP
ISBN 10:3-937549-98-6
Danny Kopec & Hal Terrie are providing the reader with a instructive collection of a small 400 exercises, where the reader is invited to self test where you are only aloud to spend a few minutes of time on it, these are the so called Bratko-Kopec & new Position tests.
But there are mores test as the so called rook and pawn test where you only have to select one, the move which you believe to be the correct or best move in the position. The correct category is worth one and the correct move order is even worth two points.
This is excellent material for all who want to improve there tactical skills by simple playing regular throw these six chapters of this electronic version from there printed book, Test, Evaluate and Improve Your Chess: A Knowledge-Based Approach USCF publications 2004.
The material of this CD is careful selected and every self test covers a lot of text and excellent so called references to the games.
In my opinion the CD always wins in these exercises from the book and seen the large amount of instructive chess material, I would like to recommended this CD to all trainers who are searching for interesting teaching material!{ChessBase reader is included!}
Conclusion: Very instructive material!
The great ABC of tactics by George Renko
2006
ChessBase
http://www.chessbase.com
E-Mail info@chessbase.com
Price €26,99
System requirements: Pentium PC, 32 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE/2000/Me/XP
ISBN 10:3-937549-96-x
The Russian mathematician and chess trainer George Renko provides the reader in this CD with a mass of exercises well counted 7111 positions.
Renko starts this CD with a explanation of the very first basics but to be honest this man runs so fast as possible to the exercises.
Renko is great lover of them but does not care about references to the games for him is only one goal and that is check mate!
I would like to mention these exercises as no-nonsense check mate exercises well packed in the latest ChessBase 9 reader.
Conclusion: Intensive but no references to the games!
Chess Endgames 2 by Karsten Müller
Rook Endgames
2006
ChessBase
http://www.chessbase.com
E-Mail info@chessbase.com
Price €29,99
System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Media Player 9.0, DVD drive
This second DVD endgame DVD from the great endgame expert GM Karsten Müller deals in this latest ChessBase endgame DVD with rook endings.
Some endgame positions must be memorized but the major part of these techniques can easy be learned if you are aware to use the power of your rook and dear reader this DVD gives you a great opportunity to learn it!
This all is easy learned just by watching the great endgame teacher GM Karsten Müller explaining it to you in private lessons on the monitor of your PC!
All together there are on this DVD around 2.5 Gigh on multimedia files which can be open-end with the free included ChessBase Reader.
The best is to installed the reader on your hard disk and every time you move a DVD or CD in your drive the Chessbase9 related database programs will automatically start, even on your old Windows 98 computer program but one or other DVD player in your machine is a must.
The material on this DVD is divided in 43 multimedia chapters where I would like to mention some very important chapters as, Rook and four pawns vs. rook and three pawns but also some useful practice as latest played grandmaster games are all included on these heavy loaded files.
All together Karsten Müller has managed to keep these multimedia files quite compact an did not get lost in to rare and impractical positions as for example Cheron did in his impressive but completely unreadable endgame books.
Endgames have the reputation of being a kind Cinderella in chess but these DVD endgame DVD’s from Karsten Müller make it all very enjoyable, and I love a lot of Karsten his terms as body check and cut of the enemy king!
On endgame books GM Karsten Müller recommends: The survival guide to rook endings from John Emms,Everyman Chess 1999,Die Endspiel Universität from Mark Dvoreckij,Chess Gate 2002 and at last the great work Fundamental Chess Endings from Karsten Müller & Frank Lamprecht,Gambit 2001.
Conclusion: A great learning endgame DVD!
Fritztrainer opening
The easy way
Queen's Indian Defence by Jacob Aagaard
2006
ChessBase
http://www.chessbase.com
E-Mail info@chessbase.com
Price €26,99
System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Media Player 9.0, DVD drive
The well know teacher from Denmark IM Jacob Aagaard and now living in Scotland explains here in a small four hours {3 hour 49} every thing you need to started with the Queens Indian defence, black’s major response to 3.Nf3 (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6}
The aim of the blacks defence is simple try to find good posts for your pieces.
