Are You Ready for a Strong, Dynamic Line against the French?
For some reason, many chessplayers feel a little uncomfortable when facing the French Defense. They search for active lines against this popular black reply to 1.e4. The Monte Carlo Variation of the French might be just what fits the bill.
The line begins 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.c4. It is worth mentioning that many other openings, including such diverse ones as the Queen’s Gambit Accepted, the English, the Petroff, etc., may also reach this position. The author, Ukrainian-French Grandmaster Vladimir Okhotnik, has had this variation in his repertoire for over 50 years and, by his own count, has played it in more than 200 serious tournament games. He now shares his extensive experience in this line.
For the most part, the Monte Carlo Variation has not been covered very well in chess literature. In fact, this is the first book devoted exclusively to this variation. Thorough coverage of positional concepts as well as tactical prospects make this a must-read for both Black (how to navigate the narrow path to equality) and White (how to maximize the pressure on the opponent). If you are looking for a strong, dynamic line against the French, go exploring with the author and look no more.
Ukrainian-French Grandmaster Vladimir Okhotnik won the Ukrainian Championship in 1979. He has won the World Senior Championship twice. Previous books include Carpathian Warrior, vols 1 & 2. This is his first book for Russell Enterprises.
The fourth and final volume of FM Hans Renette and IM Tibor Karolyi’s treatise on the life and games of Viktor Korchnoi will surprise you. Covering the period from 1992 until the maestro’s death in 2016 at the age of 85, it contains a bumper 208 highly instructive games and fragments. Fighting games, attacks, endgames, theoretical battles, time scrambles, classical and rapid – it has the lot.
And Korchnoi was no weakling in his incredible late career! He won the category 16 Madrid tournament in 1995 at the age of 64 ahead of Short, Salov, Yusupov, Polgar and Timman among others. His first place at Sarajevo in 1998 saw him achieve a tournament performance rating of 2831 at the age of 67. He was the highest-rated 70-year old ever with an Elo of 2639 in 2001. In that same year he won the category 17 double-round robin tournament at Biel, ahead of Gelfand, Svidler, Lautier, Grischuk and Pelletier. In 2004 he achieved a tournament performance rating of nearly 2800 in the city of Paks, Hungary, at the age of 73.
Viktor was still unleashing opening novelties in his late 70s, playing tournaments around the world and winning some of them. Notably, he was World Senior Champion in 2006 and was ranked in the world’s top hundred as late as 2007, when aged 75. He became Swiss champion for the fifth time in 2011 at the age of 80 and he even introduced a novelty in a game with Uhlmann in 2015 when aged almost 84.
This book contains games against Magnus Carlsen (whom he beat in 2004), Fabiano Caruana (whom he beat in 2011), Kasparov, Karpov, Spassky, Gelfand, Timman, Short, Ponomariov, Yusupov, Svidler, Uhlmann, Hort, Beliavsky, Piket, Speelman, Tiviakov, Adams, Sadler, Romanishin, Vallejo, Vasiukov, Sutovsky, Gashimov, Ashley, and the legendary trainer Mark Dvoretsky among many others.
It also contains 80 tournament and family photos, the vast majority of them published in a book for the first time. This book comes in B/W paperback, B/W hardback and full-colour hardback. In the full-colour version of the book, 70 of these photos are in colour.
Everyone knows that the Petroff is one of Black's most solid options to King's Pawn openings, which has endured for centuries. Most people DON'T know that the Damiano Variation - a subset of Petroff - is equally sound and not a beginner's trap into which we fell. The lines of the Damiano may be tailored from the same cloth as Petroff, yet they are quite different. One "Damiano-is-bad" critic wrote on my page: "...selling the Petroff Damiano line as a sure-fire draw for Black seems to me to be overselling it." Actually, incorrect. You CAN hold a draw with the Damiano if you are willing to put in some work of learning the critical lines and the defensive ideas. When I began to look deeper into the line, I came to the shocking realization that there is zero reason to believe in the "refuted" verdict since the engines are on the Damiano's side, not White's!
• The author has presented a complete opening repertoire for White.
• After 1.Nc3, the game can take various trans-positional paths.
• The opening move 1.Nc3 aims to control the center indirectly, and it allows for a flexible development of the pieces.
• The move prepares for subsequent development, and the game might transpose into various other openings depending on the subsequent moves by both players.
• While 1.Nc3 is not as popular or mainstream as some other first moves (like 1.e4 or 1.d4), it can be an interesting choice for players who want to steer the game away from well-known theoretical lines early on and enter into positions that might be less studied.
• As with any opening, understanding the resulting pawn structures, piece placements, and plans is crucial for successful play.
This exciting defence, which is characterized by the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 b5 6.Bb3 Bc5, always amazed me. Quite an aggressive setup, Black is aiming to get very dynamic play (even at the cost of some material in many cases) in order to put a lot of pressure on White players as early as possible! No wonder that great, ambitious players such as Anand, Shirov, and Caruana, just to name of a few, like to employ it regularly. The variation also gained some attention at the Carlsen-Karjakin world championship match from 2016.
