Some posts on this blog have drawn attention to the fact that the line 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.f3 is not mentioned in Grandmaster Repertoire 6A – Beating the Anti-Sicilians by Vassilios Kotronias.
However, the line was featured in Experts on the Anti-Sicilian, where the recommended response was 5…e5 with coverage of the variations:
A) 6.Bb5† Nbd7 7.Nf5 d5 8.exd5 a6
A1) 9.Ba4
A2) 9.Bxd7†
B) 6.Nb3
We have decided to make this chapter freely available as a pdf here.
Andrew writes:
“Early this year we were interested to hear from Chris Wainscott, an enthusiastic amateur from the US and an avid fan of our books. Soon the ‘Quality Chess Challenge’ was born, and earlier this week we were excited to receive an update from Chris about his training.
We are pleased to present a guest blog post from the man himself, where you can find out about the goals he has set for himself and his progress so far.
Over to you Chris…”
Chris writes:
Before I delve in to detail, let me first take a moment to acquaint the readers of the Quality Chess blog with myself and the Quality Chess Challenge.
My name is Chris Wainscott and I am from the USA. I am 43 years old and currently working to prove that it’s quite possible to become a master after the age of 40. I stopped playing chess in 1992 and didn’t begin again until 2011. At that time my Elo was just under 1500; now I am 1800.
The Quality Chess Challenge came out of a discussion between a friend and myself that caused to me make the offhand remark to Jacob Aagaard that I felt that it would be possible for me to get to 2200 reading nothing but books published by QC.
So for one year, from 2/13/17 through 2/13/18 I am committed to training using only books published by Quality Chess. Of course I don’t expect to become a master in that time frame, but I do expect to show the value in using high quality training materials.
Right now I’m about one quarter of the way through the Challenge, so it’s time for a progress update.
We’ll start with the most obvious thing.
Read more…
Current Scottish Champion GM Keti Arakhamia-Grant and former Scottish Champion Jonathan Grant, both FIDE Trainers, are running a training seminar in conjunction with Edinburgh Chess Club, on the topic of Critical Moments.
The primary focus will be on practical application through solving exercises and playing positions after following demonstrated examples. Aimed at all aspiring players prepared to work hard on improving their game, up to titled level.
Venue:
Edinburgh Chess Club, 1 Alva Street, EDINBURGH EH2 4PH
Schedule:
Friday 9 June 2017 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Saturday 10 June 2017 1:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Sunday 11 June 2017 1:00 pm – 6:00 pm
The fee, whether attending one or more sessions, is £49 for adults and £35 for juniors (U18).
For further details, see the Chess Scotland noticeboard.
To reserve your place, contact:
Neil Berry
E-mail: thebalernobull@hotmail.com
Phone: 07810-765-986
Live tournament coverage has really taken off in the last few years, with all major tournaments now coming with a commentary team broadcasting alongside the action. The commentator’s job varies from explaining the player’s moves, to interviewing them post-game, to generally passing the time with anecdotes or question/answer sessions with viewers. So our poll question this week is who is your favourite commentator?
Nigel Short, Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, Jan Gustafsson, Emil Sutovsky, Evgenij Miroshnichenko, Maurice Ashley, Jennifer Shahade, Yasser Seirawan, Simon Williams, Sergei Shipov or someone else?
Read more…
The eagerly anticipated World Cup began in Baku on Friday afternoon, and the chess community can undoubtedly look forward to over three weeks of high quality competition and drama.
For Quality Chess aficionados, however, there was much more than a World Cup at stake. Just as the first turn is often the most exciting part of a Formula 1 Grand Prix, our readers were glued to the initial 10 seconds of action to see which opening move would prevail. It transpires that players choosing the closed games simply have too many fiddly move order options available to them, while if you want to play 1.e4 you tend to just play 1.e4. In the end the result was fairly decisive, with 1.e4 streaking to a 6 point lead after round 1.1 and holding on comfortably in the return leg.
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Magnus Carlsen recently provoked a lot of discussion on the format of the World championship by giving his support to a knock-out system (see the ChessBase report here). What do you think is the best format for the World Championship?
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The results of last week’s poll gave a healthy majority in favour of Carlsen retaining World Number One status, and with no clear indication of who is most likely to challenge him.
With four other players now also rated over 2800, do you think Magnus Carlsen will hold on to the Number One spot until the end of the year?
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Last week’s poll results:
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