Archive for October 8th, 2009

ChessCafe appears to have taken a week off for some redesign. The site still needs a bit of a make-over, but the content remains the best on the web and seems to have even gotten better (if that’s possible). Abby Marshall’s excellent new column “The Openings Explained” kicks off with a fantastic piece on the Tarrasch Defense (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5), which is a great choice for the target audience of club and class players. Carsten Hansen’s “Checkpoint” reviews important books on the Dutch and King’s Indian (including Bologan’s, which is remarkably well written IMHO). And there is a promising new “Daily Chess News Links” feature (though the service they are using is not that great–it posts mostly PR and needs to broaden its definition of “news” to include blogs–so it hardly deserves to be at the top of the page.)

The content is so great, it’s just a shame the design does not make it more accessible. The main page has a new look, complete with author pictures, but whoever redesigned it was not exactly thinking “above the fold.” You still have to scroll down the page to find the latest Columns (they should be more prominently featured near the top) and you still have to go to the “Archives” to find the permanent links (though at least the “Archives” link is now more prominently displayed in the top navigation). Updated: However, I was wrong to claim in my first version of this review that they do not provide web-viewable chess games and notes, which are available in the excellent “Chess Cafe Theatre,” as a reader helpfully pointed out. That I overlooked this feature (which is pointed to by what appears to be an ad on the side of each article — and I am used to not noticing ads) suggests that it should be more prominently featured or redundantly mentioned at the opening or close of each article. However, it is definitely a great addition to the site, and you can also download a PGN file of previous columns (which is fantastic). So my criticisms do begin to sound very minor indeed. But it is only because I like this site so much that I offer them….

I dropped by the Kenilworth Chess Club a couple weeks back, where two players were discussing an amusing trap that begins 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Nd5!? I have since posted an article on this Sicilian Dragon Trap with 6.Nd5 (and you can download the PGN for your own analysis).

At first glance, this looks like the type of move that should get White in trouble. After all, moving the same piece twice in the opening is rarely good. But it has some bite, and I was intrigued enough (and interested enough in the Sicilian Dragon as Black) to look into it. As I suspected, with best play Black is doing fine, but White is not risking more than equality. Meanwhile, he does set a dastardly trap, because 6….Nxe4? (tempting in blitz) drops at least the Exchange. Can you see how?

At two in the morning she summoned the hotel doctor, who diagnosed chicken pox. Chief Arbiter Ignatius Leong decided that WGM Batkhuyag Mungutuul of Mongolia could continue playing, in an isolated room, with a face mask and sergical gloves. In the meantime Marie Sebag lost to Baira Kovanova and handed the lead over back to Nana Dzagnidze and Xu Yuhua. Pictorial report.

It was a splendid idea – why aren’t more people doing it? – a match
between a Nairobi chess club and a very strong Dutch team. The latter won 6-0,
but the former had the pleasure of playing Jan Timman and other great player.
All of this was conducted via the Internet on Playchess.com,
and cost a fraction of what a face-to-face would have entailed. Big pictorial report by Mehul Gohil.

After the comet-like start of Georgian GM Nana Dzagnidze a new star has risen in the Nanjing Women’s Grand Prix. With a win over former Women’s World Champion Zhu Chen it is now French GM Marie Sebag who is in the sole lead. She is followed by Dzagnidze and Chinese GM Xu Yuhua. Pictorial report with commentary by FM Geoffrey Borg.

The wait is over, the English language version of Fritz 12 is now available and shipping to our customers all over the world. It represents a complete rewrite of the famous Fritz interface. The program has been modernized to comply with Microsoft’s “Fluent UI” standard – anyone who knows Office 2007 will feel immediately at home in Fritz 12. Take a look.