CHESS INFORMANT’S 148th ADVENTURE
Following the Sun
CONTENTS:
CANDIDATES TOURNAMENT 2020/21 GM Ivan Sokolov
THE KNIGHT DOMINATED BY A (NOT SO) BAD BISHOP GM Mihail Marin
THE SEARCH FOR THE BRAZILIAN IMMORTAL GM Rafael Leitão
AGGRESSIVE PLAY AND ATTACKING THE KING GM Sabina-Francesca Foişor
SHINE AND POVERTY OF DOUBLE PAWNS GM Michael Prusikin
THE EARLY g-PAWN ADVANCE – Part II GM Ivan Ivanišević
THE SICILIAN DEFENCE – Keres Attack GM Krisztián Szabó
NEW IDEAS AND TRENDS IN THE ROSSOLIMO GM Miloš Perunović
A SURPRISING IDEA FOR WHITE IN THE FOUR KNIGHTS GM Priyadharshan Kannappan
NEW IDEAS IN THE PHILIDOR DEFENCE GM Danilo Milanović
ROGERS' REMINISCENCES – Biel 1985 and 1986 GM Ian Rogers
FROM THE CHESS INFORMANT ARCHIVES Douglas Griffin
Traditional sections: games, combinations, endings, Correspondence chess, Tournament reviews, the best game from the preceding volume and the most important theoretical novelty from the preceding volume.
The periodical that pros use with pleasure is at the same time a must have publication for all serious students!
Paul Morphy is a chess legend and without doubt one of the greatest players in the history of the game. His understanding of the game was years ahead of his time and in his era he was easily the best player in the world. His chess career was brief but brilliant and he influenced all the great champions who came after him. His legacy includes a treasure trove of wonderful strategic and attacking games which are highly instructive for all aspiring chess players. In this book, Grandmaster Zenón Franco examines in detail Morphy’s chess style, selects and studies his favourite Morphy games, and demonstrates how we can all improve our chess by learning from Morphy’s masterpieces. Move by Move provides an ideal platform to study chess. By continually challenging the reader to answer probing questions throughout the book, the Move by Move format greatly encourages the learning and practising of vital skills just as much as the traditional assimilation of knowledge. Carefully selected questions and answers are designed to keep you actively involved and allow you to monitor your progress as you learn. This is an excellent way to improve your chess skills and knowledge.
The 2020-2021 FIDE Candidates Tournament held in Ekaterinburg, starring super-grandmasters Ian Nepomniachtchi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri, Fabiano Caruana, Ding Liren, Alexander Grischuk, Kirill Alekseenko and Wang Hao, delivered an awesome display of fighting chess. Grandmaster and FIDE Senior Trainer Dorian Rogozenco, coach of the German national team from 2014-2020, provides a comprehensive move by move analysis of all 56 games together with an assembled Dream Team of 13 super-class GM guest commentators including Garry Kasparov and Boris Gelfand. The commentary covers opening strategy and novelties, middlegame battles and instructive endgames, psychology and practical observations, together comprising a swathe of learning material valuable to players from club level to titled masters. The book is illustrated with a selection of official FIDE photographer Lennart Ootes’s best shots from both halves of the event.
Initially things looked gloomy for Bobby Fischer. Because he had refused to participate in the 1969 US Championship, he had missed his chance to qualify for the 1970 Interzonal Tournament in Palma de Mallorca. Only when another American, Pal Benko, withdrew in his favour, and after the officials were willing to bend the rules, could Bobby enter the contest. And begin his phenomenal run that would end with the Match of the Century in Reykjavik against World Champion Boris Spassky. Fischer started out by sweeping the field at the 23-round Palma Interzonal to qualify for the next stage of the cycle. In the Candidates Matches he first faced Mark Taimanov, in Vancouver. Fischer trounced the Soviet ace, effectively ending Taimanov’s career. Then, a few months later in Denver, he was up against Bent Larsen, the Great Dane. Fischer annihilated him, too. The surreal score in those two matches, twice 6-0, flabbergasted chess fans all over the world. In the ensuing Candidates Final in Buenos Aires, Fischer also made short shrift of former World Champion Tigran Petrosian, beating the hyper-solid ‘Armenian Tiger’ 6½-2½. Altogether, Fischer had scored an incredible 36 points from 43 games against many of the world’s best players, including a streak of 19 consecutive wins. Bobby Fischer had become not just a national hero in the US, but a household name with pop-star status all over the world. Jan Timman chronicles the full story of Fischer’s sensational run and takes a fresh look at the games. The annotations are in the author’s trademark lucid style, that happy mix of colourful background information and sharp, crystal-clear explanations.
