Download PGN of January '08 1 d4 d5 games
Chebanenko System [D15]
Bacrot - Karjakin: Etienne Bacrot, who is a Chebanenko expert himself, came up with an interesting novelty here and got a promising position:
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However, the rapid time control had a great influence on the game, which ended dramatically after mutual mistakes.
Ivanchuk - Bacrot: Some months ago we considered the game Aronian - Bacrot/Mainz 2007, which was disastrous for Black. However, Etienne has done his homework and met Ivanchuk's idea with a strong counterblow, 14...Bxc3!:
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This secured at least a draw and eventually led to an even better result since Vassily failed to find a couple of equalising continuations.
Mamedyarov - Kamsky: Gata Kamsky came up with a rare and suspicious-looking approach and yet scored 1, 5 out of 2 with black within a couple of days. Perhaps it is much better than it looks?!
QGA [D20]
Ponomariov - Sasikiran: 7. Bb5 has recently become a popular way to fight for the advantage:
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In this game Ruslan Ponomariov came up with an interesting idea which had already been introduced some time before by Veselin Topalov, though in a slightly different situation. Some strong manoeuvres in the middlegame just smashed through his opponent's defence but it looks like Black had some more active options, which might have given him reasonable counter chances.
Noteboom [D31]
Onischuk - Shirov: Alexey Shirov came up with fantastic K-side attack in the Noteboom and just smashed White's defence. However, it was still Black's main trump - his connected passers - which decided the game!
Queen's Gambit Declined - Ragozin System [D38]
Rychagov - Zvjaginsev: Vadim Zvjagintsev was clearly outplayed in slow positional style, which he himself likes very much, in this game. Here Andrey Rychagov gave him no chance to gain any counterplay and was very precise in the end when Black got desperate.
Queen's Gambit Declined - Vienna Variation [D39]
Tkachiev - Balogh: White recently posed Black some problems with 15. Qh5 in this famous line of the Vienna:
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Here Csaba Balogh came up with a slight innovation but still collapsed. However, his approach deserves further investigation....
Ruslan
If you have any questions, then please post a message at the 1 d4 d5 Forum, or subscribers can email me at ruslan@chesspublishing.com.