Contents of ChessBase Magazine 94

The main database CBM 94

As you probably know, when you use ChessBase and click on the drive letter for the ChessBase Magazine CD in the ChessBase desktop, all the databases and subdirectories on the CD are displayed.

The main database of games appears as an icon labelled "94 CBM" in the main database window of ChessBase 8.0. Double-clicking the icon will produce a list of 1518 entries. At the top of the list there are some text reports. There are a total of five text files in the database, the other 1513 entries are games. Of them 450 contain expert commentary.

The best way to browse through the games is to click one of the tabs at the top. The most important in this case is "Tournament". When you click it you get a list of the different tournaments included in this issue. If you right-click the list you can sort the tournaments according to name, place, nation, date, category, etc. "Category" sorts the strongest tournaments to the top.

As you can see there is one tournament that outshines all the rest: it is the category 20 Super-tournament in Linares. This is traditionally won, by a large margin, by Garry Kasparov. But this year, playing a short time after his match against Deep Junior in New York, Kasparov seemed strangely subdued. This was not surprising to experts, and a similar phenomenon could be observed in the case of Vladimir Kramnik immediately after his match against Deep Fritz in Bahrain in October 2002.

Apparently preparing with and for the computer, and then actually playing against it, drains the confidence of these players. They slowly start to consider every opponent a refutation machine that will punish even the slightest misstep with brutal efficiency.

It takes some time for them to return to the real world of chess, where minor imprecision is not so relevant and stronger players will simply outplay their opponents by virtue of their superior comprehension and their keener combinational skills, not because they have managed to studiously avoid every single tactical loophole.

In the second round Kasparov also fell victim to another problem he has recently encountered, possibly for the first time in his career: to blunder like normal human beings. Take a look what happened in his game against a young prodigy from his own birth town of Baku:

Kasparov – Radjabov (2)

Here the "man with a thousand eyes", as Tony Miles once called him, played the incredible 27.Rdf1? overlooking the deadly continuation 27...Nb3+ 28.Kd1 Bxg3! and if 29.hxg3 Qg6! 30.Bc1 Qb1 31.Qxg5 Nxc1 32.Qxc1 Qe4–+.

The two lads from Baku face each other in Linares

At the end of the tournament the journalists in Linares picked this game for the brilliancy prize, much to the ire of Garry Kasparov, who said it perverted the entire concept of the award. "If Radjabov was given a prize for bravery I would have handed it to him myself," Garry told us later. "After all this boy was not yet born when I became world champion. But brilliancy prizes are awarded on other criteria which this game certainly did not fulfill.

The tournament ended with two players on +2 tying for first place. Note the difference between Kramnik and Leko: the former won two and drew ten games, while the "draw king" Leko reached first with four wins and two losses. How times – and players – have changed! Vishy Anand, who had started strongly, suffered a couple of traumatic setbacks and joined Kasparov half a point behind the leaders.

The strongest open of the year, with over 100 grandmasters, was the Moscow Aeroflot. Four players tied for first: Bologan, Aleksandrov, Fedorov and Svidler, with Moldavian Bologan taking the title on tiebreak points.

The Hrokurinn Category 15 Tournament in Reykjavik contains an interesting report by Luke McShane's father Rod, who did not miss the opportunity to photograph a famous chess table.

Chess Multimedia

The multimedia report on this issue of ChessBase Magazine is by Anna Dergatschova-Daus, who took her video camera with her to the Amber rapid and blindfold tournament in Monaco. Anna shows us a lot of pictures from the beautiful city on the south coast of France and conducted interviews with John Nunn, Loek van Wely, Veselin Topalov and the arbiter Geurt Gijssen. There are also sequences with the players analysing their games.

Scenes from Monacco captured by Anna Dergatschova. Left: Vishy Anand with wife Aruna, right Vlady Kramnik, Alexander Morozevich and Evgany Bareev.

