"How to deal with draw offers"
At the start of his video Jan Markos complains that in chess there are far too many early draws and blames two reasons for this: laziness and fear. Of course, every player should try to tackle the former for themselves. But what about fear? Markos addresses this second cause in his video with an example from his own tournament practice. In this position
his opponent, GM Gergely Antal, surprised him with the advance 17.e5. Markos subsequently found the best continuation 17... dxe5 18. g4 Bxg4 19.hxg4 Qxg4+. But the fact that he had completely overlooked his opponent's 17th move made him so emotionally unsettled that after 20.Kf1 he agreed to a draw by repetition of the position after 20...Qh3+ 21.Kg1 Qg4+ etc. If he had been able to look at the position objectively and assess it, he would have been better off continuing with 20...Rab8 21.Qe3 Rfd8 after 20.Kf1 - because Black simply has nothing to fear in this position. Markos' first general tip is therefore: take your time when you feel uncertainty or fear to get back into a stable emotional state. And then go back to work at the board.
Total rnning time of video in ChessBase Magazine #212: 21:28 min.
Markos then uses other grandmaster games to work out further tips and rules of thumb that will help you avoid unnecessary draws and go for the full point more often! But of course there are also cases in which it is advisable to accept a draw offer - the GM from Slovakia also sets out some rules of thumb for this.
As in the previous articles, Jan Markos has again put together a small collection of training exercises. To accept a draw or not - that is always the question here! An example:
Question: Black offered a draw after playing 10...Nd5.
Would you accept it? Answer below!
You can find the complete article by Jan Markos in ChessBase Magazine #212!
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Answer by Jan Markos: Such a draw offer by Black so early in the game is a bit inappropriate. I would guess Black wants to bail out of the game before it becomes clear that White is better. With many pieces on the board, White might still get confused. In fact, White has a simple way to a better endgame here. Therefore Sethuraman declined the draw offer and later won the game against Gupta.
Highlights of ChessBase Magazine #212
These are the editors' recommendations – from first-class analyses from the Tata Steel Masters and Challengers 2023 to the endgame series "Fundamental Endgame Knowledge" by Dr Karsten Mueller:
Tata Steel 2023: Anish Giri comments on three of his games, plus analyses by Praggnanandhaa, Jorden van Foreest, Peter Heine Nielsen, the winner of the Challenger, Alexander Donchenko and many others. Dorian Rogozenco presents two games in the video that were decisive for the outcome of the Masters!
Rapid Highlights: Anish Giri, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Peter Heine Nielsen analyse selected games from the Rapid Chess World Championship and the Meltwater Champions Chess Final 2022.
CBM authors analyse their favourite game of the Englishman (1955-2001). Exclusive collection of 21 annotated games from the years 1978 to 2001.
When should you accept a draw offer and when not? Which emotional aspects can influence our decision, and how can we block them out as best we can? Don’t miss part 5 of the training series “Practical Tips for the Tournament Player” with GM Jan Markos. Video + small collection of exercises.
Robert Ris shows Magnus Carlsen's fantastic game against Nodirbek Abdusattorov from the 2022 Rapid World Championship. Can you find the moves of the triple world champion?
Spyridon Kapnisis presents the Scotch Gambit: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bc5 5.Ng5!? After 5...Nh6 6.Nxf7 Nxf7 7.Bxf7+ Kxf7 8.Qh5+ White wins back the piece on c5 and has in any case already achieved a partial success.
All three opening videos pick up current ideas from the top tournament in Wijk aan Zee! Rustam Kasimdzhanov examines the Ruy Lopez with 8.a4 b4 9.a5, which came on the board twice at the "Masters". Nico Zwirs examines Magnus Carlsen's idea of 7...Bg4 in the Exchange Variation of the Queen's Gambit. And Mihail Marin puts the Evans Gambit from Beerdsen-Pechac from the "Challengers" to the test.
Rustam Kasimdzhanov: Ruy Lopez
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.a4 b4 9.a5
Mihail Marin: Evans Gambit
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3 Ba5 6.d4 d6 7.Qb3 Qd7 8.0-0 Bb6 9.Nbd2
Nico Zwirs: Queen’s Gambit Exchange Variation
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 Be7 6.e3 h6 7.Bh4 Bg4
From the Reti Opening to the King's Indian - ChessBase Magazine #212 offers 11 opening articles with new ideas for your repertoire!
Vogel: Reti Opening 1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 b6
Kuzmin: English 1...e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3 e4 4.Ng5 c6
Sumets: Caro-Kann Exchange 4.c4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6
Papp: Najdorf 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 h6 8.Bh4 Qb6 9.a3
Santiago: French 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 a6!?
Schandorff: Scotch with 4...Bc5 and 7...a5!?
Ris: Italian Ulvestad Variation 5...b5!?
Srinath: Open Ruy Lopez Part II
Postny: Nimzo-Indian 4.Nf3 0-0 5.Bg5 c5 6.Rc1
Grigoriants: Catalan 6...dxc4 7.Qc2 b5 8.a4
Szabo: King's Indian 5.Be2 0-0 6.Be3 e5 7.d5
“From the English Opening to the Queen’s Gambit” – Rainer Knaak takes a close look at eight traps from current tournament practice (incl. three FritzTrainer videos)
Mihail Marin presents the legend from England, Anthony Miles, as a universal player and explains how strategy and tactics worked together harmoniously in his best games. Including a detailed video introduction and – for the first time in CBM – two interactive training videos!
Dorian Rogozenco shows one of the most spectacular games from the match "Soviet Union vs. the Rest of the World" in 1970: Bent Larsen came to blows on the first board of the world selection in only 17 moves. against world champion Boris Spassky! Part 3 of the new video series.
Sometimes it is simply necessary to part with one's queen. Oliver Reeh's article contains 32 games, peppered with plenty of training exercises. Plus three interactive videos with our author’s favourite combinations.
The endgame expert Dr Karsten Mueller continues his training series with the topic "Rook + Pawn vs. Rook". Also: Endgame highlights of Anthony Miles.
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