The Ark has always been considered one of the theoretically-heaviest defences in meeting the Ruy Lopez, though also the most exciting and definitely the most beautiful of all. It requires tactical vision, good calculation and memory, but not just from us – from the White side too. Let’s not forget that! I also must say that no good lines are absent of theory, so if we’ve decided to learn something “finally”, I argue that it can very well be an ambitious, double-edged line too!
I should also mention that this book is a complete Black repertoire starting from 3.Bb5 a6, the exchange variation being the first chapter. The publisher and me agreed on offering a full package, one that should prove useful for many years to come!
What Does It Take to Play Master-Level Chess?
Becoming a master is a goal many chessplayers seek. And for most, it is an unfulfilled dream. Now, for the first time, the topic is squarely addressed. Not by a super grandmaster or high-powered international master, but by a "regular" national master, a master who earned his stripes in the trenches, battling his way to the title.
In Reaching the Top?!, author Peter Kurzdorfer shares his journey to the coveted 2200 Elo mark. Using his own games, major topics covered by the author include: Learning From Past Mistakes; Choose Openings to Suit Your Style; Handling Material Inequality; Practical Endgames; How Sound Do Your Openings Need to Be?; When Things Go Terribly Wrong; Overcoming Difficulties; and How to Win.
This guide shows what it takes to play at the master level. What you need to know. What you do not need to know. It is a practical presentation that will not only help aspiring masters, but in fact any player seeking to improve his game.
So come on in and sit by the side of a chess master as he plies his craft, marveling at the wonderful, intricate combinations and positional ideas and shuddering at the opportunities that supposedly strong chess players missed time and time again. Enjoy these every-day, blue-collar battles that do not involve the cutting edge of theory or top professional combatants, but do come out of ordinary amateur chess players who have made it work for them.
However, there is one requirement: you do have to love the game and give it your best shot, every game, every move. Mix in some discipline and concentration, and you too may be able to play master-level chess.
About the Author
After a 30-year adventure spent immersed in chess beginning in the early 1970s, Mr. Kurzdorfer is back. He is a long-time national master, chess teacher, certified coach and tournament director. He is also a former contributor and later editor of Chess Life and School Mates magazines, a former judge for the Chess Journalists of America, and author of The Everything Chess Basics Book and the Tao of Chess. Though no longer active on the tournament circuit, he is involved in chess editing once again, notably with Russell Enterprises, Inc.
With twenty-five years’ experience getting underprivileged kids to achieve beyond all expectations, Cripe now takes his holistic instructional methods to the chess arena. Designed for both chess novices and their coaches, The Learning Spiral sets out the theory, explains how it works, and then applies it with more than 400 positions for the student to solve.
We live in era of computers (unfortunately!) and we are simply forced to use them often and widely. Chess is no exclusion – it is impossible even to imagine modern chess without computers, engines, databases, online platforms, etc. Modern generations have their first connection with chess through computers, not books, and that is wrong of course! Young players prefer to memorize than to understand; they follow some fashionable line even if they do not know what is going on!
That motivated me to write this book – logic must be included in the process of chess education! Moreover, logic must be the most important part of that education process. Youngsters often neglect logic and not surprisingly they get surprised when their “well-remembered” variation doesn’t work.
Experienced players often lead the game out of theory, to places where understanding will prevail over memory and energy. That is my favorite concept against youngsters –setting static situations on the board – because young players usually go for dynamics, because they are good at calculating and memorizing. Understanding and logic are everything you need with statics on the board.
The author presents a full opening repertory for the club player, which is analysed in seven volumes. In the books you will find many novelties for both sides, with a full move-to-move presentation. Furthermore, the reader will get access to middlegame strategies, endgame techniques and common tactical motifs, which are patterning the proposed variations.
In the fifth volume the openings of the Chigorin Defence, the Queen's Gambit Declined, the Tarrasch Defence, and the Semi-Tarrasch Defence are presented.
Dear readers, the book in your hands is the second part of Ivkov’s “Chess Parallels”, the last book of his extraordinary career of chess player and analyst.
In this tome Ivkov deals with endgames and various types of queenless middlegame positions (early endgames). The examples he selected are both entertaining and highly instructive. Many of those jewels are not widely known, so a diligent reader should benefit quite a lot by examining them with patience and willingness to learn. Of course, the book could serve you well as a source of reference, as well as a collection of extremely interesting and captivating positions to delve deep into and put your brain to some severe tests! Either way, you are guaranteed to have a lot of fun and to pick up bits of chess wisdom on your journey through this book.
We hope that you will find as much enjoyment reading this book as we experienced ourselves editing it for your pleasure, since you are now well acquainted with Ivkov’s thought process and mastery by absorbing the material from “Chess Parallels I&II”
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