Fast and Furious: New ideas in the Gruenfeld

Challenging Black

Although the amount of theory is growing by the day, the popularity of the Gruenfeld at both amateur and elite level never seems to cease. In tonight's Fast & Furious show we will take a look at recent developments and particularly the use of White's mobile pawn centre. Magnus Carlsen played two interesting games last month in Norway Chess, in which he quickly launched his h-pawn. In the second leg of the FIDE Grand Prix series in Riga, both Grischuk and Mamedyarov came up with some original new ideas to test Vachier-Lagrave in his favourite opening. 

The live show is free to watch and available on-demand for ChessBase Premium accounts.

A preview

Calculation Training

This DVD emphasizes the importance of training your calculation skills. Dutch IM Robert Ris made a selection of training material which he uses in lessons with students ranging from 1400 to 2400.

The following position has been taken from my analysis of the game Carlsen vs Grischuk in Stavanger. Try to calculate White's path to victory, then try it out against the diagram's built-in engine!

Move the pieces on the live diagram

This week's show

The Chess Player's Mating Guide Vol.1 and The Chess Player's Mating Guide Vol.2

The attention will be paid to the castled king and in particular on ways of exploiting the weakened kingside. Several well-known themes, pawnformations and other attacking weapons are covered in 8 chapters.

To chat, please visit videos.chessbase.com/live or login via Playchess for Windows

Robert is live at 19:00 CEST

Watch previous shows

Extreme Calculation Training

Special attention will be paid to Intermediate Moves, Quiet Moves, Sacrifices on Empty Squares, Mating Patterns, Ignoring Opponents Threat, Calculation in Defence and Method of Comparison. Plus 50 interactive examples to test your knowledge.

Many more Fast and Furious episodes are available in ChessBase Videos

Links

• All DVDs by IM Robert Ris
• ChessBase Videos
• Training resources