"Evgeny Sveshnikov's interesting article in the German magazine Schach, about which I wrote last month, got an amusing sequel in the next issue. In his original article Sveshnikov had made some disparaging remarks about top players who lacked original opening ideas themselves and profited from the novelties found by more creative spirits.

One example he mentioned was his game against Sergei Volkov at the Russian team championship in Togliatti in 2003, where he had shown how to handle Volkov's French defense by playing 7. b3! in the Advance Variation.

It is well-known that Sveshnikov is a campaigner for copyrighting chess games. In Togliatti he had managed to persuade the organisers not to publish the games, but unfortunately they were smuggled to the outside world anyway and found their way into the databases.

There Peter Svidler had found Sveshnikov's 7. b3 and made good use of it to win a brilliant game in the Russian championship against the same Volkov.

That's how Sveshnikov describes it, but his memory deceived him, for in fact Svidler had been on the same team as Volkov in Togliatti and had witnessed the game Sveshnikov-Volkov personally. To keep his novelty to himself, Sveshnikov should have forced the other players to be blindfolded as soon as they were approaching his board.

Moreover, one reader of Schach pointed out that the move 7. b3 wasn't Sveshnikov's intellectual property at all, because it had been played several times by other players. Sveshnikov's answer showed truly aristocratic self-confidence. Yes, of course he was aware of these earlier games with 7. b3. But by playing this move himself, he had stamped it with the quality mark “Sveshnikov” and that was the reason that Svidler had studied it."

This guy sounds really arrogant. Patenting chess moves and chess games? How would that work? That sounds really ludicrious.

Here is the full article...

V. Rauzer: e2-e4! and White will win!
(Supported by Robert J. Fischer by his practice) - is the most unequivocal example.

The troubles for White in gaining advantage against Petrov Defense, as well as in Sveshnikov (La Bourgonnaise, Lasker) variation of Sicilian - clearly anticipate the tendency to switch from the "strongest" first move 1. e4! to the next strongest move, which is 1.d4!

(Hans Berliner was not the first who claimed the uniqueness of this strongest move; prior to him it was Efim Bogolubov, according to numerous jokes).

Speaking of the Advanced French as a clear refute, I would say (after playing French for decades) that I feel especially happy when my opponents advance 3.e4-e5.

To avoid any accusation in being anti-Sveshnikov, I have to tell you that playing French as white, I prefer ... the same move, i.e. 3. e5! (Nimzowitsch taught us so!)

More frankly, I agree with Korchnoy (see the article about Sveshnikow quoted before) that 3. Nd2 in French creates more trouble for Black.

Indeed: 3. ... de4 leads to light initiative for White. 3. ... Nf6 or 3. ... Nc6 results in the clear advantage for White. My choice is exotic (yet Korchnoy would have approved it): 3. Nd2 Nf6. 4. e5 Ng8?!

The conclusion is that there is no "mathematically rigorous proof" that one of the options, such as 1. e4, 1. d4 or 1. Nf3 [Lisitsyn], 1. c4 etc. - is better than other.