Download PGN of June '12 1 d4 d5 games
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The Slow Slav 4...Bg4 [D11]
Tikkanen - Grover: An interesting battle in a rare line with 7.Qb3:
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Both players were equal to the task until Black suddenly lost concentration and was severely punished for that.
Bartel - Caruana: Black might have been satisfied with his opening position as he gained an extra tempo compared to another well-known line. However, White still kept some edge and after some inaccuracies Black's position collapsed much quicker than expected.
The Slow Slav 4...Bf5 - 6 Nh4 Bg6 [D12]
Movsesian - Motylev: White's simple approach with 8.Bd3 has recently brought good results:
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As a rule, he is able to get a slight but long-lasting advantage - in this game Black suddenly got desperate and lost quickly.
The Anti-Meran Defence 5...a6 [D45]
The Slav Defence became Viswanathan Anand's main weapon in the recently finished match against Boris Gelfand, in which he successfully defended his title of World Champion. You may remember that the Meran System brought him two key victories in the match against Vladimir Kramnik (see Games 3 and 5 Kramnik - Anand/WCh Bonn 2008 in the November 2008 update) but this time Anand preferred a slower approach with 5...a6, some kind of mixture between the Meran and the Chebanenko systems:
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In most cases Black managed to neutralise White's pressure (in Games 2, 4, 6) though, being outplayed in Game 7, Anand shifted to the Nimzo for the two remaining encounters - before going back to other versions of the Slav in the tie-break.
Gelfand - Anand: Here the straightforward ...e6-e5 approach and a small innovation on move 16 helped Black to comfortably solve any problems.
Gelfand - Anand: Here Anand's pawn sacrifice on move 14 was a clever novelty:
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after which Gelfand was only able to obtain a symbolic advantage, certainly insufficient to play for a win.
Gelfand - Anand: This game turned out to be Anand's first ever loss to Gelfand... and is still the only one since he did not suffer any more defeats in this recently finished World Title Match. The position actually looked quite safe for Black but after some routine moves he found himself under annoying pressure due to his poor light-squared bishop. Black's play can certainly be improved but it seems that White is able to obtain somewhat the better chances here anyway...
Anti-Meran slow lines [D46]
Gelfand - Anand: In the tie-break Anand shifted back to the Meran though Gelfand probably never intended to check Black's preparations in the principle lines anyway. Instead he opted for the Anti-Meran and was countered by a similarly straightforward ...e6-e5 approach to that which Anand used in the early stage of the match in somewhat different situations:
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Black obtained good play, but then the players exchanged inaccuracies, passed the advantage from one back to the other, and after an exciting fight everything ended up in a dull rook ending...
Aronian - Shirov: A tricky line helped White to seize some initiative in the ending but Black held the balance with accurate play.
Till next month, Ruslan
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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.