This weekend Chess Scotland organised a seminar with GM Jacob Aagaard at Quality Chess’ headquarters in Glasgow. The following positions were used and will be available for a week: PGN-file
Just a passing thought sparked by reading a comment on another chess site: how do you define what is the main line of an opening?
Is it the sharpest line? The most popular line over a number of years? The line currently favoured by the elite?
My approach seems to be a mixture of all three of the above, with added weight for the last point. Take, for example, the Queen’s Gambit Declined. Avrukh recommends the Catalan, Schandorff prefers the Exchange Variation. Both main lines, I think, but some disagree.
John Shaw
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I recently spotted an extreme example of the popularity of the Slav and Semi-Slav variations. I was looking at Magnus Carlsen’s games with White after 1.d4 d5 2.c4. Now there are several solid moves (such as 2…e6 or 2…dxc4) and many off-beat lines (for example, 2…Nc6 or 2…e5) but between the start of 2008 and the 1st of June 2009 all of Carlsen’s opponents replied 2…c6. I make it about 18 2…c6’s in a row.
Elite chessplayers are dedicated followers of opening fashion.
John
Sabino Brunello’s first book, Attacking the Spanish, is getting ever nearer to ready. This started me thinking about the Schliemann variation (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5), one of three lines the book covers, with the Marshall and the Gajewski. For decades most GM’s believed that the Schliemann was unsound, but in the last few years Radjabov has single-handedly convinced the chess world that 3…f5 is a respectable move.
Has any other variation enjoyed such a sudden improvement in its reputation? The best alternative I can think of is the a6-Slav, but that was a gradual process, I think. Whereas overnight the Schliemann switched from ?! to !?
John Shaw
We have published a number of opening books, and I would like to hear from readers how well (surely not badly?) they have worked when you put them into practice.
I also like to keep an eye on whether top-level players are using the lines our authors have suggested, and the new ideas that they uncover in them. For example, Avrukh’s chosen line against the Slav (1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 Bg4 5.Qb3 Qb6 6.Nc3 e6 7.Nh4) was rare when we printed and now seems to be the favoured choice of the elite (Topalov, Carlsen, Morozevich, Wang Yue, etc.). I am not suggesting they are all simply following Avrukh (Topalov played it before the book, and he is a trend-setter), but it’s good to see the lines are relevant.
If you have spotted an interesting new idea played in one of our lines, then feel free to post it (or just the game reference) in comments.
John Shaw
Last night I was at a local production at the King’s Theatre in Glasgow of the musical CHESS together with my wife and her ABBA loving friends. The quality of the production was varied, with a few stunning performances. The story shows little understanding of the actual game, and draws on Fischer, Karpov and Korchnoi in equal amounts.
There were a few amazing moments for a chess player. One was when Max Euwe was left out of the song with all the world champions, another was when they actually played a game on stage.
Black started the game and the pieces looked to be incorrectly placed on the board, however, at one moment I realised that the white pieces were black and the black white.
The game they played before “Fischer” wiped the pieces of the board was: 1. e4 h5 2. Nh3 c6 3. Nf4 d5 4. Nxd5 cxd5 5. b4 Bg4 6. Be2 dxe4 7. Bxg4 hxg4 8.Qxg4 Nf6
Obviously, the match had to be postponed, and “Karpov” (who later defects and becomes “Korchnoi”) has to beg the world champion to continue, or the match would be void.
The only non-fictional element that at one time must have seemed amusing, was when the FIDE president and arbiter, changes the rules mid-way in the second match.
All in all, a travesty towards chess. Why do non-chess playing friends always think that you are interested in this sort of low level chess aspects?
Jacob Aagaard
We are still improving the website, which means that it is not working in perfect order. We are using a shareware program for the site, and it has certain limitations we are trying to get around. One of them is the ordering of the books on the site.
For instance, in the coming soon category the books coming soon is the first in the list, in the category, but the books on the front are the ones coming in some time. Not ideal, but harder to solve than one would have thought…
Jacob Aagaard
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