9/13/2016 – Every week ChessBase magazine author and renowned endgame expert Karsten Müller presents a remarkable or particularly instructive endgame in his blog. A click on the diagram opens a larger board. Test your endgame skills, improve and have fun!
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Do you like these lessons? There are plenty more by internationally renowned endgame expert Dr Karsten Müller in ChessBase Magazine, where you will also find openings articles and surveys, tactics, and of course annotations by the world's top grandmasters.
Apart from his regular columns and video lectures in ChessBase Magazine there is a whole series of training DVDs by Karsten Müller, which are bestsellers in the ChessBase Shop.
1. The Italian is back “in”: Peter Heine Nielsen explains his protégé Magnus Carlsen’s winning strategy in Carlsen - Anand.
2. Mate in 7! The new European champion Ernesto Inarkiev annotates his “most beautiful game” on the way to the title: Inarkiev - Svetushkin
3. „Play like Viktor the Terrible”! Find, along with GM Williams, brilliant moves by the recently deceased chess legend (video): Move by Move
4. Mamedyarov’s first strike: enjoy one of the most exciting games from the Gashimov Memorial with the analyses of our author Valeri Bronznik.
5. That’s what technique is all about! Claus-Dieter Meyer shows how Giri could have drawn the tournament deciding rook ending against Mamedyarov.
6. Positional piece sacrifices: strategy expert Mihail Marin demonstrates copybook blows and amazing replies: Strategy (including an introduction Video)
7. Vis-à-vis in the h-file: solve Oliver Reeh’s Ffavourite combination in interactive format with video feedback.
8. 0-0 on move 36! Anand’s second of many years standing, Ganguly, shows how he drew the teeth from Shirov’s Sveshnikov Variation and triumphed brilliantly in the endgame.
9. A surprise weapon in the Najdorf: let Andrew Martin explain to you the strategic and tactical potential of the variations after 6.Qe2. (Najdorf video 6.Qe2)!
10. Queen’s Gambit par excellence: Robert Ris puts on the test bench the highly topical pawn sarifice 6.Bxc4 against the Vienna Variation.
Introductory video by Karsten Müller
Opening surveys
Havasi: Reti Opening A07 1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 c6 3.Bg2 Bf5
In the second part of his suggested repertoire based on 3...Bf5 Gergö Havasi investigates white setups with d3. In the starting position White can prepare the advance e2-e4 or first play c4. Black generally equalises.
Although Black should theoretically have no problems with the knight move, the statistics show a high success rate for White. In Martin Breutigam’s article the alternatives to 3...f6 are also looked at.
Iotov: English Opening A21
1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 d6
The move 2...d6 is linked to a simple plan: ...f5, ...Be7 and ...Nf6; as long as ...Nc6 has not been played, ...c6 (more rarely ...c5) also remains an option. White can play with or without d2-d4, but according to Valentin Iotov he should not be able to get much out of it.
With 5...e4 (instead of 5...Bc5) Black injects some sharpness into the opening. At the candidates tournament in Moscow there were successes for both sides. According to Evgeny Postny, however, the balance should not be disturbed.
From the diagram Black can play the “old variation” 10...0-0 or with 10...Nxd4 choose the “new variation”. In his very extensive article Andrey Terekhov examines both and also sets a few test exercises.
Anyone not wishing to play 9...d5, can choose the move order which leads to the diagram. As Krisztian Szabo shows in his article, by doing so Black takes a great risk. With best play on both sides White can certainly gain an advantage.
Neither 6.f4 nor 7.Bd3 is very popular, but as Marian Petrov demonstrates in his contribution, Black needs to know what he is doing if he is not to rapidly fall behind. Probably 7...Nbd7 is the best reply.
According to Viktor Gavrikov Black can equalise with 12...Na5; he is planning ...Nc4 and ...e5. The knight move has been slightly less analysed to death than e.g.12...Rb8 and 12...Bf8, but nevertheless leads to typical Scheveningen positions.
In the 3rd part of his series on the Chigorin Defence, Valeri Bronznik examines two queen moves which are intended to exploit the absence of the opposing light-squared bishop from the queenside: 5.Qa4 and 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Qb3. Black needs to know what he is doing and play accurately.
The main line of the Vienna Variation (6.Bg5) has been analysed to great depth; the gambit 6.Bxc4 is a viable alternative. Robert Ris cannot prove an advantage for White, but nor does he see how Black should safely equalise.
This time Mihail Marin examines variations in which Black plays ...e5 – either immediately or after preparatory moves. The judgement of our Romanian author is a cautious one: he cannot say definitely that there is an advantage for White, but he would rather have the white pieces.
It is slightly surprising that Black is able to play 8...c5 at this juncture. Alexey Kuzmin calls it the Radulski Variation because the Bulgarian grandmaster who passed away at an early age (1972-2013) played this way. But in the meantime Kramnik too has adopted the variation in his repertoire.
Michal Krasenkow introduces an easy to learn plan against the early check by the white bishop. The Polish grandmaster bases this on typical Grünfeld moves, which can easily be assimilated.
Karsten MüllerKarsten Müller, born 1970, has a world-wide reputation as one of the greatest endgame experts. He has, together with Frank Lamprecht, written a book on the subject: “Fundamental Chess Endgames” in addition to other contributions such as his column on the website ChessCafe as well as in ChessBase Magazine. Müller's ChessBase-DVDs about endgames in Fritztrainer-Format are bestsellers. The PhD in mathematics lives in Hamburg, where he has also been hunting down points for the HSK in the Bundesliga for many years.
9/5/2017 – Endgames with opposite coloured bishops are tricky. Sometimes they are a draw although one side is two or even three pawns up. Sometimes the bishop sacrifices itself to let his pawns queen and sometimes these endgames are a simple win. But you always have to be careful.
8/29/2017 – If queen and king fight against king and pawn in the endgame the side with the pawn has only a chance to survive if the pawn happens to be a rook- or a bishop's pawn and is only one square away from queening. But even then things can be tricky.
Tired of spending hours and hours on the boring theory of your favourite opening? Then here is your solution, play an Anti-Sicilian with 3.Bb5 against 2...d6 or 2...Nc6, and 3.d3 against 2...e6. In 60 minutes you will get a crash course in how to avoid mainstream theory and in understanding the ideas of this Anti-Sicilian setup. After these 60 minutes you should be able to survive the Sicilian for a long time, without being bothered by new developments found by engine x supported by an x-core machine. Now that it finally comes down to understanding, let's play chess!
The Sniper is a universal opening framework which can be played against all main first white moves - 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.c4, 1.f4 and 1.Nf3. Black plays 1…g6, 2…Bg7 and 3…c5 against practically anything!
