ChessBase 17 - Mega package - Edition 2024
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The Russian Team Championships, played in Sochi on May 1-10, saw rating favourites dominate the Premier League and the Women’s Tournament, as both teams finished the event with perfect scores. Moreover, the winners of the open section, the Mednyi Vsadnik, suffered only one individual loss in the whole tournament (in 48 games). Meanwhile, the Moscow Chess Team won 21 out of their 36 individual games in the women’s category.
The Beasty Botvinnik Variation in the Semi-Slav!
On this DVD you will be taken on a journey through what is arguably the sharpest opening line known to men.
While the team from Saint Petersburg in the open section had its top scorer in Andrey Esipenko, the Muscovite female squad was well-led by top seed Kateryna Lagno (the highest rated Russian woman player, Aleksandra Goryachkina, played in the open section).
Esipenko is currently the second highest-rated junior player (under 20) in the world, only behind wunderkind Alireza Firouzja. The 19-year-old rising star gained 15.4 rating points in Sochi, after collecting 6½ points in seven games, five of which were played with black. Back in January, the youngster from Novocherkask had beaten none other than world champion Magnus Carlsen in Wijk aan Zee.
A comparable performance was achieved by Lagno, who also scored 6½/7 in the national team championship. The experienced grandmaster and former World Championship challenger gained 11.6 rating points and climbed to fourth place in the women’s live ratings list.
Kateryna Lagno and Alexandra Kosteniuk were an unstoppable duo | Photo: Vladimir Barsky
In his fifth consecutive win with black in the event, Esipenko got the better of Rudik Makarian, who mistakenly entered a forced tactical sequence on move 26.
26.Rxb7 Qxb7 27.Qxd6 and it turns out that Black has a stronger attack after 27...Qxb2
28.Re1 Qc3 29.Re3 d4 30.Bc4 Perhaps White calculated this line and thought that his attack would break through or push Black to make concessions, but that was not the case.
You play 20 moves of elegant positional chess - but throw the game away by miscalculating. To play a good game of chess you must know how to calculate. The ability to calculate is not something that chessplayers are born with. Calculation is a core skill that can be improved through practice. In this 10th Power Play DVD Grandmaster Daniel King will help you to assess how good you are at calculating, and gives you tips as to how you might sharpen your thought processes at the chessboard.
Black simply takes the rook with 30...dxe3 and his king is safe after 31.Bxf7+ Kh7 32.Bg6+ Kh8 33.Bxe8
Makarian resigned after 33...exf2+, as 34.Kxf2 fails to 34...Ne4+ and 34.Kg2 would be responded by 34...Bxe8.
Kirill Shubin v Maxim Matlakov (0-1) on top board of the match Mikhail Botvinnik School v Mednyi Vsadnik (2-4) | Photo: Vladimir Barsky
| Rk. | Team | Games | + | = | - | TB1 | TB2 |
| 1 | Mednyi Vsadnik | 8 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 34,5 |
| 2 | Moscow Chess Team | 8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 29,5 |
| 3 | Gogolevsky, 14 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 28,0 |
| 4 | KPRF | 8 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 9 | 26,0 |
| 5 | Wildberries Molodezhka | 8 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 25,5 |
| 6 | Mikhail Botvinnik School | 8 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 23,0 |
| 7 | Ladya | 8 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 22,0 |
| 8 | SShOR | 8 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 16,5 |
| 9 | Kimmeria | 8 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 2 | 11,0 |
Full info at Chess-Results
In round 3, Lagno, playing white, got to hunt the king of the ever-adventurous Valentina Gunina — in typical style, Gunina did not draw any of the nine games she played in Sochi, winning seven of them to gain 14.8 rating points!
On this DVD, Grandmaster and worldrenowned commentator Maurice Ashley reviews some of the most interesting patterns with examples meant to educate and entertain.
31...Kb6 loses quickly to 32.Bd8+ Kb5 33.a4+
Gunina resigned with mate-in-6 on the board.
The Moscow Chess Team — Alina Bivol, Kateryna Lagno, Polina Shuvalova, Daria Voit and Alexandra Kosteniuk | Photo: Vladimir Barsky
| Rk. | Team | Games | + | = | - | TB1 | TB2 |
| 1 | Moscow Chess Team | 9 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 26,0 |
| 2 | Southern Ural-1 | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 23,5 |
| 3 | Ugra | 9 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 13 | 23,5 |
| 4 | Southern Ural-2 | 9 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 11 | 20,5 |
| 5 | Kimmeria | 9 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 11 | 19,5 |
| 6 | Youth of Moscow | 9 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 10 | 21,5 |
| 7 | SShOR-1 | 9 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 20,5 |
| 8 | Ladya | 9 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 21,0 |
Full info at Chess-Results
