Speelman's Agony: English Botvinnik setups at club level

by Jonathan Speelman
3/1/2020 – This Agony and Ecstasy features some English games from an experienced club player from Wales, which GM JON SPEELMAN gives his usual pedagogic attention. As a bonus, Jon recorded a video version of his analysis. | Send in your own games! | Jon welcomes submissions from readers. If your games are selected for the Agony column, not only will you get free detailed commentary of your games by one of chess’s great authors and instructors, and former world no. 4 player, but you also win a free three-month ChessBase Premium Account!
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Agony & Ecstasy #117

This week's games are by Alan Llewellyn [pictured foreground with White] a Welshman who lives in Cumbria and writes:

Alan LlewellynI've played  chess seriously at the Barrow and Ulverston clubs since 1989. Being Welsh, I'm into rugby and my chess often resembles a rugby pitch after a long aggressive series of actions. I have played in the Isle of Man Masters and beaten some strong players including Keith Arkell online.

Alan's chess is rather up and down and of a number of games he sent me a couple were fairly disastrous but, at his best, he has an excellent feel for what needs to be done. 

I've chosen three, starting with a painfully quick loss in the Isle of Man against the Israeli IM and problem composer [and ChessBase contributor] Yochanan Afek. The other two are excellent wins in complicated middlegames. He provided some notes and assessments and I've added mine as 'JS'.

 

Click or tap the second game in the list to switch

The aim of these Dvd's is to build a repertoire after 1.c4 and 2.g3 for White. The first DVD includes the systems 1...e5, the Dutch and Indian setups. The second DVD includes the systems with 1...c5, 1...c6 and 1...e6.

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Jonathan Speelman, born in 1956, studied mathematics but became a professional chess player in 1977. He was a member of the English Olympic team from 1980–2006 and three times British Champion. He played twice in Candidates Tournaments, reaching the semi-final in 1989. He twice seconded a World Championship challenger: Nigel Short and then Viswanathan Anand against Garry Kasparov in London 1993 and New York 1995.

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