What's new - August '04
|
TonyK |
Being a chess professional is a tough life, to finish this update I had to drag myself off the beach in Castellfedels, near Barcelona, Spain, where I am currently playing!Before getting to the serious stuff, a quick question: how did I finish my game as White from the diagram position?
          
|
For the answer, read on!
To download the August '04 Flank Openings games directly in PGN form click here: 
English Opening
1...e5
[A29]: In Lautier,J - Bu Xiangzhi Lautier plays his 5 Nd5 speciality:
 
|
reaches a position similar to the 4...Bc5 line (as is often the case), and wins nicely.
What did he intend against Kasparov's 5...e4!?, I wonder?
1...c5
[A30]: After the opening moves of a Hedgehog, I played 13 Rc1 and went to the bar to get a coffee:
|
|
and was quickly joined by my opponent, who looked somewhat surprised and said to me: "I have your book, and thought that you always avoided the Hedgehog!" to which I replied: "not always"!
I quickly played a 'standard' Nd5 sac and won nicely, but I am not convinced that it was completely correct. See Kosten,A - Vera Pons,F.
[A34]: Agrest,E - Svensson,B features an important improvement in Nimzovitch's line. Black gets a great game, and shouldn't really have taken the draw at the end, but I believe White could have played more strongly - see my analysis.
[A35]: Black plays the aggressive 4...f5 line in Kovacevic,B - Sax,G:
|
|
and gets splattered, but in fact just before the end he was doing quite well, and in fact in one line would have been better despite having a whole rook less!
1...Nf6 & others
[A17]: Buss,R - Mahesh Chandran,P features an interesting method of handling the 4 Qc2 Nimzo-English. Black plays as if the opening was a Nimzo-Indian with 4...b6 and the white d-pawn was on d4, not d2!
Réti
[A07]: Remember this position, from a couple of months ago?
|
|
Well, I was surprised to see it again, so soon. In Nikolic,P - Strating,S, Black tried a new move which I had suggested, and gained a good position, but then fell for a vicious tactic.
[A11]: Van Wely,L - Sveshnikov,E features more g4 fun in Gurevich's System.
[A14]: Was it only in June (in the notes to Bareev,E - Kramnik,V) that I said that 12...Na5 was rare?
|
|
Well, just shows how much I know as in Socko,B - Klovans,J it occurs again!
Larsen's Opening
[A01]: Asimenios,A - Timoshenko,G is fun, and features the 7...f6!? pawn sac:
|
|
Can this pawn be taken? The answer is: yes!
e-mails
Please feel free to share any of your thoughts with me, whatever they are, suggestions, criticisms (just the polite ones, please), etc. Drop me a line at the Flank Openings Forum, or subscribers can write directly to tonykosten@chesspublishing.com
Till next month, Tony K