Review of the WR Masters 2023 with analyses from Aronian, Duda, Esipenko, Gukesh, Keymer and Praggnanandhaa. "Special" on Vishy Anand. Opening videos by Mendonca, Bauer and Marin. Opening articles from Caro-Kann to King's Indian and much more.
I was delighted to be given the chance to pay tribute to the one of the great chess players ever! It was because of his journey and achievements...taking chess as a career was possible in India! He showed us the way and went till the end to win the coveted World Champion title...not once! But 6 times!!
1.e4 Generally I call him Vishy Anna, but here to avoid confusion among the readers...I will address him as Vishy (Anna) being hidden :).
1...c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 The Grand Sveshnikov which was always part of the elite players repertoire...though the real boom was made by Magnus Carlsen who started to use it exclusively from the 2018 World Championship Match against Fabiano Caruana! The year 2019 was just a year of demolition in this line by the World Champion with no one coming close to getting a win against him!
3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Nd5
7.Bg5 is the old mainline, but White has been struggling to show something here!
7...Nxd5 8.exd5 Personally I was never a fan of this line from the White side. I had always assumed that Black's centre pawn mass was far more important...but if White can get his own pawn majority in the queenside rolling, things could quickly get difficult for Black!
8...Nb8 9.a4
This was first introduced into practice by Zelcic against Sutovsky in 1995.
9...Be7 10.Bd2 I guess White is keeping an eye on the e1–a5 diagonal to get a quick Na3–c4 in case of a6.
10...0–0 11.Be2 a6
11...Bf5 Waiting for White to castle and only then decide what to do on the queenside seems more clever. 12.0–0 Nd7 13.a5 a6 14.Na3 with a complex game where comp seems to prefer White due to the space advantage.
12.Na3 a5 Black doesn't want to allow a5 which would give Vishy a firm grip on the b6–square which can be exploited by Nc4–Be3 etc.
13.Bb5!
Immediately exploiting the outpost made available by Black's last move.
13...f5 Black starts his kingside operations patiently waiting for White to castle...but boy he is in for a nasty surprise.
14.Qe2!? White improves his queen's placement, nothing special :).
14...Nd7 15.0–0–0
Finally the idea is revealed! Thanks to a4–a5, the queenside has been solidly fixed making it very difficult for Black to breakthrough while his main trump - the kingside initiative is going to be used by Vishy to create an attack on the enemy king.
A recent example was 15.Nc4 White is in no hurry to castle yet and activates his knight. 15...Nc5 16.Be3 Qc7 17.f4 e4 What else? Since taking on f4 would allow Bxf4 which further worsens Black's situation due to the pressure on d6 and he can't resolve the tension with the usual g5 as that would put the king in a dangerous position! 18.0–0–0 Bd7 19.Bxd7 Nxd7 20.Na3 followed by Nb5 with a big advantage and White went on to win a nice game in (Albornoz-Mamedov Olympiad 2022)...where a 100 points rating difference meant nothing due to the power of White's positional concept.
15...Nc5 16.f4 White begins his assault on the centre/kingside.
16...Bf6 Black had to play 16...exf4 17.Bxf4 Bd7! followed by Ne4 was more stubborn, I think that's why 15.Nc4 seen above might be stronger than the game continuation.
17.fxe5 dxe5 18.Be3
White is already having a big advantage and there is nothing Black can do to prevent the advance of the mighty d-pawn.
18...b6 19.Nc4 White's position just plays by itself! What a powerful opening concept by Vishy!
19...Rb8
20.Nxa5 Winning a pawn, but comp thinks it is not even required...since White's position was so commanding!
20...bxa5 21.Bxc5 Rf7 22.Kb1 It never hurts to play this useful prophylactic move.
22...f4 23.d6
The d-pawn is coming!
23...Bf5 24.Rd5 Bg6 24...Be6 25.Rxe5 with a easy win due to the powerful bishops controlling the board, while Black's rooks can't really do anything to oppose them.
25.d7 The d8–queen never got a make a single move in this game!
25...e4 26.Rf1 Going for the f4–pawn.
26...Bg5 27.Qg4
Forcing the bishop to retreat to h6 and preparing for the final invasion with Qe6! Black had seen enough and resigned. What a nice way to fight against the Sveshnikov!
1–0
26 annotated brilliancies by Vishy Anand can be found in the "Special" of ChessBase Magazine #213!
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The editors' recommendations: from first-class analyses from the WR Masters and the European Individual Championship 2023 to the video series "Fundamental Endgame Knowledge" Part 3 by Dr Karsten Mueller:
WR Masters 2023: The tournament winner, Levon Aronian, comments on two of his games. Plus analyses by Keymer, Duda and others. Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa each present one of their games in video! - European Individual Championship 2023: The winner Sarana comments on his groundbreaking game against Korobov, plus analyses by Shevchenko, Esipenko, Ponomariov and many others - "Special" on Vishy Anand: exclusive collection of 26 annotated games + contributions on strategy and endgame - French Gambit á la Carlsen: Sergey Grigoriants examines 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 h6!? – 0-0-0 against Bogo-Indian: Spyridon Kapnisis shows how White gets good play after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Bb4+ 4.Bd2 a5 5.a3, long castling not excluded! etc. etc.
