INFORMATOR nr 157 (K-353/157)

New In Chess Yearbook, which appears four times a year, contains the latest news in chess openings. Each issue brings you dozens of new ideas on the cutting edge of modern chess opening theory. Have a look at what this issue has to offer.

Forum

French guru Viktor Moskalenko shows two recent OTB games in the Forum Section, in which he was successful with some great ideas he presented in his latest book The Fully-Fledged French. One is a piece sac that gained him a 13-move win with black! Bogdan Lalic takes a look at another surprising black piece sac, in the King’s Indian this time. The Forum also contains some novelties from the World Cup, presented by Luis Rodi, Peter Boel and Frank Erwich.

From Sadler’s Engine Room

Matthew Sadler is our new columnist! He will alternate with Erwin l’Ami’s ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ column. The English grandmaster is well-known for the best-seller Game Changer he wrote with Natasha Regan, about computer chess. His new column will be on opening treatment by the top engines, and in his first instalment Matthew shows that these beasts are not at all averse to some offbeat opening play!

Reviews

Four books are reviewed this time – all of them with a quite original angle. The Modernized Italian Game for White by Alexander Kalinin & Nikolai Kalinichenko is more about understanding than learning lines by heart, and we know that it’s the same with Viktor Moskalenko’s books. With The Fully-Fledged French, the Ukrainian grandmaster has produced a new shoot on his favourite French opening, with a lot of brand new ideas. The didactic approach of Thomas Willemze in The Scandinavian for Club Players is really something else, and of course we couldn’t ignore the Iron English by the creative English duo Simon Williams & Richard Palliser.

New In Chess Yearbook, which appears four times a year, contains the latest news in chess openings. Each issue brings you dozens of new ideas on the cutting edge of modern chess opening theory. Have a look at what this issue has to offer.

Forum

This issue’s Forum Section features an article by René Olthof on the stunning piece sacrifice with which Fabiano Caruana took Maxime Vachier-Lagrave by surprise in the second leg of the Candidates Tournament. This is followed by some unique analysis material by Ganguly on a game he lost against Pavel Eljanov! Two other grandmasters, Mikheil Mchedlishvili and Max Warmerdam, also made a contribution, and you should certainly check out IJntze Hoekstra’s short but intriguing note to the book Side-Stepping Mainline Theory by Gerard Welling and Steve Giddins!

From Our Own Correspondent

Our GM correspondent Erwin l’Ami starts his column with a good equalizing method for Black in the Tarrasch and then presents a thorough analysis of a correspondence game with the Delayed Poisoned Pawn in the Najdorf. L’Ami has played the Black side of Kramnik’s QGD endgame and demonstrates that Black is OK here – which cannot be said of his two final subjects, the Poisoned Pawn line in the London System and the Winawer French with 7…0-0.

Reviews

Part of Glenn Flear’s Reviews column is dedicated to modern media again. The 2-volume ebook The Modern French by Kryakvin is reviewed and compared to two other recent works on the French: Anish Giri’s awesome Lifetime repertoire course; The French Defense (for Chessable) and Pentala Harikrishna’s book Beat the French Defence with 3.Nc3. The Englishman also pays attention to Ilya Smirin’s book Sicilian Warfare – arguably more than just an opening book – and of course the latest masterpiece by Parimarjan Negi: Grandmaster repertoire: 1.e4 vs Minor Defences.

