Speelman's Agony #68
1/14/2018 – A reader from Sweden gets a second crack at Jon who looks at two wild gambit games. Fancy Jon taking a look at your games? Send them in! If you appear in the Agony column, not only will you get free detailed commentary of your games by one of chess’s great authors and instructors, and former world no. 4 player, but you also win a free three-month ChessBase Premium Account!
Fritz 16 - He just wants to play!
Fritz 16 is looking forward to playing with you, and you're certain to have a great deal of fun with him too. Tense games and even well-fought victories await you with "Easy play" and "Assisted analysis" modes.
What the Cochrane?
Chess players tend to divide roughly between strategists and tacticians. The former, of course, prefer relatively quiet clean positions while the latter revel in mess. But the dichotomy is really something of a caricature. Tactical soundness underpins everything and if you scratch any really strong player however apparently dry their games, you will find a ferocious tactical intelligence underneath.
Some players — and I count myself among them — have two quite different modes (strategist and hacker) depending on mood and opportunity and this week's games come from one such.
A year and a half ago, I published in Agony #8 a couple of very positional games by Tomas Yttling a Swede who will be 40 this year. They were both highly positional involving the exploitation (one successful one only ending in a draw) of superior pawn structures but Tomas also mentioned that he sometimes likes to "go all in" and sent me two highly tactical ones, apparently from a quite different player.
Click or tap on the second game in the game list below the board to switch
Meeting the Gambits Vol.1 - Gambits after 1.e4
On Meeting the Gambits Vol. 1; Gambits after 1.e4, FIDE Senior Trainer Andrew Martin provides you with an excellent selection of repertoire choices and teaches you the right approach to take against gambiteers.
Submit your games!
Did you enjoy the column and instructive analysis by GM Jonathan Speelman? Do you wish you could have a world-renowned grandmaster analyzing your play? You can!
To submit your games just upload a PGN or ChessBase file, along with your name and e-mail address. Send one success story (Ecstasy) and one loss (Agony).
Tell why you chose them, where or when they were played. Please also include your email address, so Jon can reply, and preferably a photo of yourself for our article.
If your game is selected Jon will contact you personally, and not only will you get free detailed commentary of your games by one of chess’s great authors and instructors, and former world no. 4 player, but you also win a free three-month ChessBase Premium Account!
ChessBase Account Premium annual subscription
At the airport, in the hotel or at home on your couch: with the new ChessBase you always have access to the whole ChessBase world: the new ChessBase video library, tactics server, opening training App, the live database with eight million games, Let’s Check and web access to playchess.com
A three-month Premium subscription to ChessBase Account means you get:
- Premium access to the Playchess server with ratings, simuls, lectures, and live commentary of top games
- Access to all Web apps with no restrictions, such as the Cloud database (MyGames.chessbase.com), and more!
- Full access to the Video archive, which not only includes all the past lectures by Daniel King, Simon Williams and others, but also a large number of full ChessBase products you would normally need to buy in the ChessBase Shop but that you can view for free as a Premium subscriber.
See also:
- Previous column: Speelman's Agony #67
