ChessBase Magazine offers a window to the world of professional chess. The latest issue, CBM 216, is out. Our columnist Nagesh Havanur takes a look. Included are 968 games (34 annotated), decisive encounters from the World Cup deeply annotated, 11 opening surveys, 3 opening videos, 6 demo lectures and several exercises for training. Annotators include Anish Giri, Peter Heine Nielsen, Nijat Abasov, Vidit Gujrathi and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, among others. The icing on the cake is a feature on Hou Yifan with 22 annotated games. She has just won the Julius Baer Women’s Speed Championship for the second consecutive time. | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage
ChessBase Magazine offers a window to the world of professional chess. The latest issue, CBM #214 is out. Meanwhile our columnist, Nagesh Havanur takes a look at a recent issue. 2651 games (47 annotated) from WR Masters and European Championship among others. 12 opening surveys, 3 opening videos, 9 demo. lectures and several exercises for training. Annotators include Levon Aronian, Alexey Sarana, Kirill Shevchenko, Vincent Keymer, Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa among others. The icing on the cake is a feature on Viswanathan Anand with 26 annotated games.
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!