In 1971 Robert James Fischer defeated Mark Taimanov by the sensational score of 6–0 in Vancouver. Twenty years later Taimanov put pen to paper, reflecting on the experience and his, in total, 8 games with Fischer. This book is now published for the first time in English, exactly 50 years after the match.
With additional annotated games from Taimanov and guest appearances by some of the youngest and brightest stars of the US chess scene today, "I was a Victim of Bobby Fischer" gives the ultimate insight into one of the most famous chess matches in history.
Bishop or knight? An eternal dilemma! The legendary Bobby Fischer would likely vote for the bishop. Other authorities like Nimzowitsch would prefer the knight. The truth is somewhere in the middle. Of course, it is clear a bishop usually dominates in open positions while the knight should be preferred in blocked positions. But what does that “usually” mean? Are there exceptions? Sure, a bishop can dominate even in a blocked position if the controlled diagonal is important. Further, the knight can dominate in open positions if there is a good outpost or influential place for it. The pawn structure definitely determines the minor pieces’ prospects, and it is extremely important to predict the future properties of the pawn structure early in the game. Nowadays it is not enough to start thinking about the endgame in the middlegame. Today’s masters begin their opening strategy based on the arising endgames! Knowing the arising endings may give you some advantage even if the opponent obtained some initiative as was Petrosian’s manner. By studying this book you should discover many properties regarding the combat between the bishop and knight which will open new horizons in your chess understanding. In this book (Volume 1) I will present direct combat between the bishop and the knight. You may consider this a prelude to Volume 2 where the story will develop with more complex battles as other pieces will be added. There will be sections with rooks and queens added where either the knight or bishop will be superior. I have no doubts that if you carefully analyze the material in both volumes, you will master both the basic and advanced endgames where one of the key factors will be the material imbalance between having either the bishop or the knight.
CHESS INFORMANT’S 147th ADVENTURE
Awakening
TATA STEEL MASTERS 2021 GM Jon Speelman
FOUR NATIONS CHESS LEAGUE (4NCL) – Part II GM Gawain Jones
PLETHORA OF FRESH IDEAS GM Mihail Marin
CHESS TOUR MONEY LEADERS GM Daniel Gormally
THE EARLY g-PAWN ADVANCE GM Ivan Ivanišević
DEVELOPMENTS GM Krisztián Szabó
THE NAJDORF SICILIAN NEVER SLEEPS GM Miloš Perunović
HOW CARLSEN AVOIDS THE NAJDORF? GM Burak Firat
SUCCESSFULLY CORNERED KNIGHTS GM Kannappan Priyadharshan
Dr. TARRASCH'S NIGHTMARE GM Michael Prusikin
ROGERS' REMINISCENCES – SYDNEY 2000 GM Ian Rogers
Traditional sections: games, combinations, endings, Correspondence chess, Studies, Tournament reviews, the best game from the preceding volume and the most important theoretical novelty from the preceding volume.
The periodical that pros use with pleasure is at the same time a must have publication for all serious chess students!
Alvis Vitolins (1946-1997) was a seven-time chess champion of Latvia, a player with a ferocious attacking style, and one of the game’s last true openings innovators in the pre-computer age. He was a world-class blitz player and was a regular blitz sparring-partner of his friend, world champion Mikhail Tal. Vitolins often deployed gambits, and his attack-minded novelties in the Ruy Lopez, Sicilian, Nimzo-Indian and Bogo-Indian set trends that were copied at top-level chess, including in world championship and candidates matches. He gained the International Master title in 1980. Through an analysis of 25 of his most exciting games, this book, first published in Latvia in 2008, tells the reader of Alvis’s chess legacy, which includes many breathtaking Talesque sacrifices. Additional full games and fragments from Vitolins’s career are incorporated in the annotations. Opponents include the authors of this book as well as grandmasters Alexei Shirov, Vladimir Bagirov, Vladimir Tukmakov and other stars of Soviet and post-Soviet chess. The book contains a new foreword specially written for the English edition by Genna Sosonko, who met Vitolins on several occasions.