Presents 350 pages of the very best in chess:

- Gormally – World Chess Championship – Nepo – Ding (Review)

- Shyam Sundar – World Chess Championship – The Most Instructive Moments and Positions

- Miodrag & Milos Perunovic – European Chess Championship (Tournament Report)

- Leitao – The English Opening (WCH Edition – Theoretical Survey)

- Foisor – Woman’s Candidates Final (Instructive Review)

- Prusikin – The Power of Knight Pair(Instructive Lesson)

- Davies – The Maroczy Bind (Theoretical Survey)

- Kotronias – The King’s Indian Saemisch (Theoretical Survey)

- Perelshteyn – The Alekhine Defence (Theoretical Survey)

- Rogers – Telechess Olympiads (Roger’s Reminiscences)

- Griffin – Vaganian – Gulko, Baku 1977 (From Informant Archives)

- Barak Gonen – Correspondence Chess (Review)

Traditional sections: games, combinations, endings, Tournament reviews, the best game from the preceding volume and the most important theoretical novelty from the preceding volume.

The periodical that pros use with pleasure is at the same time a must have publication for all serious chess students!

New In Chess Yearbook, which appears four times a year, contains the latest news in chess openings. Each issue brings you dozens of new ideas on the cutting edge of modern chess opening theory. Have a look at what this issue has to offer.

Forum

The Forum section contains a lot of material from the Tata Steel Chess Tournament which ended just before our deadline. You can find hot ‘Tata’ contributions by Han Schut, René Olthof and Frank Erwich, besides an impressive analysis by young player Artem Odegov, an SOS line versus the Najdorf employed by Nakamura against MVL no less than 10 times in the chess.com Speed final (written by Peter Boel) and a baffling opening discovery by new grandmaster Max Warmerdam who was also the second of Tata winner Jorden van Foreest.

From Our Own Correspondent

Our GM correspondent Erwin l’Ami dives deep into five openings again with the help of correspondence chess games. You’re getting the latest on the English Attack vs the Najdorf, a new path for Black in a difficult King’s Indian/Benoni hybrid, a sharp attacking game with the Shirov/Shabalov Slav, a new blow for the Blumenfeld Gambit, and another blow for a much-applauded Bobby Fischer idea for Black in the Benoni.

Reviews

Glenn Flear sees Magnus Carlsen’s influence on opening theory grow and grow. He reviews two books on variations named after the World Champion: Carlsen’s Neo-Møller by Ioannis Simeonidis and The Carlsen Variation by Carsten Hansen – the inventor of which variation, by the way, is ‘close by’! Flear also takes a look at an impressive tome on a very obscure variation: The Exhilarating Elephant Gambit by Jakob Aabling Thomsen and Michael Agermose Jensen, and first but not least at a French opening – another novelty in the Yearbook! It’s called Jouez la Française and it’s by GM Manuel Apicella.

Chess Informant 164 “Freestyle!” presents:

New In Chess Yearbook, which appears four times a year, contains the latest news in chess openings. Each issue brings you dozens of new ideas on the cutting edge of modern chess opening theory. Have a look at what this issue has to offer.

CHESS INFORMANT’S 149 th ADVENTURE

United Colours of Autumn

Presents 350 pages of the very best in chess:

Duda - How I won the World Cup

Ivic & Mio. Perunovic - World Cup Fairy Tale

Leitao - South Americans in the World Cup

Perunovic - Duda’s World Cup Black Repertory

Foisor - St. Louis Rapid&Blitz (Tournament review)

Moradiabadi - Sinquefield Cup (Tournament review)

Gormally - Danny’s Chess Diary (Northumbria Masters)

Priyadharshan K. - Asian Masters - Meltwater Tour (Tournament review)

Davies - Understanding the Openings (The Semi-Tarrasch part 1)

Szabo - Anti-Marshall 8.a4 d5!? (Opening Survey)

Prusikin - A Story about Horses and Elephants (Knight versus Bishop)

Petrov - World Championship Game Changers - part 1

Rogers - Reggie Emilia 1984/1985 (Rogers’ Reminiscences)

Griffin - A Tribute to Iron Tigran (Polugaevsky-Petrosian 1970.)

Traditional sections: games, combinations, endings, Tournament reviews, the best game from the preceding volume and the most important theoretical novelty from the preceding volume.

The periodical that pros use with pleasure is at the same time a must have publication for all serious chess students!

