Download PGN of October '06 Dragon Sicilian games

Some of you guys are funny though and I have bowed to the request of featuring a couple of Pavel Smirnov games. He does seem to perform well both with and against the Dragon and it is with the former that we start:

Lopez Martinez-Smirnov: White gets outmanoeuvred and then tactically blown away in a usually quiet fianchetto variation:

Westerinen - Cebalo: The Finish GM comes up with a (not quite) novel Classical type system against the Dragon:

It's not very good but chess, like life, isn't always fair!

Perunovic - Velimirovic: Possibly big news in the 'Dragadorf'. Can Black seriously get away with castling kingside so soon?

He does here and I believe that a whole new can of worms has just been opened. Get going with that home study!

Smirnov - Stanojoski: Pavel is back, this time slaying the Dragon courtesy of one particularly cute move. An offbeat Yugoslav Attack variation:

, where I'm afraid that I don't think much of Black's play.

Dzhumaer - Stocek: Harmless stuff in the 9 Bc4 with ...Rc8 variation and another good example of why White should think twice about an early Bh6:

Wittman - Papp: A debut and quite possibly a curtain call for a lame line in 9 0-0-0 d5:

I just can't see why White players would want to play like this although obviously they do!

Although I will look at the forum, from time to time, subscribers please don't forget to send mail direct if you want anything in particular addressed in an update. That aside, I'll be back in mid November.

Bye for now. Chris

To get in touch with me, either leave a message for me on the Dragons Forum, or email me at Chris Ward@ChessPublishing.com (for subscribers only!)