ChessBase Magazine Extra 219

Opening videos

Felix Blohberger: French

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.Nce2 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.Nf3 Be7 8.a3 0–0 9.Nf4 Qa5 10.b4

“A super interesting, super fascinating idea in the French Defense!” Austrian GM Felix Blohberger presents a double pawn sacrifice against the French Defence. In the variation 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.Nce2 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.Nf3 Be7 8.a3 0–0 9.Nf4 Qa5 follows the first sacrifice 10.b4!?. And with the second sac 10...cxb4 11.Bd3!? White makes clear that in this game all he wants is to attack on the king’s side! In his analysis, the young GM shows a number of fascinating attacking motifs, but also spectacular defensive resources for Black!

Mikhalchishin’s miniatures (Part 3)

In the third and final part of his series, expert trainer Adrian Mikhalchishin presents another collection of small opening ideas. Let yourself be inspired!

Semi-Tarrasch

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 c5 5.e3 a6 6.cxd5 exd5 7.Bd3 c4

In modern chess it is common practice to maintain tension in the centre for a long time and to build up as much pressure as possible. In this variation, Magnus Carlsen showed that closing the centre with 7…c4 can also be successful!

Semi-Tarrasch 2

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.g3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Bg2 Nc6 6.Nc3 e6

In the first round of the Wolfgang Uhlmann Memorial 2023, our author met one of his long-time companions, Oleg Romanishin. Mikhalchishin decided to turn the game from an English Opening into a Semi-Tarrasch with 6…e6.

Slav Exchange Variation

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 cxd5 5.Bf4 Nc6 6.e3 a6 7.Be2

At the Polish Team Championship 2023, Pentala Harikrishna initially chose with 7.Be2 a less aggressive continuation in the Slav Exchange Variation against Vassily Ivanchuk. Yet Ivanchuk threw in the towel after just 18 moves. “Fantastic achievement of Harikrishna!”

Sicilian Sveshnikov

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Nd5 Be7 10.Bxf6 Bxf6 11.c3

In his game against Sebastien Maze in the Bundesliga (2019), Vladimir Fedoseev chose a classic line against the Sveshnikov (7.Bg5 and 11.c3) and thus pursued a strictly positional approach. Through several exchanges he quickly brought about an endgame with two rooks and a bishop each, in which White's light-squared bishop proved to be much stronger than his opponent's...

Annotated games by Emanuel Berg, Romain Edouard, Alexandr Fier, Michal Krasenkow, Yago Santiago, Vaibhav Suri and many others

The “Lucky bag” of this extra includes 44 detailed analyses.

Alexandr Fier contributes “The Brilliancy” of the issue.

At the FIDE World Cup 2023 he tried "an interesting side line" against Gabor Nagy's Bogo-Indian (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.g3 Bb4+ 5.Bd2 a5 6.Bg2 0–0 7.Qc1!?  A few moves later the following position was on the board:

“This looks like a normal closed Catalan with the queen strangely placed on c1. During the preparation for the match I realised that in some positions it's easier to exchange the dark-squared bishop with Bg5 at some point.”

The Update Service once again provides over 50,000 new games for your database!

The games from the Update Service are also included in the Mega Update Service 2024, which you can use with the ChessBase 16/17 programs (and a corresponding subscription).