Quality Chess Blog

We had a editorial meeting Wednesday and I suggested, based on the likely spring publication of Playing 1.d4 vol. 1+2 and Playing 1.e4 vol. 1+2 that maybe my immediate attention should be to complete my quite advanced work on my four training books. As a starting point my personal goal will be for these books to be finished for publication on the 31st of July – which indeed is my birthday.

I have worked hard on these books for many years by now and have used them extensively with pupils and friends, some of them already solidly anchored at the top of the rating system and others on their way there. My most consistent cooperation has been with Sabino Brunello from Italy. When we started working Sabino was about to get the IM title. Yesterday he passed the 2600 mark in live rating for the first time and as I am writing he has an advantage against Nigel Short. I am hedging my bets by writing this before things might turn! Anyway, here is his great performance from yesterday:

(board 9) Sargissian,Gabriel (2683) – Brunello,Sabino (2581) [A00]
Gibraltar Chess Festival 2012, 26.01.2012

1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Nf6 3.c4 c6 4.e3 Bf5 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nh4 Bg6 7.Nxg6 hxg6 8.Bd3 Nbd7 9.0-0 Bd6 10.h3 Qe7 11.c5 Bc7 12.f4 Ng8 13.b4 a6 14.e4 dxe4 15.Nxe4 Ndf6 16.Ng5 Qd7 17.Bc4 Ne7 18.Be3 Nf5 19.Qd3 Rd8 20.Rad1 Nd5 21.Bxd5 Qxd5 22.a4 0-0 23.Nf3 Ng3 24.Rfe1 Qf5 25.Qxf5 Nxf5 26.Kf2 Rd5 27.g4 Ne7 28.Rb1 Rd7 29.Ne5 Bxe5 30.fxe5 Nd5 31.Bd2 f5 32.exf6 Nxf6 33.Ke3 Rfd8 34.Bc3 Nd5+ 35.Kd3 Nxc3 36.Kxc3 Rxd4 37.b5 R4d5 38.Kb4 axb5 39.axb5 e5 40.Ra1 cxb5 41.Kxb5 Rc8 42.Rac1 Kf7 43.Rc2 Ke6 44.h4 Ra8 45.h5 Ra3 46.hxg6 Rd4 47.Kb6 Rb4+ 48.Kc7 Ra6 49.g5 Rc6+ 50.Kb8 Kf5 51.Rf1+ Kxg6 52.Rd1 Kxg5 53.Rd6 e4 54.Rxc6 bxc6+ 55.Kc7 e3 56.Kxc6 Kf4 57.Kd5 Kf3 58.c6 Rb8 59.c7 Rc8 60.Rc3 Kf2 61.Rc4 g5 62.Rc6 e2 63.Rf6+ Ke3 0-1

I have rarely seen a piece trapped so nicely as in this little game I just played on PlayChess with Black.

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 c5 4. cxd5 exd5 5. g3 Nc6 6. Bg2 Nf6 7. O-O Be7 8. Nc3 O-O 9. dxc5 Bxc5 10. Na4 Be7 11. Be3 Bg4 12. Rc1 Re8 13. Re1 Rc8 14. Bc5 Bxc5 15. Nxc5 Qb6 16. Qb3 Bxf3 17. Bxf3 Nd4 18. Qxb6 axb6 19. Nxb7 Rb8 20. Nd6 Red8
0-1

The long road leading to Grandmaster Repertoire 10 – The Tarrasch Defence seems to be coming to an end. The boys will upload the book tomorrow or maybe even today. Meanwhile I have been testing the lines in the European Team Championship in Greece. So far two draws, against strong opposition. As I have managed to win both of my white games, this has been a great success. Today awaits Armenia and either Akopian or Sargissian. Chances are the Tarrasch – and especially my memory – will be seriously tested.

Update from Scotland: We reckon Jacob has White against Akopian. Live games can be watched here.

We are sitting four people in the office far beyond our normal time of departure, fighting to get Karpov’s Strategic Wins 2 – The Prime Years away to the printer this evening. The scheduled publication date of the 29th of April remains realistic. The first volume has already been printed, so there are no issues there.

At the same time we have just agreed a four day seminar in Glasgow from the 5th to the 8th of May with Grandmaster Boris Avrukh. He will lecture on issues from the opening and middlegame – ‘but tell them, no endgames!’.

The price for participating will be 120 pounds for all four days, with a discount of 50% for everyone wanting to come from outside Scotland to follow the lectures. If we have more than 20 full price paying participants, a copy of any of Boris’ four books (including Experts on the Anti-Sicilian, shipping to stores today, where Boris wrote a small chapter) will be given to each participant. Those wanting the Grunfeld book will have to wait until it is released on the 3rd of June (hopefully).

A more detailed announcement will follow.

I am at times asked how reliable our books are, and at what level they can be used. I have to bite my tongue, because what I really wanted to say in such a situation is that player X, rated 2700+ has just bought the books on our website – and most likely not to put under the Christmas three. Peter Heine Nielsen said about some of our books that they were “of use even at the highest level.” He is the chief second of the World Champion, so it is easy to read things into such a statement. One player you could easily suspect of having read our books is English Grandmaster Luke McShane. In this game he follows the recommendation of GM Mihail Marin in Grandmaster Repertoire 5 as a stepping stone to beat the World number one. Whatever I say hereafter, I feel I can say it with full confidence…

Luke McShane – Magnus Carlsen [A37]

London Chess Classic, 1^st Round, 08.12.2010

1.c4 c5 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.Nf3 d6 6.0–0 Nh6

A sideline, but still a serious Read more…

Dear Quality Chess Reader,

Andrew Greet and I have just returned from the Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia. Andrew was non-playing captain of the English Women’s team, who performed above expectations. I was Board 3 for the Scottish team in the Open section; we finished slightly below our seeding, despite beating all the teams we were meant to beat and only losing to our betters.