In these ten lectures from Aagaard you shall find more information than a coverage of most important key principles because the great teacher who is lecturing in the great heat of the ChessBase studio is handling on this DVD all kind of possibilities for white and black, in the Queen's Indian as for example the rare move from Miles with 4.Bf4, an excellent recommendation for all who like to avoid so soon as possible all main line theory.
Lecture five and six handles the move from the great Aron Nimzowitsch with the black bishop to a6 the so called Petrosian variation.
The queens Indian defence is an excellent opening who have a good feeling of general middlegame strategies and Aagaard is very good in explaining these important strategies to the reader of this DVD.
Conclusion: Very instructive!
Fritztrainer opening
The easy way
The ABC of the Caro-Kann
2006
ChessBase
http://www.chessbase.com
E-Mail info@chessbase.com
Price €26,99
System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Media Player 9.0, DVD drive
The famous ChessBase movie star IM Andrew Martin provides you in this repertoire DVD for black from over the four hours {4 hour 13}with all kind of exciting Caro –Kann lines as for example in the advance variation Andrew Martin suggest the move from Botwinnink 3….c5{1.e4 c6 2.d4 d4 3.e5}
A other repertoire line for black is the classical system with 4…Bf5 {1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4}
But he also handles the two knights variation with 2.Nc3 d5 3.Nf3 Bg4 4.h3,King’s Indian Attack 1.e4 c6 2.d3 d5 3.Nd2 e5 4.Ngf3 Bd6 5.g3 Nf6 6.Bg2 0-0,Exchange variation,Panov variation 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.d4 and some odds and ends as 1.e4 c6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Qf3 where Andrew Martin suggests the move order 4…dxe4 5.Nxe4 Nd7 5.d4 Ndf6! 6.c3 Bg4 7.Qg3 e6 8.Bd3 Bh5 9.Ne2 Nxe4 10.Bxe4 Bxe2 11.Kxe2 Nf6 and the position is completely in balance.
The positive side of the Caro-Kann is that black can develop his peaces without creating any weaknesses.
Conclusion: Highly recommended!
Fritztrainer opening
The French Defence by Ari Ziegler
2006
ChessBase
http://www.chessbase.com
E-Mail info@chessbase.com
Price €26,99
System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Media Player 9.0, DVD drive
The Swedish openings expert IM Ari Ziegler explains you in this nearly seven hours openings course the secrets of the French Classical that runs with the moves 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6.
A excellent choice for all who are bored playing the Sicilian defence with all it’s complicated lines as the Najdorf and Svesnikov defences.
The author offers the reader in this DVD a selections of his own pet lines where he prefers Classical lines in the French as the old main line with 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Nfd7 6.Bxe7 Qxe7 7.f4 0-0 8.Nf3 c5 9.Qd2 Nc6 10.dxc5 f6 11.exf6 Qxf6 12.g3 Nxc5 13.0-0-0 Rd8.
Ari Ziegler digs deeper in this DVD deeper as for example other authors did in books as for instance Steffen Pedersen in his by the way excellent written book The Main Line French:3.Nc3,Gambit 2001.
Included between all the analyses are a lot of explanations about strategies and tricks where black has to be aware of if you decide to play as Ziegler.
Very interesting to mention is the famous Chatard - Alekhine attack well explained and highly recommended for all fans of the French defence where Ziegler goes for the original line from Mikhail Gurevich with{1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Nfd7 6.h4 0-0 7.Bd3}7… c5
The whole repertoire line of Ari Ziegler is well thought and he handles all possible lines in this Fritztrainer openings DVD, from the advanced French till various lines as the Wing gambit with 1.e4 e6 2.Nf3 d5 3.e5 c5 4.b4 cxb4 5.a3 bxa3 and Ari thanks you for the gift!
Conclusion: Instructive!
White Repertoire by Alexander Bangiev 2nd edition
Included with a German version!