WR Masters 2023: Levon Aronian gave his opponents, Gukesh and Nepomniachtchi, no chance in the tiebreak. The tournament winner analyses two of his games. Plus analyses by Vincent Keymer, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and others. Together with Sagar Shah, Gukesh presents his win against Praggnanandhaa in the video. And Pragg also demonstrates his game against Giri in the video!
European Championship 2023: Alexey Sarana prevailed over Kirill Shevchenko and Daniel Dardha thanks to a better second rating. The winner comments on his seminal game against Korobov, Shevchenko comments on two of his best games. Plus analyses by Andrey Esipenko, Ruslan Ponomariov and many others.
CBM authors analyse their favourite Vishy Anand games. An exclusive collection of 26 annotated games from 1985 to 2022 awaits you!
Christian Bauer recommends Black to play 5...Nh5 against the London System. Mihail Marin takes the game Esipenko-Aronian from the WR Masters as an opportunity to take a closer look at a Catalan variation that was popular in the 80s and 90s. Plus, Leon Mendonca shows how one should play against the King's Indian side line with 6...Bg4.
Christian Bauer: London System
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.g3 dxc4 5.Bg2 c5 6.0-0 Nc6 7.Ne5
Mihail Marin: Catalan
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5 3.Bf4 c5 4.e3 Nc6 5.Nbd2 Nh5
Leon Mendonca: King's Indian
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 Bg4
From Caro-Kann to King’s Indian – ChessBase Magazine #213 comes with 11 opening with new trends and ideas:
Evgeny Postny: Caro-Kann Exchange Variation with 8.Qe1
Petera Papp: Sicilian 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.c3
Tanmay Srinath: Sicilian Najdorf 6.h3 e5 7.Nb3
Sergey Gigoriants: French 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 h6
Krisztian Szabo: Petroff 6.Bd3 Bd6 7.0-0 0-0 8.c4 c6 9.Re1
Martin Lorenzini: Four Knights Game 4...Nd4 5.Bc4 Bc5
Christian Braun: Ruy Lopez Anti-Berlin 4.d3 Bc5 5.Bg5
Robert Ris: Queen's Gambit Accepted 3.e4 e5 4.Nf3 Bb4+
Lars Schandorff: QG Exchange Variation with 9...Ne8
Alexey Kuzmin: Gruenfeld Fianchetto System with 7.a4
Yago Santiago: King's Indian 5.h3 0-0 6.Bg5
Rainer Knaak presents you with eight current traps - from the Ruy Loez to the Slav, three of them additionally in FritzTrainer video format.
Based on the game Predke-Spyropoulos from the Novi Sad Open 2022, Spyridon Kapnisis shows a weapon against the Bogo-Indian popular among club players: after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Bb4+ 4.Bd2 a5 5.a3 Bxd2+ 6.Qxd2 d6 7.Nc3 Nbd7 8.e4 e5 White surprisingly lets 9.0-0-0 follow!
With the game Szabo-Stepanencu from the Romanian Championship 2023, Robert Ris has not chosen a world-class game this time. But this encounter has it all! “An absolute masterpiece that I couldn't resist sharing with you.”
The game Karpov-Yussupov (1983) is a real masterpiece of positional play. In this encounter, the then World Champion demonstrated in exemplary fashion how to stop any active play by the opponent through perfect prophylaxis.
In the sixth episode of his training series, Jan Markos gives tips on how to play in an objectively lost position to perhaps avert defeat in the end!
Strategy expert Mihail Marin sheds light on the strategic skills of the 15th World Champion with a special focus on the categories "Pawn play", "Initiative" and "Dominance and blockade". Incl. video introduction and two training units in interactive video format!
In the tactics article with 37 games, tactics expert Oliver Reeh has compiled material from current rapid chess tournaments. You can solve his three favourite combinations move by move in the interactive video format with feedback function!
Dr Karsten Mueller continues his training series. Following an introductory video, your technique is called for in three interactive videos!
Order now in the ChessBase Shop !
Try out ChessBase Magazine now! Order the ChessBase Magazine taster package!
Read ChessBase Magazine for 6 months (= 3 issues) for the special price of only 39.90 € (instead of 59,85 € for buying them individually). As a thank you, you will also receive 3 months ChessBase Premium Membership free of charge.
*Bonus for new subscribers only, i.e. there was no CBM subscription for 12 months!
Save twice with ChessBase Magazine: For the annual subscription to ChessBase Magazine you’ll pay only €99.70 per year (compared to €119.70 for the 6 individual issues).
* Bonus only for new subscribers, i.e. there was no CBM subscription for 12 months! As a new subscriber you will receive the original ChessBase USB stick with 128 GB
