ChessBase Magazine Extra 207

Opening videos

Ivan Sokolov: An idea vs. the Budapest Gambit

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.e3

The Budapest Gambit is especially popular in club chess. That White should objectively get the better game seems clear. But by what means? If White gets involved in the main variations after 4.Bf4 or 4.Nf3, there is a large amount of theory to deal with. In his video Ivan Sokolov recommends the alternative 4.e3, followed by 4...Nxe5 5.f4! – an idea recently brought to his attention by his friend, Ivan Salgado. Black must now move again with the knight, either to g6 or to c6. In his video analysis Sokolov first explains how White arrives at a comfortable and clearly advantageous position after 5...Ng6 6.Nc3 Bb4 7.Nge2 a5 8.a3 Be7 9.Ng3. After the more obvious 5...Nc6, White has the choice of continuing with 6.Nc3 or 6.Nf3.

Elisabeth Pähtz: Gruenfeld Defence Fianchetto Variation with 10.h3

In this issue, Germany's best female chess player presents one of her favourite weapons against the Gruenfeld  Defence. After the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 d5 5.cxd5 Nxd5 6.Bg2 Nb6 7.Nc3 Nc6 8.e3 0-0 9.0-0 Re8 Elisabeth Pähtz proposes to put a stop to the black counterplay with 10.h3. For a better overview, she has divided the different variations into four videos.
Video 1: 10...a5 11.d5 Ne5 - Video time: 06:15 min.
Video 2: 10...a5 11.d5 Nb4 - video time: 10:27 min.
Video 3: 10...Be6 - video time: 04:28 min.
Video 4: 10...e5 11.d5 Na5 12.Qc2 The main variation in this system - Video time: 19:59 min.

Jorden van Foreest contributes "The brilliancy" of this edition. At the Tata Steel Masters 2022, the young Dutchman conducted an opening experiment against Praggnanandhaa: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4?! "I had wanted to play this move for a long time, but had not yet had the opportunity. Finally the time had come. There are not too many good reasons why I like the move, the main one is probably that it looks so stupid. :-)" Van Foreest explains. But things continued no less surprising after that: 3...e6 4.0-0 d5 5.Bb5! dxe4 6.Ne5 Qc7 7.Nxc6 bxc6 8.Bc4! made the following position arise on the board:

"So White has lost a pawn and moved his bishop three times in the opening. ..." A very original game with many illuminating comments and a happy outcome for the Dutchman in the end!

In addition to that game, no fewer than 56 other games with detailed annotations await you in the "Lucky bag"! Among them are analyses by Nijat Abasov, Michal Krasenkow, Igor Stohl, Spyridon Kapnisis and many others.

And last but not least: the “Update Service” provides over 48,000 new games for your database!

Once again, almost the entire world's top players are represented!

The games of the Update Service are also included in the Mega Update Service 2022, which you can use with the ChessBase 15/16 programmes (and a corresponding subscription).