ChessBase Magazine Extra 217

Opening videos

Zwirs: Sicilian Najdorf

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.h3 e5 7.Nf3 Be7 8.g4 b5

At the European Club Cup 2023, Aryan Tari met Jules Moussard in the final round. In his analysis of this game, Nico Zwirs goes into detail about the opening, in which the Frenchman chose 8...b5, a side line that has hardly been played so far. Black normally tries to defuse or even completely stop the advance of White’s g-pawn with 8...h6 or 8...g5. In the game, Tari immediately continued with 9.g5, followed by 9...Nfd7 10.Be3. Zwirs explains in his analysis that after 10...Nb6! 11.Nxb6 Qxb6 Black could get a playable position and shows why Moussard's 10...Bb7 after 11.a4 b4 12.Nd5 Nc5 13.Bxc5 gave White a slight but stable advantage.

Mikhalchishin's miniatures (Part 1)

In this and the next two issues of ChessBase Magazine Extra, master coach Adrian Mikhalchishin presents a variety of small opening ideas. The focus of this issue: The Queen's Gambit!

Queen's Gambit Anti-Meran Variation

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 c6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Qc2 Bd6 7.e4

Adrian Mikhalchishin gained a clear advantage twice in rapid chess against Andrei Volokitin with the somewhat out-of-fashion variation 7.e4 dxe4 8.Nxe4 Nxe4 9.Qxe4. "In my opinion this move 6.e4 is still alive! ... I hope that some young guys will continue our work in this direction and will come with some really powerful new ideas!"

Queen's Gambit Accepted I

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.e3 a6 6.a4 c5 7.Bxc4 Nc6 8.0-0 cxd4 9.exd4 Be7

The above moves lead to a standard position in the Queen's Gambit. White is faced with the question of how best to place his pieces and how to use his isolated pawn on d4.

Queen's Gambit Accepted II

1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 a6 4.e3 b5 5.a4 Bb7 6.b3 Nf6 7.bxc4 bxc4 8.Bxc4 e6 9.0-0 Be7

About 15 years ago, Black thought he could equalise directly with 3...a6 in the Queen's Gambit Accepted. This time Mikhalchishin demonstrates that White can maintain a slight advantage.

Queen's Gambit Accepted III

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.e4 Bb4 6.Bg5 h6 7.Bxf6 Qxf6 8.Bxc4 c5 9.0-0 cxd4 10.e5 Qd8 11.Ne4

In this variation, White sacrifices his pawn on d4. And the plan is not to recapture the pawn as quickly as possible - which would be easy - but to launch a kingside attack after Qe2, Rad1 and some very simple means…

Anish Giri, Ivan Saric, amvel Ter-Sahakyan, Romain Edouard, Lubomir Ftacnik, Michal Krasenkow and many others commentate

This time, "The brilliancy" comes from Ivan Saric, who first seized the initiative with the advance of his g-pawn - 8...g7-g5 and 11...g5-g4 - against Haik Martirosyan at the European Team Championship 2023:

Afterwards he castled short anyway and hunt down his opponent's king, who had castled into the opposite corner!

After 26...a3! the pressure on White’s position became too massive.

In addition to the brilliancy, 47 other games with detailed commentary await you in the "Lucky Bag".

And the Update service provides over 50,000 new games for your database!

The games from the update service are also included in the Mega Update Service 2023, which you can use with the ChessBase 16/17 programs (and a corresponding subscription).