Chess Theory

[A00] Amar Opening: Jerzy Konikowski tells you all about the startling first move for White: 1.Nh3!? "This strange looking move is attributed to the Parisian amateur Charles Amar, who frequently employed it in the thirties of the 20th century and quickly found followers. One of the most prominent of them was Grandmaster Savielly Tartakower who, well-known for his love to experiment, scored several victories with 1.Nh3, but also with other bizarre openings. In modern tournament practice, the formerly popular jump to the edge has literally become a marginalia. Since with correct play, Black should be able to secure himself the better perspectives. White can only hope for success if the opponent is taken by surprise, causing him to continue really weakly. So my assessment is: for ambitious tournament players, Amar's move is hardly recommendable! In amateur circles, however, this idea might definitely be worth a try." Konikowski provides 86 games.

[B09] Pirc Defence

One of the main lines of the Pirc goes 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 Bg7 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Bd3 Na6 7.0-0 c5 8.d5.

IM Michael Roiz looks at this variation which has been very topical in grandmaster practice for a long time (according to Mega 2003, this position appeared for the first time as early as in 1973!). Roiz concludes that the continuation 8...Rb8 is an acceptable line for Black. "White has to play very energetically, otherwise his opponent can seize the initiative. The most promising lines for the first player in this variation are 9.Qe2 and 9.f5!?. The latter move is less known, but in practice White has achieved very good results with it. Understanding typical pawn structures and strategical plans is required from both sides."

There are 168 top games in the database. Among the B09 experts who often use this opening with the black pieces are D. Fridman, M. Marin, A. Lugovoj and others. The most recent games are annotated (22 of them by Roiz). In addition, there is an opening key.

[C11] French Defence

In this article Alex Finkel concentrates on the following position: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Be7 6.Bxf6 Bxf6 7.Nf3 0-0 8.Bc4.

"Due to the increasing popularity of the French defence during the last 3-4 years, this line saw quite a few top clashes, each of which bringing its theoretical development one step forward. The purpose of this database is to summarize all material which accumulated over the years and point out the direction where one should look for improvements, be it for Black or White."

[C40] Latvian Gambit

After the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 the active pawn move 2...f5 presents the Latvian Gambit. Black plays a kind of King's Counter Gambit, i.e. one tempo down. A courageous decision. However, the surprise effect is guaranteed! Peter Leisebein uses his own games in this variation to focus on this line and show new trends. The question is: is the Latvian Gambit playable at all? One thing is clear. Black takes a high risk – however, he forces White to share it. The attached database contains 1652 games.

[C45] The Bird variation in the Scotch

The topic of this article is the variation 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Be3 Qf6 6.c3 Qg6.

GM Evgeny Postny writes: "The move 6...Qg6 was introduced about 130 years ago (!) by one of the strongest players of that time – Henry Bird. However. Until the 90ies of the 20th century this move was practically ignored and gained popularity only in the last decade. Basically it is not recommendable to play with the queen at an early stage of the game, since it may be attacked by the opponent's light pieces causing the loss of tempos. However, there are several concrete considerations in favour of this move, namely: Black's queen directly attacks the pawn e4 and puts pressure on the g2 pawn, thus restricting the development of White's kingside. On top of that, Black vacates f6 for the knight, a more natural square compared to the main line 6...Nge7. Conclusion: So far, White has failed to find a clear-cut way to obtain advantage against 6...Qg6. However, since this variation gained popularity only in the last few years, it is still too early to finalize the exact evaluation of this line. Most of the arising positions are very complicated, and the theory of this variation will undoubtedly grow in future." The attached database has 71 games.

[C83] Ruy Lopez Open Variation

The topic of GM Evgeny Postny's second article is the position arising after the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Nxe4 6.d4 b5 7.Bb3 d5 8.dxe5 Be6 9.c3 Be7 10.Be3 0-0 11.Nbd2.

