What's new December 2002
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Welcome to the December Update! Hi everyone, Sorry I'm a little late this month. I just failed to finish before Christmas and then it was the festive season and I had a tournament to play in. Consequently this update does not include all the Christmas and New Year tournaments. They will be included in the January update that should follow in about two weeks. |
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To download the December '02 KI games directly in PGN form, click here: 
Late November, first half of December is traditionally a quiet time in the chess world as organisers concentrate on their Christmas and New Year bashes. But, happily, there was still enough action to satisfy King's Indian fans. In Benidorm Judith Polgar triumphed ahead of a number of big names such as Karpov, Ponomariov and Shirov. In the process she played two interesting King's Indians.
In the first she crushed San Segundo in the sort of game which makes everyone want to take up the King's Indian. It should be noted, though, that he failed to play the theoretical recommendation 13 c5.
            
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In the second game, against Vera, Judith played a theoretical novelty on move 9 of the Mar del Plata variation! Unfortunately, I don't predict a bright future for the prophylactic 9...b6.
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Summerscale and Hebden have had quite a few tussles in the sharp 10 Be3 line. This time Hebden bided his time following Summerscale-Snape, a game that recently featured on this site with a better for White verdict, until unleashing his novelty 22...g4. Even that, however, seems insufficient for equality. Back to the drawing board Mark!
What else have we got? Well, Muse's amazing queen manoeuvre: 14...Qh4 15 Bg5 Qf2.
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Needless to say it soon ended in tears.
Also the Israeli tactical wizard Emil Sutovsky was on the warpath again (Israeli Championship). This time he managed to turn around a Bayonet Attack that had gone wrong by bamboozling his opponent in the complications after 23...Nxh2.
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As usual the Classical is the dominant KID variation but I would also like to draw your attention to an old line in the Fianchetto where a new idea has given White a torrid time recently. So far 12...Be6!? has been played almost exclusively by Yugoslavs but the news that this is another good dynamic way for Black to meet the Fianchetto will soon be spreading. See Narcisco - Damljanovic.
Happy New Year
Joe Gallagher
Any queries or comments to Joe_Gallagher@ChessPublishing.com would be most welcome.