Quality Chess Blog

On Monday, Grandmaster Repertoire 7 – The Caro-Kann by GM Lars Schandorff and Soviet Chess Strategy by the late GM Alexey Suetin will arrive in our office in Glasgow. We will send the books to all webshoppers then. The books will be sent from our warehouse on Friday to various stores all over Europe as well. Those wanting to buy the books on Amazon or other cheap websites will unfortunately have to wait a bit. For the Americans, the books have been sent to sea and will arrive in the shops in two months approximately. However, www.chess4less.com will have some copies sent with airfreight, to arrive late next week or early the week after. They also got a few hardcover editions, books that will not be available through Amazon or similar sites, but only through the chess retailers. And at this time only in very limited numbers. (We personally find the upgrade to hardcover easily worth the money, but will not pretend that the content is in any way different. It is a matter of taste at the end of the day).

In our ambition to be on the ball, if not all the time then as often as possible, we purchase most of the opening books that come out; ignoring only those that look superficial even from a distance. A recent purchase was THE FRENCH DEFENCE by Nikita Vitiugov, the highest rated chess author of an opening book for a long time (omitting Karpov and other authors who have more than a fair share of help with their work). The book does have some interesting ideas and it is interesting to see what strong players think. One example is a line that recently has been quite popular: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Be3 Qb6 8.Na4 Qa5+ 9.c3 cxd4 10.b4 Nxb4 11.cxb4 Bxb4+ 12.Bd2 Bxd2+ 13.Nxd2 0–0 14.Bd3 b5 15.Nb2 Nb6 16.0–0 Nc4

Here White has to sacrifice the bishop on h7 in some way or form.

17. Bxh7+ Kxh7 18. Qh5+ Kg8 19. Nf3 g6 20. Qh6 Qc7

Vitiugov gives the following game as the main line:

21.Nh4 f6 22.Nxg6 Qg7 23.Qh5 Rf7 24.Nxc4 dxc4 25.Rf3 Qh7 26.Qg4 Rg7 27.Rg3 Rb8 28.h4 f5 29.Qg5 Rxg6 30.Qd8+ Kg7 31.Qf6+ Kh6 32.Rxg6+ Qxg6 33.Qh8+ Qh7 ½–½ Quesada Perez – Cordova, Havana 2009.

Although this was played in a game, they are not the best moves. Vitiugov does say about the position after 20…Qc7 that “Black’s position is so dubious that I am not sure that he can hold it, so it cannot be recommended.” These are wise words from a young but still experienced grandmaster with sound judgment. It is also a cop-out for not doing any analysis.

Before I give my improvement I want to explain why I am commenting on another company’s book, something I generally do not do, as we don’t want people to get the wrong impression. We have great respect for some of our competitors, Chess Stars included, but see it as their responsibility to promote their own product.

Getting to the point; when analysing such complex lines, it is important to combine good hardware with experience and analytical skills. We can say, hopefully without being too self-regarding, that we have the experience and analytical skills. But do we have sufficiently good hardware/software? Before the match in Sofia Topalov used a 112-core computer, if I understood it correctly. We have Quad-core machines with some MB RAM. At current we are using Fritz12, Firebird, Rybka and a few other engines to come up with ideas.

What do people think we should have/ be doing?

In Vitiugov’s example 21.Nh4 is interesting, but not convincing. 21.Nd3 leads directly to a better ending with simple play. But with the help of a strong engine, patience and analytical skills, I think I can offer better than this.

Here is my analysis of this line for the GM Repertoire 1.e4 book. The rest I will keep for later. My analysis is based on a brilliant Internet game.

Flyingfatman – New Man

PAL/CSS Freestyle final 2007

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Be3 Qb6 8.Na4 Qa5+ 9.c3 cxd4 10.b4 Nxb4 11.cxb4 Bxb4+ 12.Bd2 Bxd2+ 13.Nxd2 0–0 14.Bd3 b5 15.Nb2 Nb6 16.0–0 Nc4 17.Nbxc4 bxc4 18.Bxh7+ Kxh7 19.Qh5+ Kg8 20.Nf3 f6!

