4/17/2022 – Chess is always tense, and the closer you get to lifting the tension, the tenser it normally gets. This is something that stronger players often exploit against weaker opposition. Grandmaster Jon Speelman uses three notable games to explore this all-important subject, including a fascinating encounter between Reuben Fine and Jose Raul Capablanca. | Pictured: Erich Gottlieb Eliskases
new: ChessBase 16 - Mega package Edition 2022
Your key to fresh ideas, precise analyses and targeted training!
Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. Start your personal success story with ChessBase and enjoy the game even more.
Your key to fresh ideas, precise analyses and targeted training! Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. Start your personal success story with ChessBase and enjoy the game even more.
You are looking for an active answer to 1.d4? Then the Grünfeld Indian is an excellent choice! Not by chance this opening is one of the main weapons of some top grandmasters!
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Keeping the tension
[Note that Jon Speelman also looks at the content of the article in video format, here embedded at the end of the article.]
We start this time with a diagram from the old book I’ve been revisiting over the last couple of months: The Middlegame by Max Euwe and Hans Kramer.
In this video series, it's all about understanding middlegame strategies better. Pawn structures, manoeuvres and concepts are being shown through model games.
Here simply d5 would win trivially, but White decided to finish with a flourish.
37.a7+ [37.d5+–] 37...Nxa7 38.Rxa7
38...Rb6!
Of course, White was expecting Rxb6.
40.fxg3 Qe3+ and Black has perpetual check! ½–½
This fiasco is an example either of over-confidence by White or trying too hard and, in any case, of the emotionally destabilizing effect of the apparently imminent end of the game.
Chess is always tense — unless somebody plays on much too long when they really should resign. And the closer you get to lifting the tension — escaping from the frying pan — the tenser it normally gets. This is something that stronger players are able to exploit against weaker opposition. And in battles between equals, it is often the player who blinks first by releasing the tension who suffers; while if somebody gets the upper hand, it is crucial for the defender to keep some tension for as long as possible to deny the attacker an easy ride, though sometimes you do just have to knuckle down and defend an obviously worse endgame.
I’m going to continue with a famous example from Euwe and Kramer, but first a crucial game less than a week ago in which determined defence had a huge reward. It’s already been on ChessBase with lightish annotations, but I wanted to highlight some of the crucial moments.
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa’s resilience paid off in his final-round game against Gukesh D at the Reykjavik Open | Photo: Thorsteinn Magnusson
Select an entry from the list to switch between games
He was a child prodigy and he is surrounded by legends. In his best times he was considered to be unbeatable and by many he was reckoned to be the greatest chess talent of all time: Jose Raul Capablanca, born 1888 in Havana.
Jonathan SpeelmanJonathan Speelman, born in 1956, studied mathematics but became a professional chess player in 1977. He was a member of the English Olympic team from 1980–2006 and three times British Champion. He played twice in Candidates Tournaments, reaching the semi-final in 1989. He twice seconded a World Championship challenger: Nigel Short and then Viswanathan Anand against Garry Kasparov in London 1993 and New York 1995.
5/15/2022 – Unashamed ultra-violence. Jon Speelman continues to share findings from his bookshelf, and today explores Irving Chernev’s “The 1000 best short games of chess”, a collection of miniatures first published in 1957. Speelman adds notes to selected games from the collection of thud and blunder.
5/1/2022 – Our columnist Jon Speelman found an old book by Alexey Suetin on his shelves. “Scribed in the ancient English descriptive tongue, I hadn’t touched it for years, but when opened, it proved to be a treasure trove of ‘old chestnuts’, some of which I’m going to share”. | Photo: <a href="https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/setting-up-a-chess-board-611545">The Spruce Crafts</a>
After 1.d4 d5 many players with White avoid the great amount of theory in the Slav, Semi-Slav, QGA and Orthodox Queen's Gambit and do not therefore play 2.c4. This is not very ambitious, but the painful experience of many chess players has been that the Colle System, the Trompowsky Attack, the Torre Attack and the London System are nevertheless extremely dangerous. Black has to be prepared for each of these openings and IM Valeri Lilov offers you some help with his six instructive videos, in which he demonstrates for each single opening a relevant plan for Black. In addition to the openings mentioned, the Bulgarian trainer also delves into the Catalan, the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit and the Richter-Veresov Opening.
The new Komodo Dragon 3 engine has gained 100 Elo points in playing strength over its predecessor when using a processor core in blitz. That's a huge improvement for a program that already reached at
an Elo level of over 3500!
FIDE Grand Prix 2022: Esipenko, Giri, Vidit, Oparin, Predke, Shankland, So and Vitiugov comment + videos by Rogozenco. "Special" on Bent Larsen. Opening videos by Kasimdzhanov, Ragger and Marin. 11 opening articles with new ideas for your repertoire!
The new Opening Encyclopaedia offers fast access to all openings. Openings are sorted via the menu by name & ECO Code for fast and easy access to your favorite openings.
Throughout my playing career I have found the Hedgehog one of the most difficult type of positions to master. The basic aim of this video is to improve understanding of these complex positions and to help tournament players score better.
Studying this video course should greatly improve the viewer’s handling of dynamic pawn positions! As with all my other video courses material here is predominantly aimed at improving players and tournament players.
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