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.

The Scandinavian Defence is one of the most popular chess openings among amateur players, and it is easy to see why. Black players immediately limit the opening theory they have to know because there is no way White can side-step Black’s first move. What’s more, the Scandinavian requires only very little theoretical knowledge, so it has an extremely low maintenance factor. To cap it all, Black gets a solid structure.

And that’s not even the end of the good news, as Thomas Willemze demonstrates in this compact and practical manual. Playing the Scandinavian teaches invaluable techniques that you can use in almost all of your other games. Pressuring the centre, neutralizing your opponent’s initiative, improving your piece coordination, trading the right pieces and exploiting your opponent’s weak points are all typical ‘Scandinavian’ spin-offs that Thomas Willemze teaches you in his trademark lucid style.

The Scandinavian for Club Players offers everything you need to know to be fully prepared to meet 1.e4. The various lines are enriched with verbal explanations, diagrams, flash-cards and exercises that make this book even more accessible. Willemze not just uses examples from the games of elite grandmasters. As an experienced trainer he knows that discussing club player’s adventures are particularly instructive for his target group.

Thomas Willemze is an International Master from The Netherlands. He is an experienced trainer of amateur players and has been the National Youth Coach of the Dutch Chess Federation. He is the author of the acclaimed ‘What would you play?’ column in New In Chess magazine, aimed at helping club players to improve their decision-making skills. In 2018 he published the best-selling improvement guide The Chess Toolbox, also available as a NIC Interactive eBook and a Chessable video course.

Bobby Fischer’s Road to Reykjavik

Initially things looked gloomy for Bobby Fischer. Because he had refused to participate in the 1969 US Championship, he had missed his chance to qualify for the 1970 Interzonal Tournament in Palma de Mallorca. Only when another American, Pal Benko, withdrew in his favour, and after the officials were willing to bend the rules, could Bobby enter the contest. And begin his phenomenal run that would end with the Match of the Century in Reykjavik against World Champion Boris Spassky.

Fischer started out by sweeping the field at the 23-round Palma Interzonal to qualify for the next stage of the cycle. In the Candidates Matches he first faced Mark Taimanov, in Vancouver. Fischer trounced the Soviet ace, effectively ending Taimanov’s career. Then, a few months later in Denver, he was up against Bent Larsen, the Great Dane. Fischer annihilated him, too. The surreal score in those two matches, twice 6-0, flabbergasted chess fans all over the world.

In the ensuing Candidates Final in Buenos Aires, Fischer also made short shrift of former World Champion Tigran Petrosian, beating the hyper-solid ‘Armenian Tiger’ 6½-2½. Altogether, Fischer had scored an incredible 36 points from 43 games against many of the world’s best players, including a streak of 19 consecutive wins. Bobby Fischer had become not just a national hero in the US, but a household name with pop-star status all over the world.

Jan Timman chronicles the full story of Fischer’s sensational run and takes a fresh look at the games. The annotations are in the author’s trademark lucid style, that happy mix of colourful background information and sharp, crystal-clear explanations.

Jan Timman is the author of many bestselling books. His Timman’s Titans won the 2017 ECF Book of the Year Award. In The Longest Game, Timman revisited the epic rivalry between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. His most recent book Timman’s Triumphs: My 100 Best Games again met with wide acclaim.

A Memoir of Players, Games and Engines

Larry Kaufman can safely be called an exceptional chess grandmaster

Larry Kaufman started out as a prodigy, however not in chess but as a whizz kid in science and math. He excels at shogi (Japanese chess) and Go, and is also a world-famous computer programmer and a highly successful option trader. Remarkably, as a chess player he only peaked at the weirdly late age of fifty.

Yet his victories in the chess arena are considerable. Over a career span of nearly sixty years Kaufman won the state championships of Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida, Virginia, D.C. and Pennsylvania. He was an American Open Champion and won the U.S. Senior Championship as well as the World Senior Championship.

‘Never a great chess player’ himself (his words), he met or played chess greats such as Bobby Fischer, Bent Larsen, Walter Browne, Boris Spassky, Viktor Kortchnoi and many others. He worked as a second to legendary grandmaster Roman Dzindzichashvili, and coached three talented youngsters to become International Master, one of them his son Raymond.

This engrossing memoir is rife with stories and anecdotes about dozens of famous and not-so-famous chess players. In one of the most remarkable chapters Larry Kaufman reveals that the American woman chess player that inspired Walter Tevis to create the Beth Harmon character of Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit fame, is his former girlfriend. You will learn about neural networks, material values and how being a chess master helps when trading options. And find lots of memorable but little-known annotated games.

Larry Kaufman is an American Grandmaster. He has been involved in computer chess since 1967, when he worked on ‘MacHack’, the first computer that competed in tournaments with human players. More recently he has been working on the programs Rybka and Komodo.

In the first book ever exclusively devoted to the Exchange French Variation, American grandmaster Alex Fishbein recognizes that the Exchange French is an opening for a player who likes active piece play, fights for the initiative, excels in positions with possibilities on both sides of the board, and finds strategic and tactical nuances that arise out of almost nothing. And if you play the French as Black, then this book will help you deal with White’s 3.exd5.