[20…g6 21.Qh6 Qc7 This position is a draw according to the engines, but human intervention will reveal otherwise: 22.f5! f6 (22…exf5 23.Rae1 Bb7 {23…f6 24.exf6 Qh7 25.Qf4 Qf7 26.Re7 Qxf6 27.Rfe1+-} 24.e6 Rae8 25.Ng5 fxe6 26.Rxe6 Rxe6 27.Nxe6+-) 23.fxg6 Qg7 24.Qh4 f5 25.Nxd4 Bd7 26.Rf3 Rfb8 27.Rh3 Rb2 (27…Rb6 28.Ne2+-) 28.Qg3 Be8 29.Nxe6 Qxg6 30.Nc7+-]

21.exf6 Rxf6

[21…Qc7 22.fxg7 Qxg7 23.Ne5 Rf5 24.Qh4 Qf6 25.Qh3 (25.Qg3+ Qg7 26.Qa3) 25…d3 (25…Qh8 26.Qa3 Rb8 27.Rf3+-) 26.Rf3 Kf8 27.Raf1 d2 28.R3f2 (28.g4 Qg7 29.R3f2 (29.Qg2 c3 30.Rxc3 Ba6 31.Qxd2 Bxf1 32.Kxf1 Rf6 33.Kg2 unclear) 29…Kg8 30.Rxd2²) 28…Rb8 29.Rxd2 some edge.]

22.Ng5 Qd8 23.Qh7+ Kf8 24.Qh8+ Ke7 25.Qxg7+ Kd6 26.Nh7! Rf5 27.g4 Qd7 28.Qh6

[28.Qxd7+!? Bxd7 29.gxf5 exf5 clear edge 30.Ng5 d3 31.Rac1 Ba4 32.Nf3 Kc5 33.h4 Re8 34.h5 Rh8 35.Kf2 Rxh5 36.Rh1 Rxh1 37.Rxh1 d4 38.Rh5 Kb4 39.Rxf5 c3 40.Ke1 d2+ 41.Nxd2 c2 42.Nb3 Bxb3 43.Kd2 Bxa2 44.Kxc2 clear edge]

28…Rf7

[28…Bb7 29.Ng5! Rf7 (29…Rxg5 30.fxg5 Rg8 31.Rf8 Rxf8 32.Qxf8+ Qe7 33.Qxe7+ Kxe7 34.Rf1+-; 29…Rff8 30.Rae1 Rae8 31.f5 Rh8 32.Qf6 Kc7 33.Rxe6 clear edge) 30.Nxf7+ Qxf7 31.f5 Rg8 32.h3 clear edge]

29.Ng5 Kc7?!

[29…Kc5! 30.Rae1 Qe7 31.Nxf7 Qxf7 This might be the critical position. I probably will put more time into this position at some point, but at the moment I am happy to see that White is at least a bit better.]

30.f5 exf5 31.Nxf7 Qxf7 32.Qf4+ Kc6 33.Qxd4 Qg6

[33…Qe7 34.Rad1 Qc5 35.g5 clear edge]

34.Rf4 Qd6 35.Raf1 Qc5 36.gxf5 Qxd4+ 37.Rxd4 Kc5 38.Rg4 Bd7 39.Rg7 Kd6 40.Rg6+ Ke5 41.f6 Rf8 42.Rg5+ Kd6 43.Rf3 Be6 44.Kf2 Bf7 45.Ke3 Re8+ 46.Kd2 Rb8 47.Rg7 Ke6 48.Kc3 Rh8 49.h3 a5 50.Kd4 Rh6 51.Rgg3 Rh4+ 52.Kc5 Rh8 53.Rg5 a4 54.Rg1 Rc8+ 55.Kd4 Kd6 56.Rg7 Ke6 57.Rh7 Rf8 58.Rf2 c3 59.Kxc3 Rc8+ 60.Kb4 Rf8 61.h4 a3 62.h5 d4 63.Kc4 Ke5+ 64.Kd3 Kd6 65.Kxd4 Ke6 66.Kc3 Rc8+ 67.Kb4 Rf8 68.h6 Kd6 69.Rxf7 Rxf7 70.h7 Rf8 71.f7 Ke7 72.Re2+ Kd6 73.Re8 Rxf7

1–0

Last night we received the hardback editions of GM1 and GM3. We quickly claimed a copy each, the remaining books will be for sale only on this website. I think there are 25 or so left of each. It will be visible on the site soon.

