[what is this?]

[what is this?]

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"Don't Shoot the Piano Player!" Nowadays, the Giuoco Piano is often considered as a most boring opening, good only for those beginners who aren't ready to face the Ruy Lopez's complications yet(!). This game collection is meant to prove that these prejudices are false: the Giuoco Piano and its variations (the two knights and the "giuoco pianissimo") can lead to an exciting game more often than you may think. 21 games, 1620-2004 98_C00_- Reversed Philidor (Attack) Reversed Philidor ('KIA w/o g3/Bg2' but w/ Be2) Philidor setup w/ White - you start with 1 e4 and then play d3, Nd2, Nf3, Be2, etc. "Club players shouldn't slavishly copy the choices of grandmasters. GMs need to squeeze every drop of advantage from the opening and therefore play highly complex lines that require large amounts of memorization. The main necessity for club players is to emerge from the opening with a reasonable position, from which you can simply play chess and pit your own tactical and positional understanding against that of your opponent. <Gerard Welling> and Steve Giddins <recommend the Old Indian-Hanham Philidor set-up as a basis for both Black and White.> They provide ideas and strategies that can be learned in the shortest possible time and require the bare minimum of maintenance and updating. They deliver exactly what you need: rock-solid positions that you know how to handle. By adopting a similar set-up for both colours, with similar plans and techniques, you further reduce study time. With this compact and straightforward opening approach, Welling and Giddins argue, club players will have more time to focus on what is really decisive in the vast majority of non-grandmaster games: tactics, positional understanding and endgame technique." https://www.amazon.com/Side-steppin... 14 games, 1911-2014 Immortal Games of Capablanca, F. Reinfeld Fred Reinfeld. The Immortal Games of Capablanca. Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, 1973. 113 games, 1901-1939 A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire This is a collection of the games covered in Aaron Summerscale's and Sverre Johnson's repertoire book that are in the CG database. There are 68 games in the book. Many of the games are not in the CG database. 24 games, 1883-2005 Akiba the Great 112 games, 1905-1930 Anand and Carlsen Italian games Anand and Carlsen's wins as White in the Giuoco Piano. 12 games, 1999-2016 Anastasia's Mate Examples The checkmate pattern called the Anastasia's Mate is a colorful one. It often surprises students when seen for the first few times. Only one "stopper" is needed, usually a defending chessman between the "horns" of the Knight. So a crowded position may be involved for the Anastasia's Mate, which can be stunning! ChessCoachClark (CCC) originated this game collection prior to 2015 and he updates it on occasion. This project is a work in progress, culling games from various sources, including several chess training books and personal research. The games are ordered by date (oldest first), not by importance. Be well. Be safe. 14 games, 1852-2013 Arabian Mate Examples This game collection is intended to be a source of Arabian Mates in the strict definition of the term. The Rook attacks the King and the Knight covers an escape square of the defending King and also protects the attacking Rook. This mate pattern is common in the corner, but may be used in other parts of the board as well. Smothered Mate and the Arabian Mate are equally appealing to me, but I have found that many beginners and some near-intermediate chess students find the Arabian Mate difficult to understand and use. It only makes sense to them when I break it down by escape squares and danger/attacked squares, then show the process of how the Arabian Mate can be reached. Many chess authors seem content to allow equivocation among the Anastasia's Mate, Arabian Mate, Hook Mate, Vukovic Mate and others. However, these mate types are given distinctive treatment in several books. For brevity, THE ART OF ATTACK IN CHESS, by IM Vladimir Vukovic should be sufficient as a citation. Chapter 4: Mating Patterns has distinct sections for these and other checkmate processes. Here is an example of the Arabian Mate, from the game Z Andriasian vs B Burg, 2013 click for larger view ChessCoachClark (CCC) originated this game collection prior to 2015 and he updates it on