ChessBase Reviews

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CDs, DVDs, Software Part 8

Queens Gambit Accepted by Boris Schipkov

The Author of this CD is a Russian chess theorist from Novosibirsk who has written several books and articles. He is also the editor-in-chief of the online magazine Chess Siberia.

The Queens Gambit Accepted, (1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4) continues to be popular at all level of chess, both OTB and Correspondence. Anand is probably its leading player at present.

The large dataBase on this CD consists of over 20,700 games and of these about 1,200 are annotated. Of these 55 games are specially annotated by the author. There are 19 short text files covering all important lines to guide the reader through of the strategic ideas of each variation. I found the CD well ordered and of good quality. As usual the CD contains an Openings Tree and a second database contains 20 games with 46 training questions.

It's amazing how the games of our Scottish CCA members turn up on these top ChessBase CDs. I found one by George Pyrich, which unfortunately he lost, from a decade ago. The game went:

G Pyrich - C Duncan (2325) [D26] SCO-ch (3), 1992
1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.Bxc4 c5 6.Qe2 a6 7.dxc5 Bxc5 8.0-0 b5 9.Bd3 Nbd7 10.Nbd2 Bb7 11.a4 b4 12.Nc4 Qc7 13.e4 0-0 14.e5 Bxf3 15.gxf3 Nd5 16.Bg5 Be7 17.Bd2 g6 18.Bh6 Rfc8 19.Rfc1 Qd8 20.Kh1 Bc5 21.Be3 Qh4 22.Be4 Qh5 23.Bxd5 exd5 24.e6 dxc4 25.exd7 Bd6 0-1

All the CDs in this article have the ChessBase Light reader for those of you who don't have ChessBase.

Philidor Defence by Alexander Bagiev

This is another excellent CD from the German based IM Alexander Bagiev. He is an author of several chess books and has gained a good reputation as a coach.

The Philidor Defence 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 combines a number of advantages. The Black player has a choice of various types of positions - he can play with or without capturing on d4. The typical plans and manoeuvres are easy to learn and there is hardly ever any red-hot new theory. But you have to like playing a passive position while waiting for your chance. If you play 1.e4 with White you can hardly avoid this opening. The author, Alexander Bagiev, does not hide his liking for the Black side but still never fails to indicate and analyse plans, ideas and promising lines for White.

The Database contains just over 13,400 games, 300 of which are annotated. 134 of these were annotated by the author. 18 text files provide the reader with a good understanding of the defence. As usual the CD contains an Openings Tree and a second database contains 7 games with training questions.

Once again I found some games from our players including this win by David Kilgour.

D Kilgour - I Robertson (2175) [C41] SCO-ch (1), 1995
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Be7 6.Be2 0-0 7.0-0 c5 8.Nb3 Nc6 9.Bf4 a6 10.Bf3 Ne5 11.Bxe5 dxe5 12.Qe2 Qc7 13.a4 b6 14.Nd2 Rb8 15.Rfd1 Rd8 16.Nf1 Bb7 17.Ne3 Rd4 18.Nf5 Rb4 19.g4 g6 20.Nh6+ Kg7 21.g5 Ng8 22.Nd5 Bxd5 23.Rxd5 Rd4 24.Nxg8 Bxg5 25.Qxa6 Kxg8 26.c3 Rxd5 27.exd5 Bf4 28.Qb5 Bxh2+ 29.Kg2 Bf4 30.Qc6 Qe7 31.d6 Qg5+ 32.Kf1 Qf5 33.Rd1 Qc8 34.Qxc8+ Rxc8 35.d7 Rd8 36.Bb7 Kf8 37.b4 cxb4 38.cxb4 Ke7 39.Bc8 e4 40.a5 bxa5 41.bxa5 Bc7 42.a6 Bb6 43.Rb1 Bc5 44.Rb5 Ba7 45.Re5+ Kd6 46.Rxe4 h5 47.Rb4 f5 48.Rb7 Bc5 49.f4 Ke7 50.a7 Bxa7 51.Rxa7 Rg8 52.d8Q+ 1-0

The Pirc Defence from Grandmaster School St, Petersburg

The true author of this CD is revealed in the text as Aleksei Lugovoi, with game annotations by top players such as Mikhail Gurevich, Chernin and Azmaiparashvili.

There is a huge quantity of games played with the Pirc Defence. However, the number of really important ideas is comparatively small, and the central variations which are called theory are still easily comprehensible. That’s why this opening is very wide-spread, particularly among club players.

There are actually 4 databases on this CD. The first contains 8 explanatory text files and 116 heavily annotated games. The other three contain games covering B06; B07 and B08/B09. In all there are over 80,000 games so the reader can't complain about value for money. The authors concentrate on giving the reader an understanding of basic positions reached in the Pirc Defence rather than hoping they will blindly learn screeds of lines.

Here's another Scottish game I found on this CD where I was truly cuffed by George Pyrich:

B Milligan - G Pyrich (2085) [B08] SCO-chT2 SCO, 1994
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nc3 g6 3.e4 d6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Be3 c6 6.Be2 0-0 7.0-0 Qc7 8.Qd2 Ng4 9.Bf4 e5 10.Bg3 Nd7 11.Rad1 Re8 12.Qg5 Ngf6 13.d5 Nc5 14.Nd2 cxd5 15.exd5 Bf5 16.Rc1 a6 17.Rfe1 b5 18.a3 Qb6 19.Qe3 Rab8 20.b4 Ncd7 21.Nf1 Rec8 22.Bf3 Qxe3 23.Rxe3 Bh6 24.Nb1 Bxc2 25.Rxc2 Rxc2 26.Rc3 Rxc3 27.Nxc3 Rc8 0-1

ChessBase Monograph: World Champion Emanuel Lasker

Well, I didn't look for any games by our players on this CD as I was pretty certain that none of them were old enough.

Emanuel Lasker became world champion in 1894 and kept this title until 1921. These almost incredible 27 years on the throne are more than enough to yield Lasker a very special place in the history of chess. However, Lasker's fantastic series of tournament successes which - like Kasparov's record of success today - didn't come to an end when he lost the title of the world champion, emphasise his extraordinary position in the chess world even more. Lasker's style wasn't understood by his contemporaries, and prejudice and misjudgement on his play persist until this day. That's why the ChessBase biography above all takes a very close look at Lasker's chess.

The main database contains 1183 games where 138 of them are analysed. This is more than a collection of Lasker's games since the CD contains a lot of text files containing excellent tournament reports and biographical information. A number of games also include multimedia .avi films. The downside here is that the commentators are speaking in German so if like me you only understand English, we miss out on some commentary that is probably very interesting. Still this doesn't detract from the value of this excellent CD.