2006
ChessBase
http://www.chessbase.com
E-Mail info@chessbase.com
Price €26,99
System requirements: Pentium PC, 32 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE/2000/Me/XP
ISBN 10:3-937549-96-x
A second edition of IM Alexander Bangiev’s highly rewarded White repertoire 1.e4 CD where he is overloading the reader with a wealth of useful information on the Grand Prix Attack, Alekhine defence with {1.e4. Nf6 2.Nc3},Pirc {1.e4 g6 2.f4}Scandinavian {1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.Bc4}Vienna Gambit {1.e4 e52.Nc3 Nf6 3.f4}French where white is invited into the antique 2.f4 or the Advanced with 3.e5 ,and at last against the so reliable Caro-Kann Bangiev prefers his pet line with 3.e5 {advanced} where he goes as many of his other suggested lines on this CD for space.
The whole CD is good for over 600 annotated games and if you count all the games of the 8 databases you easy come over over the 100.000 games!
Seen the large amount of 2006 games, and latest developments of the above mentioned lines we can truly speak about a excellent made second edition!
Interesting to mention is that Bangiev plays all these repertoire lines himself too and that is probably the success of this good selling chess training CD.
Conclusion: A very special made repertoire line CD filled with interesting of beat lines!
ChessBase Magazine extra issue 112
June 2006
ChessBase
http://www.chessbase.com
E-Mail info@chessbase.com
ISSN 1432-8992
Euro 12.99
ChessBase magazine extra issue June#112 comes with a impressive file from 13872 entries where the closing date of this file is 14/7/2006.
It means that you shall for instance all 359 games from the Nezhmetdinov memorial!
Included as always is a impressive multimedia files from 579 MB covering the Turin Olympiad with interesting interviews as for example with Magnus Carlsen and Simen Agdestein but also Seirawan with Natalia Zhukova is worth watching!
Conclusion: Interesting!
ChessBase magazine issue #113 on DVD!
Turin Chess Olympiad in Turin:Armenia clear victors
2006
August
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
First of all here are some slight changes when you open this in this latest ChessBase DVD magazine, this time no large master file which we where used to by the years but the editorial team of ChessBase has decided to focus on latest top tournaments as for example the Chess Olympiad of 2006 which is good for 3838 entries and 83 excellent annotated games.
A other important tournament file is MTel Masters Sofia 2006 with a tournament and openings report plus 29 annotated games!
Also improved are the theoretical files on this CD not only that they are much more intensive but also much surveys, well counted 13 of them.
I would like to start with the one from the great openings expert GM Dorian Rogozenko on the Sicilian Dragon: 10.Kb1 Rb8
{1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 Nc6 8.Qd2 0-0 9.0-0-0 d5 10.Kb1 Rb8} has only ten games but they are all very extensive.
The other surveys are: Nimzo Indian Defence E58 9...Qc7 - a repertoire against the ubinstein Variation (Part one)by Viktor Gavrikov, Opening review: D85 with 7.Qa4+ by Michal Krasenkow 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7 7.Qa4+.
A promising weapon against the Chebanenko by Dorian Rogozenko ,1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 a6 5.a4.
No fear of the London System 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bf4 c5 by Rainer Knaak, A finess which doesn't work 1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 c5 by Rainer Knaak, Spanish four knights by Laszlo Hazai and Peter Lukacs 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 Nd4 5.Bc4 Bc5 6.Nxe5.
C45 - 6.Nb5 in the Scotch by GM Evgeny Postny : 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Be3 Qf6 6.Nb5!?, Topalov variation B80 by Lubomir Ftacnik {1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.f3 e6 7.Be3 b5 8.Qd2 b4}
A Hungarian speciality in the Richter Rauzer Attack by Laszlo Hazai and Peter Lukacs
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bg5 Bd7 7.Qd2 Nxd4 8.Qxd4 Qa5, Sicilian B31by Leonid Kritz, Sicilian B31: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 g6 4.Bxc6 bxc6 5.0-0 Bg7 6.Re1.
