Download PGN of March '04 1 d4 d5 games

The Main Slav [D16-19]

Werle,J - Smeets,J: A tricky line - in reply to 6.Nh4

Black moves his bishop back to a rather awkward position on d7! The idea is clear - to protect the extra pawn on c4 with ...b7-b5. White has some ways to fight for compensation - in this game he preferred to develop his bishop to g2 but it was met by a new and fairly strong innovation from Jan Smeets.

Bareev,E - Sokolov,I: Ivan Sokolov tried to defend a rare approach in the Slav Defence. Thanks to a rather interesting novelty on move 19 he obtained a solid and playable position but the ensuing mistake brought all of his efforts to naught.

Rogozenko,D - Johannessen,L: White still fails to prove that the extra pawn can give him any real advantage in the 11...g5!? 12.Nxe5 line:

He just cannot get enough time to exploit his two extra K-side pawns as he is under pressure on the opposite flank, where Black has an extra pawn, and even the exchange of one of Black's bishops did not help White much in this game.

Ernst,S - Smeets,J: The line with 12.Ne3 which, by the way, was played by Kasparov in the first appearance of the Morozevich Variation 11...g5!? at the top level (Kasparov - Morozevich/Wijk aan Zee 2000), still seems to be the most promising attempt to pose problems to Black. Play is quickly becoming sharp as Black castles on the Q-side - he obviously counts on his active pieces, which would help him create attacking chances against the White king to distract the opponent from his own king:

Yet perhaps one small problem is there - if White is not faint-hearted and ready to play a wild game he can involve a lot of pieces, including both rooks, in his Q-side attack. In this game the appearance of the Black pawn on f2 and the queen on h2 looked promising but in actual fact he failed to protect his own king after all...

Nielsen,P - Shirov,A: Peter Heine Nielsen came up with a new and fairly interesting set-up and gave his formidable rival serious problems in the 11...g5!? 12.Ne3 line, once again:

White crushed Black's Q-side bastions but a second of relaxation gave Black a lucky chance to consolidate his forces. Actually, in the early stage Black could have defended better but he has to do something about White' straightforward approach anyway. Let's wait for Black's next response in future battles...

Vescovi,G - Gelfand,B: This game has not changed the assessment of the "piece vs pawns" endgame too much. White introduced a novelty on move 22 and, as usual, secured a small advantage while Black, being a piece down, had to be a little bit more accurate to hold the balance. By the way, this 96 move victory in the last round helped Giovanni Vescovi to overtake his formidable rival and win the event!

Van Wely,L - Shirov,A: Alexei Shirov has already played one of the favourite set-ups of former World Champion Vassily Smyslov in the classical line of the Slav Defence against the same opponent. This time Loek van Wely came up with a more energetic approach - he sacrificed a couple of pawns and got a very powerful position on the K-side. It eventually brought him an extra exchange in the endgame which, however, was not enough to score the full point...

Bacrot,E - Bareev,E: Recently Etienne Bacrot displayed some interesting ideas in the classical line of the Slav Defence. In this game he managed to gain an edge in the line which we considered in the game Piket - Morozevich/Wijk aan Zee 2000:

but Black could still keep a rather solid position if he wasn't suddenly carried away by one strange idea...

Bacrot,E - Gustafsson,J: A fairly interesting approach in this popular line from Etienne Bacrot.

A new route for the knight, supported by very energetic play has crushed Black's very solid position.

See you next month!

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.