Four hundred years ago, an Italian chess master, Gioachino Greco, discovered an extraordinary bishop sacrifice on h7 that often leads to checkmate or a significant material advantage. More amazing still, he recorded the idea! This book chronicles the history of that idea, what many have come to call the Classic Bishop sacrifice, from its discovery and formative years through its remarkably complex uses in modern chess. During the past century, several annotators have attempted to explain the circumstances under which the sacrifice works, and when it doesnt. Edwards reviews their efforts and, in a spectacular ninth chapter, provides a modern classification. His taxonomy of the sacrifice is comprehensive and full of pleasant surprises for beginners and even accomplished masters. This book represents a thematic approach to chess tactics and strategy. Careful readers will suddenly discover that they are able, quickly and accurately, to see 5-10 moves or more ahead in these lines. Here you will find hundreds of carefully annotated games. Learn from brilliant moves and strategies; and take full advantage of others instructive mistakes.
In Mikhail Tal: The Street-Fighting Years, Tal’s long-term coach and second Alexander Koblenz takes the reader through the first 12 years of Tal’s chess career, from promising junior to world champion in 1960 and encompassing his return world championship match against Mikhail Botvinnik in 1961. This classic book, first published in the Soviet Union in 1963, contains 77 games and fragments annotated by the author who provides ring-side commentary and unique inside knowledge, as well as background information to the games and anecdotes. Five of the games are taken from Tal’s 1960 world title match and seven from his 1961 world title match. Aside from Botvinnik, opponents include Bobby Fischer, Vasily Smyslov, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, David Bronstein, Viktor Korchnoi, Paul Keres, Efim Geller, Yuri Averbakh and many other stars of chess during the 1950s and early 1960s. The analysis has been updated using the latest computer technology by International Master Valeri Bronznik. Bronznik delivers a masterclass in modern analysis of classical games while allowing Koblenz full scope to demonstrate how Tal destroyed his opponents with the best attacking chess known at the time. Indeed, Bronznik makes many new and exciting discoveries in Tal’s games and this work serves as an instruction manual for playing practical, street-fighting chess. As Alexei Shirov writes in his foreword, “I am very happy that this old but highly instructive book is finally out in English. The old Russian edition has always been a special treasure for me and I truly enjoyed reading it through again.”
Emanuel Lasker was world champion for a remarkable 27 years (1894-1921) and is generally regarded as having been way ahead of his time in his understanding of chess. He primarily regarded chess as a fight and considered that the strongest move in a position was the one that created greatest problems for the opponent and not necessarily the one that was objectively “best”. His strengths included: his skill at accumulating small advantages with quiet manoeuvring; his astonishing ability to find tactical resources in defence; his uncanny knack of provoking errors in balanced positions. Lasker was, essentially, a complete chessplayer and his games feel thoroughly modern. Indeed many contemporary elite players (the most obvious one being the current world champion Magnus Carlsen) exhibit a very similar style. The Move by Move series provides an ideal format for the keen chessplayer to improve their game. While reading you are continually challenged to answer probing questions – a method that greatly encourages the learning and practising of vital skills just as much as the traditional assimilation of chess knowledge. Carefully selected questions and answers are designed to keep you actively involved and allow you to monitor your progress as you learn. This is an excellent way to study chess while providing the best possible chance to retain what has been learnt.
CHESS INFORMANT’S 146th ADVENTURE
Once Upon a Time
NORWAY CHESS 2020 GM Elshan Moradiabadi & GM Miloš Perunović
FOUR NATIONS CHESS LEAGUE (4NCL) GM Gawain Jones
CRITICAL TIMES AT THE US CHESS CHAMPIONSHIPS 2020 WGM Sabina-Francesca Foişor
THE LEGEND OF HENRIQUE MECKING GM Rafael Leitão
HOW I SHOULD HAVE WON THREE BRITISH CHESS CHAMPIONSHIPS GM Daniel Gormally
THE ENGLISH OPENING – PART II GM Aleksander Delchev
THE ENGLISH REPERTOIRE FOR WHITE – PART II GM Ivan Ivanišević
SACRIFICING THE QUEEN – PART II GM Kannappan Priyadharshan
POSITIONAL EXCHANGE SACRIFICE – Occupying The Outpost GM Michael Prusikin
THE BEAUTY OF THE KING MARCH GM Sundar Mohanraj Shyam
ROGERS' REMINISCENCES – LINARES 2003 GM Ian Rogers
Traditional sections: games, combinations, endings, puzzles, Tournament reviews, the best game from the preceding volume and the most important theoretical novelty from the preceding volume.
Cookie settings
We use cookies to deliver and improve our services, analyze site usage, and if you agree, to customize or personalize your experience and market our services to you. You can read our Cookie Policy hier.