A possible revival of an old idea by Botvinnik in the main line of the Leningrad Dutch
by Mihail Marin {1.c4 f5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.d4 d6 6.Nc3 e6 7.0-0 0-0 8.Qc2 Nc6 9.Rd1 Qe7 10.Rb1 a5} and at last The fight for the centre in the Symmetrical English. A jungle of transpositions by Mihail Marin {1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.g3 d5 4.d4 cxd4 5.cxd5 Qxd5 6.Qxd4 Nc6 7.Qxd5 Nxd5}
One of my favourite file is the heavy loaded Tele file with 7139 entries and seven text reports where our congratulations go to the new IECG world champion Anatoli Sirota!!
A new column is Opening traps from Rainer Knaak and than of course the regular contributions {With extra avi files!} from Karsten Müller: Endgames,Peter Wells: Strategy,Oliver Reeh: Tactics and the wonderful made Chess Media file goes to Rustam Kasimdzhanov who record his game in a very instructive way against Ivanchuk!
These multimedia files are very exciting to follow and this DVD is good for 1,07 GB of lovely filled chess material,
and the old fashion booklet from 23 pages is still included!
Conclusion: Very important reference material!
Chess Informant 96 on CD
2006
Beograd
http://www.sahovski.com
Price £ 20.50
Chess Informant 95 printed boek + CD is only £ 27.50
The electronic version of the Chess Informant where I personal use for some years Chess Informant Expert 5.0
With this program I can easy access all games from the Informator with the build in database utilities.
It is no professional database program but on the other hand it can search and find any position or game that you have included on your hard disk.
It has a clipboard,a great chess board and you can even play chess against the build in engine.
Included is a free supplement of chess Informant issue 95 but than without the annotations.
Conclusion: The games of the Informator CD are very easy to access!
Chess Magazines
British Chess Magazine No.8
Volume 126
August 2006
Price: £3.60
Starting on the cover with Kateryna Lahno and Irina Krush in a good mood at the Woman’s Olympiad in Turin.
There is a full report from BCM editor John Saunders on the Woman’s Olympiad {18 pages!}
Steve Giddins covers besides the Sigeman & Co tournamant that was a great victory for the Dutch Jan Timman also the Dutch championship which was dominated by Sergey Tiviakov,at Hilversum he was good in playing the 2.c3 Sicilian, please see his game in this issue against Jan Timmam who was out played in no time!
Mikhail Golubev was in Crimea to cover the strong Foros Aerosvit 2006 which was won by Sergei Rublevsky.
The great Gary Lane is here with his popular Chess Questions Answered where he digs in the Queens Gambit accepted 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 4.e4 e5 and Pailsen’s defence 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d3 c6.
Other contributions are New in Brief,Quotes and Queries,Problem world etc.
Conclusion: Good reading!
Latvijas Šaha Vēstnesis
Issue 4 2006
July/August
For information mail Val Zemitis chess@davis.com
Again well packed with 24 pages latest Latvian Chess where many of the games are analysed by the Latvian ICCF Grandmaster Janis Vitomskis.
Some shall remember him as co author from Harding his chess CD The total Marshall.
One interesting game that I would like to mention from this game is Sveshnikov,E (2524) - Poulsen,M (2325) [C41] 37th Olympiad Turin ITA (10), 31.05.2006
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Qe7 3.Nc3 c6 4.d4 d6 5.Bc4 Bg4 6.h3 Bh5 7.Bg5 Nf6 8.g4 Bg6 9.Qe2 Nbd7 10.d5 Qd8 11.0-0-0 c5 12.Bb5 Be7 13.Nxe5 dxe5 14.d6 Bf8 15.Nd5 Qa5 16.Nxf6+ gxf6 17.Bxf6 Qxa2 18.Bxd7+ Kxd7 19.Qb5+ Ke6 20.g5 Bg7 21.Bxg7 Rhd8 22.Qxc5 Rac8 23.Qxe5+ Kd7 24.Rd3 Qa1+ 25.Kd2 Qxh1 26.Qb5+ Ke6 27.Qd5+ Kd7 28.Qxb7+ Ke6 29.Qe7# 1-0
For the fine notes to this game please see the magazine!
Conclusion: Interesting low budget chess magazine!