Note that the diagram position can arise after different orders of moves, e.g. White can play 9.Be3 and then c3 and Nbd2. The variation has a long history, since it appeared already in the 19th century. It gained popularity in the first half and the middle of the 20th century and was used by many top players of that time, such as Alekhine (with both colours), Keres and Gligoric. Obviously the white bishop on e3 covers the diagonal g1-a7 preventing Black's counterplay connected with the pressure on the f2 square. Also, White prevents for a long time Black's typical d5-d4 breakthrough. This variation has a reputation of being less ambitious than the one with 9.c3 and 10.Nbd2 without Be3. However, it's quite solid and still a frequent guest in modern practice. During the last decade this variation appeared sporadically in the practice of many top grandmasters like Korneev, Milos, Kamsky etc. In the list of the games even the name Garry Kasparov can be found! Postny provides 88 games in the attached database.

[E05] Catalan

GM Zoltan Ribli tells us about the variation 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.g3 Be7 5.Bg2 0-0 6.0-0 dxc4 7.Qc2 a6 8.a4 Bd7 9.Qxc4 Bc6 10.Bg5 Bd5 11.Qc2 Be4 12.Qd1 c5.

This variation has become very important recently – especially in strong grandmaster tournaments. White has "lost" a lot of tempi with the queen, but can chase away the e4-bishop with either Nc3 or Nd2.

[E97] King's Indian – Modern Line

This beings 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 g6 3.e4 d6 4.d4 Bg7 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.b4 Nh5.

The young Israeli GM Boris Avrukh writes: "The 9.b4-system has lately become White's most frequent weapon in the King's Indian. Most top players play this line regularly. This move and the whole system gained particular popularity after some games of Vladimir Kramnik."

Other Chess Databases

On the CBM 94 CD you will find a number of other databases dealing with different areas of chess. Each of these sections is written by a leading expert and will help you improve your chess skills.

94 Strategy

Peter Wells has called his article "NOVELTY! – The Opening and the Search for the New". He writes: "The most striking characteristic of many novelties is to be quite honest the simplicity of the logic underlying them, and this includes some rather strong new moves in positions generally believed to have already undergone careful examination. It is not entirely clear why this should be the case. However, I suspect that we are all guilty at times of fixed patterns of thinking, and that this, combined with a certain predisposition to believe theory (I think Michael Adams is the only player with whom I have ever worked who I would say has almost entirely liberated his critical faculties from this) can lead us to overlook the obvious." The article contains seven didactically annotated examples.

94 Tactics

"The Magic of Sacrifice" is what Valery Atlas this time writes about. In his database you will find 26 examples decided by brilliant sacrifices. "I hope that working on them will give you a good chance to train your tactical abilities and exploit all tactical chances you might come across," writes the author.

94 Endgame

The endgame section by GM H.J. Hecht has looked at many obvious and less obvious bad errors which characterize the endings these days. His article is entitled "Endgame mistakes – why do they happen?" The 94 endgame postions tackle rook endings, with some additional pawn endings. Here's an example

(43) Timman,J – Ivkov,B, Amsterdam, 1971

The position, containing linked passed pawns, with three extra pawns, occurred a few moves after the the first adjournment. There followed 1.f6 a3 2.Rg8 Rxg8 3.f7 a2 4.fxg8Q a1Q+ 5.Kh2 Kxe7 6.Qg5+ 1-0. This sequence contains two glaring errors which both get a double question mark. Can you spot them? The answer is to be found in the 94 Endgame database.

ICCF Telechess

The CBM 94 issue provides news, information and games from a wide range of quality tournaments, which are played under the auspices of the International Correspondence Chess Federation, the official World organisation for all forms of correspondence chess, i.e. chess in which moves are exchanged by post, Email or other methods of transmission. The database contains World Correspondence Chess Championships, Olympiads and Team Tournaments, Zonal Championships and Tournaments, ICCF World Cup Tournaments, Member Federations & Invitational Tournaments, ICCF 50th Jubilee Tournaments, Official International CC Titles and Ratings, About ICCF and ICCF Telechess. There is a total of 3782 games.

Fritz Forum

For two years in a row Fritz rather audaciously won the annual computer chess tournament in Leiden. This time it is the Dutch program The King which took first, beating Shredder by a tiny tie-break advantage.

Congratulations to Johan de Koning, who actually spends more time programming the game Amazons these days. The Fritz Forum database provides all 63 games.