The good news is that they stay open, also at 480 pages. They simply look brilliant.

Usually we use this blog to discuss our own books, as we do not want to be seen as discussing the competition in any way. However, at times we can make an exception. Today we received a few copies of the book OLYMPIAD UNITED about the 2008 Dresden Olympiad. It is big, as in many pages and a good deal bigger than A4. Besides this it is in hardback. The book is full of nice b/w photographs and annotations from many strong grandmasters, and other punters such as myself. (Our connection to this book is through one of the three authors, Harald Fietz, who has taken a lot of the excellent photos seen in our books.) This is a brilliant book in the tradition of San Luis 2005, Champions of the New Millennium and other books that offer high quality chess, on good paper and with lots of photos. Get your local chess shop on the phone now; 100s of other chess players are already in the know…

New posting planned for tomorrow.

We have, starting with The Cutting Edge 1, begun publishing limited edition hard cover copies. The are available in the Limited Edition section.

On Friday 9th, we will publish THE CUTTING EDGE 1 and THE ALTERMAN GAMBIT GUIDE. It will soon be available in chess shops all over Europe, and hopefully somewhere in the US as well.

Further down the line, our publishing schedule looks like this:

Boris Alterman	The Alterman Gambit Guide – White Gambits	9 April
Milos Pavlovic	The Cutting Edge: The Open Sicilian 1	9 April
Lars Schandorff	Grandmaster Repertoire 7 – The Caro-Kann	May
Lubomir Ftacnik	Grandmaster Repertoire 6 – The Sicilian Defence	May/June
John Shaw	Quality Chess Puzzle Book	May/June
Christian Bauer	Play the Scandinavian	June
Tibor Karolyi	Karpov’s Strategic Wins: Volume 1 – 1961-1985	July
Tibor Karolyi	Karpov’s Strategic Wins: Volume 2 – 1986 – 2009	July
Mihail Marin	Grandmaster Repertoire 4 – The English Opening vol. 2	June/July
Mihail Marin	Grandmaster Repertoire 5 – The English Opening vol. 3	June/July

Having mulled this over for some time, we have decided to yield to the demand for hardcover editions of some of our titles. I had originally said that it would increase the price by 20-30 euro, and it would if we were planning to sell the books through the usual outlets. However, we will only be selling them on this site, and they will be in a limited quantity.

We have thus ordered 32 copies of The Cutting Edge 1, of which 5 copies have already been spoken for. So, 27 remain. The selling price will be 29.99 euro, which basically covers the extra cost of having this limited edition, and hopefully does not leave us with too big a hole in our pockets!

Later on in the spring we will have limited editions of GM4-7. After this we will think. In connection with this I have to violate something I said on the blog earlier – that we will not offer these before an excerpt is up. We will. However, I will not be limiting the number of the edition until three weeks before publication, so those waiting for an excerpt will have a fair shot.

The Limited edition category on the website will go live on the 5th of April.

Grandmaster Boris Avrukh – author of the highly successful books 1.d4 vol. 1 & 1.d4 vol. 2 will visit the blog, tomorrow, Tuesday. He will be happy to answer any general questions you might have, about chess, his books and so on. The only thing I have been asked is not to come with anything he needs to analyse, as this is supposed to be light and fun.

Avrukh has added a line to the GM2 update. You can find it in the free e-books section.

A few of you have asked about Hardback special editions. It would be possible only at a great increase in cost, maybe 20-30 euro more than the softcover’s cover price. (but not this time around, as it would have to have been earlier in the process.) It would be a strictly limited edition of 25 copies only of a work. Who would actually buy this?