Last year GM Yuri Averbakh turned 100 and set a world record. He became the oldest ever grandmaster in chess history. Sadly, he passed away in May. Averbakh led a rich and extraordinary life that he narrated himself in his autobiography, “Centre-stage and Behind the Scenes”. In the series here, our columnist draws on this important work and also explains much that was left unsaid. | Photo: Averbakh playing Kasparov (B. Dolmatovsky via <a href="https://dgriffinchess.wordpress.com/">Douglas Griffin’s website</a>)
Jeremy Silman (1954-2023) got hooked on chess after the Bobby Fischer boom, discovered his writing talent, and went on to get paid handsomely for chess lessons. Last Thursday, the Californian bestselling author died after a long illness. Stefan Löffler sent us an obituary. | Photos: JeremySilman.com
With eleven opening articles, ChessBase Magazine #215 covers the usual broad spectrum and provides new repertoire ideas for every tournament player. For example, a concept against the Alekhine Defence: Sergey Grigoriants presents the "sharpest and most principled approach against the Alekhine Defence" with 5.f4! and is convinced that he has "proved White's advantage in all variations". Alekhine expert Christian Bauer attests our author an "excellent job. I now know why the variation 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.c4 Nb6 5.f4 dxe5 6.fxe5 Bf5 7.Nc3 e6 is bad for Black!".
Take a look! You can find the complete article with all games and analyses in the current CBM #215.
An opening trap is particularly effective if it is built up with natural-looking development moves and is thus hardly recognisable for an uninformed opponent. Trap expert Rainer Knaak presents a collection of promising traps from tournament practice in every issue of ChessBase Magazine. In the current issue #215 there are eight examples - from Trompowsky via Sicilian and Ruy Lopez to King's Indian. Rainer Knaak also demonstrates three of his favourite traps in video in CBM #215; you can watch one of the videos here!
ChessBase Magazine #215 offers over an hour of video playing time with its three opening videos alone (the total playing time of all videos in CBM #215 is more than seven hours). Robert Ris uses three new games by Richard Rapport to examine what White can hope for in the Vienna Game after 5.Qf3. Ivan Sokolov examines the highly topical variation 11.h4!? in the Semi-Tarrasch, especially Giri's novelty 13.Rh3 against Praggnanandhaa. And Daniel King gives a recommendation for the side line 3.e5 against the Sicilian Rossolimo Variation which has already been tested at the highest level. You can watch an extract from Robert Ris' analysis here!