occasion. This project is a work in progress, culling games from various sources, including several chess training books and personal research. The games are ordered by date (oldest first), not by importance. Be well. Be safe. 30 games, 1860-2013 Art of Attack in Chess Vladamir Vukovic & Chess Stopped at Ch. 1 88 games, 1845-2006 Barcza 12 games, 1948-1964 book: Chess Structures _ Rios 87 games, 1969-2014 Capablanca gems 30 games, 1901-1927 Cross-Check Tactic-- OTB Examples There is a somewhat rare, but fascinating, half-move in chess where one player makes check and the other player not only foils that check but makes check against the first player with the same half-move. This event is called a Cross-Check or a Counter-Check (FM Mike Klein). Another, rather obvious choice in naming is the Reply-Check. It may be of interest that the Wikipedia article on the Cross Check would not include a tactic that begins with a capture as a Cross Check. I respect that declaration for now, but the Portisch-Pinter game below Portisch vs J Pinter, 1984 does have one of its THREE Cross-Checks as such a tactic, namely 32. ... Bxg4+. So, Wikipedia should only assess this game as having two Cross-Checks. That point in the article is implicitly contradictory, however-- this same game is cited (as an URL to ChessGames.com, no less!) in the External Links without being named! The only description there is "Three successive cross-checks in a game." J W Knudsen vs B G Christensen, 2004 was recently added at ChessGames.com-- thanks CG! This game features a Cross Check at the end, namely 94. ... Nb3+. ChessCoachClark (CCC) originated this game collection and he updates it on occasion. This project is a work in progress, culling games from various sources, including several chess training books and personal research. The games are ordered by date, not by importance. Be well. Be safe. 12 games, 1944-2019 Deep Six Defenses to the Bottom of the Sea Definitely not the best; passive initially but perhaps less theoretical. The backward pawn is weak and a hole exits in front and beside it... a great place for an opposing piece to penetrate. Was it Steinitz who said something like "A knight on the 6th plays itself. You can go to sleep." White has easy development, a sweet center, plenty of space to operate. It's like giving White a head start in a race to the king. As usual, a quick review of Gioachino Greco, Paul Morphy, and Alexander Alekhine games will provide the general idea of what and what not to do. Thank you Johnarleyburns, S A G A R, yerom75. See 101 compiled by cgrob Sight under construction, as most of mine are. No KIDs or Pirc/Moderns. Philidor's Defense 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 Philidor's Defense (Locock) 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nf6 4. Ng5 h6 5. Nxf7 Philidor's Defense (Lopez Counter Gambit) 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bc4 f5 Wade Defense 1. Nf3 d6 New in Chess (2015) 334 pages $26.95 Reviewed by John Donaldson Sergey Kasparov’s A CUNNING CHESS OPENING FOR BLACK is one stop shopping for those looking for an answer to 1.e4. Everything the reader needs to meet 1.e4 will be found in this volume. The move-order difficulties of the old Philidor (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.dxe5 Nxe4 5.Qd5 or 3…Nd7 4.Bc4 c6 5.0-0 Be7 6.dxe5 dxe5 7.Ng5 Bxg5 8.Qh5 with the better ending) have led to a modern preference for 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5. The price Black pays is allowing White the chance to head straight for an ending with 4.dxe5 dxe5 5.Qxd8+ Kxd8. Kasparov (born in Baku just like Garry Kimovich!) doesn’t believe this ending offers White much and while it might be boring for some it does have the practical advantage that the second player doesn’t have to learn all matter of double king pawn openings (King’s Gambit, Bishop’s Opening, Vienna Opening, Danish Gambit, Center Game etc.). A CUNNING CHESS OPENING FOR BLACK: LURE YOUR OPPONENT INTO THE PHILIDOR SWAMP! uses model games to present its subject matter rather than the standard layout that is the norm for opening books. This enables Kasparov to devote more time to explaining the middle game strategy for both sides and indeed this book has much more explanatory prose than the typical opening treatise. While this makes this work more user friendly for players below 2300, those rated higher might be disappointed in the lack of a more structured approach