Back to the books: the final two volumes of Mihail Marin’s 1.c4 repertoire: Grandmaster Repertoire 4 and Grandmaster Repertoire 5 are being printed now and, if you live in Europe, October 15 is a good prediction of when you will be able to read them.

GM Christian Bauer’s Play the Scandinavian will also be available at the same time. Please note that this book concentrates on 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5; fans of the quirky 3…Qd6 will have to look elsewhere.

Excerpts are available for all three books at the following links: Grandmaster Repertoire 4, Grandmaster Repertoire 5 and Play the Scandinavian.

Attached is a bumper collection of chess analysis: including various puzzles, a couple of Avrukh-crunching Grunfelds, a non-boring Exchange Slav and a friendly but spirited analytical debate between Jacob and Anish Giri. This is available in either ChessBase or pdf format.

Regards,

John Shaw

Chief Editor

Quality Chess

During the World Championship match between Topalov and Anand I annotated a game for Chess Today. As my deadline was later than the quickly published annotations on ChessBase.com by GM Anish Giri, it would have been unnatural not to relate to these. So, in the two hours at my disposal, I tried to form a personal opinion based on his annotations, and on things I noticed individually. Now, half a year later, Giri has published an open letter for Yearbook 96, where he says I am wrong in almost everything. His lines are very interesting, but not completely accurate.

I will go into details about his claims in our next newsletter, likely to come out in a week or so, when John and Andrew are back and rested, but for now I want to point to a few moments for those that have seen the article.

Line 1 After 18.Nxf5 has a nice improvement with 18…Qf6, but his claim later that I have to show variations to disagree with his reading of a computer evaluation after 18…Qc5 19.axb5 cxb5 20.Qd4 Qc7. I could say 21.Bh3! and the computer is supporting White again. This way we could use a decade to get to the truth, making two full moves a year… I have done some analysis and I cannot see that Black is ever equal. Besides, I think 18.exf5 is maybe the better move.

Line 2 looks strange. What went wrong? What was I thinking? I have no idea.

Line 3 has a nice improvement on move 39. Long analysis often have mistakes. Probably I was too eager to find something that kept Black in the game.

Line 4 is interesting, as he says I am wrong overall, but states that I did improve on his analysis in the details. However, his 24.Qc3 line is not accurate.

In the “final” position after 24…Qd7 25.Rd4 e5 26.Nxh6+ gxh6 27.R4xd3 Nxd3 28.Rxd3 White does have the advantage, but after some analytical work I found a sort of defence for Black with 28…Rfd8 29.Qxe5 Qe6 30.Qf4 f6!?. That the position is winning is not obvious, although it is better for White. But 24…Qd7 is just a howler. 25.Rxd3 leads to a winning advantage if you look deep enough. So, Black has to try 24…Rab8!?, when there are some very complicated variations, clearly favouring White. If this is better than a pawn up in an ending is not obvious to me.

I am proud to have won the 2010 ECF Book of the Year award for Attacking Manual 1 – 2nd edition and Attacking Manual 2. The reason why I did not originally write this project for Everyman despite a very nice offer, but set up Quality Chess instead, was that I wanted it to be perfect – and that I wanted to win this prize. This is the biggest achievement of my career by far.

English Chess Federation

BOOK of the YEAR 2010

The judges this year were faced with a particularly difficult choice as all the four books listed had considerable, but differing merits. The choice finally fell on a two volume work which had taken the author no less than eight years to write.

The book is Attacking Chess Volumes 1 and 2 by Jacob Aagaard, published by Quality Chess at £23.99 each.  These constitute a substantial work totalling 720 pages in all, excellently laid out and printed. The volumes are written in a lively manner, which keeps the reader entertained as well as interested.

The genesis of the book is found in the introduction to volume 1. Aagaard felt that the role of intuition had been undervalued in chess writing. Good players not only calculate but also have a feeling for what might be possible in a given position, which can be described as intuition. Aagaard also felt that there was a shortage of good books on attacking play –by which he means attacking the King. There are many excellent titles on combinations, but Aagaard is looking for the conditions when an attack may be possible (King in the middle is an obvious example) and how that attack may be prepared and prosecuted. In other words Aagaard is trying to develop the reader’s attacking intuition.

Volume 2 is, in the words of the author “what to do when the attack is up and running”.

Whilst doing this, Aagaard introduces new concepts and ideas into the text. To help in this process he gives preview diagrams of the positions to be discussed, which the reader is invited to consider before reading on, a valuable learning tool.

The author has obtained the games and positions for both volumes from a wide range of contemporary sources, many of which were new to the judges. It is also clear that throughout Aagaard has provided fresh commentary and analysis. The reader can simply enjoy the many fascinating positions or study in depth, but either way there are many hours of pleasure to be found in these two books.

Aagaard has written a significant and original treatise on the fine art of attacking play and is a worthy winner of the Book of the Year 2010.

R B Edwards  J Farrand  D Friedgood 27th September 2010