151 wydanie Chess Informant. 

Eternally Puzzled

Chess Informant 162 “Manoeuvre!!” presents:

World Championship Match Ding – Gukesh, analysis by GM Ivan Ivanisevic

European Individual Chess Championship, analysis by GM Milos Perunovic

The Budapest Gambit, theoretical survey by GM Vasilios Kotronias

The King’s Gambit, 5.h3 Variation by GM K. Szabo

The Wandering King, instructive lecture by GM Michael Prusikin

Thankless Tasks, studies by GM Steffen Nielsen

Roger’s Reminiscences, Kasparov’s first trip to the West by GM Ian Rogers

A story of a Chess Prodigy – Roman Shogdzhiev

Traditional sections:

Correspondence Chess

The best game and most important theoretical novelty from the previous Volume

Endgames

Combinations

200 games according to ECO Codes.

The periodical that pros use with pleasure is at the same time a must have publication for all serious chess students!

Chess Informant 165 “Echoes” presents:

- FIDE WOMEN'S WORLD CUP 2025 by WGM Sabina-Francesca Foi.or

- TASHKENT TOURNAMENT REPORT by GM Miloš Peruno

.....

Chess Informant 163 “Treasures” presents:

Presents 320 pages of the very best in chess:

Velickovic - Editor's Corner

Speelman - Real-Time Action and British Miscellany

Perunovic - Serbian Chess Championship

Afek - Dutch Chess Championships

Kotronias - Najdorf Variation - 6. h3 e6! Repertoire for Black

Prusikin - Michael's Musings

Perelshteyn - Sicilian Dragondorf

Sprenger - Obstructing the Opponent's Plan

Edwards - Correspondence Chess Matters

Gonen - World of Correspondence Chess

Rogers - Candidates Semifinal Matches, London 1983

Griffin - From the Chess Informant Archives

Traditional sections: 287 games and fragments, combinations, endings, Tournament reviews, the best game and the most important theoretical novelty from the preceding volume.

The periodical that pros use with pleasure is at the same time a must have publication for all serious chess students!

New In Chess Yearbook, which appears four times a year, contains the latest news in chess openings. Each issue brings you dozens of new ideas on the cutting edge of modern chess opening theory. Have a look at what this issue has to offer.

Forum

The experiments have continued in the many online events held during the OTB lockdown. That makes excellent Forum material! Han Schut writes about Magnus Carlsen’s 7.g4 in the QGD (it gets played earlier and earlier) and René Olthof was pleasantly surprised by a Vasily Ivanchuk win with the King’s Gambit – an opening on which we also have a Survey, for the first time in ages, by Bogdan Lalic. And be sure not to miss Krishnan Sasikiran’s amazing analysis of a recent correspondence game featuring the Anti-Sveshnikov Sicilian.

From Our Own Correspondent

This time Erwin l’Ami presents a mixture of standard and non-standard openings. You’ll be surprised to know that From’s Gambit seems to hold up even in correspondence games! That is an encouraging thought for all those gambiteers out there. The Catalan and the QGD are also extensively scrutinized, the latter with a correspondence game by the Dutch GM himself, and he concludes with a study of two nice offbeat openings.

Reviews

The same juxtaposition as in the Correspondence column can also be found in Glenn Flear’s reviews this time. A Complete Opening Repertoire for Black after 1.e4 e5! by new author Yuriy Krykun (who will be awarded the IM title soon and has also written Surveys for us) features some fresh out-of-the-box ideas, and this is even more so in the case of Unconventional Approaches to Modern Chess Volumes 1 and 2 by Alexander Ipatov, whose middle name seems to be ‘Unorthodox’. More classical approaches can be found in Martyn Kravtsiv’s thorough work The Italian Renaissance (also 2 volumes!) and Squeezing 1.e4 e5: a solid strategic approach by Alexander Khalifman and Sergei Soloviov.