despite the detailed opening index. This volume covers the entire Philidor battleground starting with early attempts to steamroll the opening with Shirov’s 5.g4 and an early Ng5/Bxf7+. Kasparov shows Black’s resources are up to the task. He also gives a good idea of the flexibility the second player enjoys in the main line after 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 4.Nf3 Nbd7 5.Bc4 Be7 6.0-0 0-0 where Black can choose between the classical plan of holding the strong point on e5 or trading on …d4 which sometimes works out very well. The traditional 7.Re1 c6 is given a major look as is the newer 7…a6 which yielded an easy draw to the Georgian Philidor specialist Mchedlishvili in his game with Peter Svidler in the 2012/2013 Bundesliga after 8.a4 b6 9.Ne2 Bb7 10.Ng3 Nxe4!? 11.Nxe4 d5 12.Bxd5 Bxd5 13.dxe5 Nxe5! 14.Nxe5 Bxe4 15.Qxd8 Raxd8 16.Bf4 f5?! (16…Ba8 17.a5 b5 18.Nc6 Bd6 was more precise according to Kasparov). 17.Nc6! Bxc6 18.Rxe7 Rf7 19.Rxc7 Rxc7 20.Bxc7 Rd2 21. Rc1 Be4 22.Bxb6 Bxc2 23.a5 Rxd1+ 24.Rxd1 draw. Even the new and quite successful 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 4.Nc3 Nbd7 5.Bc4 Be7 6.Be2 Nb6 is covered. The latter is proving a hard nut to track to crack which explains why Parimarjan Negi in his book 1.e4 vs. The French, Caro-Kann and Philidor (Quality Chess 2014) proposes that White play 6.a4 before casting which renders the …Nb6 dubious as White’s bishop can now retreat to the more active square a2 instead of e2 (without a4 in retreating to b3 leaves the bishop exposed to …exd4 followed by …c5-c4). After 6…0-0 7.0-0 a6 another idea behind 6.a4 is revealed namely 8.a5 cutting across the plan of …b6 and …Bb7. If Black persists with his plan with 8…b5 White has 9.axb6 cxb6 10.Qe2 and “the fractured pawn structure promises White a considerable advantage” – Negi. The Indian Grandmaster also has his own twist on the main line. He believes that after 7…c6 White should dispense with the immediate 8.Re1 and instead substitute the more flexible 8.h3!? as in some concrete lines the rook will go to d1. Concretely he believes Black is fine after 8…exd4 9.Nxd4 Ne5 whereas after 8.h3!? exd4 White has the simple 9.Qxd4. The difference between the lines can be seen in the line 8.Re1 exd4 9.Qxd4 Ne5! 10.Nxe5 dxe5 11.Qxe5 Ng4! planning …Bd6 with a strong initiative. Negi goes on to analyze Black 8th moves alternatives including 8…Nxe4 9.Nxe4 d5 which he advocates meeting with the shocking reply 10.Re1!? Negi’s book, which came out in late 2014, is missing in the bibliography to A CUNNING CHESS OPENING FOR BLACK: LURE YOUR OPPONENT INTO THE PHILIDOR SWAMP! and almost certainly was not available when Kasparov wrote his work. Much of Negi’s work is original and it would have been all but impossible for another author to anticipate it. While the Indian Grandmaster’s analysis needs practical tests it would be prudent for anyone planning to play the Philidor rated over 2000 to be aware of it and have done some homework on how to answer it. Kasparov’s book concludes with 35 exercises with detailed solutions testing the reader’s knowledge of typical Philidor plans. Player and opening indexes follow. A CUNNING CHESS OPENING FOR BLACK: LURE YOUR OPPONENT INTO THE PHILIDOR SWAMP! is aimed chiefly at players rated 1800-2300 who will benefit from the many well-annotated games in this volume. Thank you Sergey Kasparov and John Donaldson. 353 games, 1620-2016 Games from "The Ultimate Colle" by Gary Lane Games from Gary Lane's book "The Ultimate Colle." Ordered by Chapter and sequential number. Building the list as I work through the games. So far, games 6 (Rolvaag, M.- Fossan,P., Norwegian Championship, 2000) and 7 (Weiss - Vaculik, Plzen, 1998) are missing from the Introduction section. 8 games, 1883-2000 Hippopotamus Defence 38 games, 1959-2008 Hyper accelerated dragon (midgards serpent) 41 games, 1889-2016 Instructive Games (Chernev) 'The Most Instructive Games of Chess ever Played: 62 Masterpieces of Modern Chess Strategy' by Irving Chernev. 62 games, 1873-1961 Italian Game: Modern Variation variations Modern line: 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5 4 c3 Nf6 5 d3 a6 6 Bb3 Ba7 7 h3 Variations: A. 5...0-0 6 Bg5 B. 5...d6 C. 5...d5? 6 exd5 Nxd5 7 Qb3! D. 6...0-0 E. 6...d6 7 Ndf1 F. 6...Bg4?! G. 7 Nbd2 0-0 G1. 8 Nc4!? G2. 8 h3 d5 10 games, 2000-2019 Italian Games - Giuoco Piano 5 games, 1950-2004

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