Authors of French Defense books from the black perspective have recognized for a while that there is no draw here at all and have proposed lines where Black can create interesting play. Indeed, both sides can create complications. The author shows that playing “boring” moves is actually risky with both White and Black. The Exchange French is a vibrant opening, just like any other, and yet there has been very little literature showing how to play it from the white side. That void is filled with this book.

While the main point of this book is to build a White repertoire, any player of the Black side of the French will benefit by reading it. A good number of the sample games end well for Black, whereas in the games in which White gains the upper hand, Fishbein is careful to note improvements for the second player. I have been playing and writing about the French Defense, including this variation, for many years, but I came across a lot that I hadn’t known in nearly every sub-variation.

I suspect that most readers of this book will be pleasantly surprised to find out how rich the play can become in the French Exchange Variation. That alone is enough to reward a careful reading, and Fishbein’s careful exposition of lines and strategies will undoubtedly translate into extra points over the board. – from the Foreword by John Watson

Grandmaster Igor Zaitsev ranks as one of the most creative chess minds ever in the history of the royal game. This is his book of secrets and methods, his remarkable life’s work.

Zaitsev unearthed astonishing ideas which even giants of the game had overlooked. World champions Tigran Petrosian and Anatoly Karpov insisted on Zaitsev’s analytical help in their matches, wanting to be first to play his profound discoveries, such as the famous Zaitsev Variation of the Ruy Lopez.

Zaitsev was himself a tournament champion. With his sharp, combinative style, he won dozens of “Most Beautiful Game” awards. Many of these games provide context for his lessons.

But Zaitsev is even more than a renowned coach and competitor. Part analyst, part champion, part chess philosopher, and part chess poet, he reveals the underlying logic and beauty of chess in a way no one else has ever done.

In his eye-opening title chapter, “Attacking the Strongpoint,” Zaitsev makes explicitly clear a common strategic element never formalized until this book. Often overlooked by amateurs and even GMs, the idea can lead to winning tactics in many games!

Backed up by top-level games, Zaitsev also provides deep-level explanations about:

- Combinations and Piece Harmony

- Strategy and Structure

- Learning from the Cycle of Chess Epochs

- The Role of Reason and Judgment

- The Chess Law of Conservation of Energy

- Strategy: Evolution vs. Revolution, Recognizing a Favorable Structure

- As you read Zaitsev, you’ll often find yourself thinking, “Ah, now I get it!&rdquo

The volume is topped off by supplemental games, a complete autobiography by Zaitsev, a special foreword by world champion Garry Kasparov, as well as tributes and memories from world champion Anatoly Karpov and famed coach Mark Dvoretsky.

The Daunting Domain of Queen Endgames Explained!

Knowing the abilities and limitations of the powerful queen is very valuable for mastering the secrets of the royal game, and this can be studied best in the endgame.

Queen endgames are very difficult, if only for purely mathematical reasons – the queen is the most mobile peace in chess, and the amount of possible options is incomparably higher than in any other type of endgames.

This book follows a dual philosophy as in the three previous works by the same authors: Understanding Rook Endgames, Understanding Minor Piece Endgames and Understanding Rook vs. Minor Piece Endgames. The 7-piece endings are dealt with in great detail. They are often so complex that pre-tablebase analysis almost always contains errors. Many new discoveries are revealed here.

But to really understand the fight of a queen against a queen or minor pieces with rooks, these theoretical positions are of course not enough. So subchapters on the principles of each material configuration have been added.

This book considers a gambit treatment of the Slav and the Semi-Slav.

White offers the c4-pawn in order to get a space advantage and a long-term initiative. It also covers the Closed Catalan and the modern line 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 Be7 5.g3 0-0 6.Bg2 dxc4 7.Ne5. The author’s idea is to throw 1...d5 players off their comfort zone by dragging them into sharp unbalanced positions. If you are fed up with all the mainstream Slav/Meran theory out-there, this book will offer you new refreshing approaches for both sides.

Grandmaster Kiril Georgiev has been one of the strongest Bulgarian players for many years. He was a Junior World Champion and a bronze medalist in Europe. He has played in 15 Olympiads and also coached Bulgarian national team. His peak rating was in the world's top ten. Kiril wrote the books The Sharpest Sicilian, Squeezing the Gambits, Fighting the London System and The Modern English.

The author presents a full opening repertory for the club player, which is analysed in seven volumes. In the books you will find many novelties for both sides, with a full move-to-move presentation. Furthermore, the reader will get access to middlegame strategies, endgame techniques and common tactical motifs, which are patterning the proposed variations.

With the seventh volume Grivas is completing the full opening repertoire!

A total of over 2000 pages in 7 books will give you a chance of having a solid, long time lasting opening repertoire which will make you feel confident in your tournament games.

A great deal for a player who just wants to open the book and get to a solid level in the opening theory instead of spending hundreds of hours on the opening studies.

In the seventh and last volume the openings of the Benoni Defence, the Old Indian Defence, the Modern Defence, the Polish Defence and Various Sidelines are presented.