How do you feel when you have to play against an opponent whose rating is some hundred points better than your own? The bold among us will see this as a special incentive. For most of us, however, unease will probably prevail. In the third part of his video series "Practical Tips for the Tournament Player" in ChessBase Magazine #210, Jan Markos deals with the important topic of how to play against a stronger opponent. The GM from Slovakia first makes it clear that you have to keep a cool head and then presents three promising strategies. Take a look!
Those who are familiar with Rainer Knaak's column in ChessBase Magazine will have noticed that many trap motifs in tournament practice recur again and again in the same or a similar form and lead to quick decisions. That is certainly also a reason why the trap expert generally recommends spicing up one's own repertoire with opening traps or even building one's repertoire from a broad collection of traps. In the current CBM #210, Rainer Knaak presents a parade building block for the Sicilian Paulsen Variation. You can watch his video analysis of this trap in full here!
With 10 opening articles, ChessBase Magazine #210 covers the usual broad spectrum of variations: From the English Opening á la Caruana (1.c4 e5 2.g3 f5 3.Bg2 Be7) or the Sicilian O'Kelly Variation (1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 a6 Part I: 3.d4/3.c3) to the Catalan (with the unconventional move 7.Qd2). In his contribution, Patrick Zelbel provides a concept against the Modern Defence (1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.Be3), which is especially popular at club level and in which the move 4.a6 has become firmly established thanks to the Swedish GM Tiger Hillarp Persson. Our author begins the hunt for the tiger with 5.g4!? and thus makes it immediately clear where the journey is heading. "If Black plays the most natural moves, they easily finds themself in trouble", Zelbel writes in his conclusion. So you should definitely give this a try. Take a look!
In the new issue of ChessBase Magazine, 21 participants from the Chess Olympiad comment on their best games, including Anish Giri, Wesley So, Arjun Erigaisi, Jules Moussard, Luke McShane, Pentala Harikrishna, Matthias Blübaum, Rasmus Svane, the silver medal team from Armenia and the gold medallists Anna and Mariya Muzychuk. In addition, our authors Robert Ris, Daniel King, Karsten Mueller and Mihail Marin pick up on particularly exciting games and moments from the Olympiad in their columns and video contributions. Wesley So's analysis of his game against Hrant Melkumyan is "The Analysis" of this issue and can be viewed here in an shortened version. Enjoy!