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The editor’s top ten

1. Has Magnus Carlsen really given away a piece? World champion trainer and Dragon expert Peter Heine Nielsen explains what lies behind it.
2. When Anish Giri defeated the clear leader Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in Wijk, the tournament became interesting; the Dutch player himself shows you his crashing victory.
3. Whether it is more than an opening for a single game is something you must decide for yourself, but Alexey Kuzmin’s setup 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.e3 Bg7 5.h4 is not only venomous, but it can also be learned quickly.
4. Decision in Wijk aan Zee: Enjoy Daniel King’s video summary of the tiebreak between Carlsen and Giri.
5. In a Sicilian Stunner from Oliver Reeh White makes the going at first, but you get the opportunity to distinguish yourself in the defence of the black position.
6. As safe as Fort Knox, that is not true for Jonas Lampert – the German player shows you a convincing path for White against the popular variation of the French!
7. Move by Move with Simon Williams: attack along with Abhijeet Gupta and hunt down Ivanchuk’s king.
8. If you are looking for a safe repertoire against 1.b3 Renato Quintiliano can guarantee you the correct one.
9. Friends of the French pay heed: in his strategy column Mihail Marin investigates the pawn formation which arises when Black has played ...f6 it comes to the exchange of the e5- for the f6-pawn.
10. In the interactiv endgame our expert Dr Karsten Müller asks you some tricky questions: can you do better than the two players?

Recommendation for your repertoire

• Quintiliano: Nimzowitsch Larsen Opening A01 (Recommendation for Black) 1.b3 e5 2.Bb2 Nc6 3.e3 Nf6
  • For Renato Quintilano two defeats against 1.b3 prompted him to look more seriously into this underestimated opening. The Brazilian shares the results of his investigations and offers a repertoire for Black against 1.b3.
• Kuzmin: London System A45 (Recommendation for White) 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.e3 Bg7 5.h4
  • The position 4...Bg7 has so far been seen relatively rarely in practice. That is probably because Bf4 is quite frequently played together with Nf3, but for the setup with 5.h4!? suggested by Alexey Kuzmin the white knight should not yet be on f3.
• Szabo: Sicilian B41 (Recommendation for White) 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 Qc7 7.Be2
  • With his suggestion for play against 6...Qc7 Krisztian Szabo complements the article by Alexey Kuzmin on the 6...Bb4 7.Qd3 variation. Things can quickly become sharp, e.g. from the diagram 7...Bb4 0-0 with a pawn sacrifice. -Kritz: Sicilian B60 (Recommendation for White) 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bg5 e6 7.Qd2 Qb6 8.Bxf6 gxf6 9.Nb3
  • Black would be doing well after 8.Nb3 a6, but Leonid Kritz recommends the intermediary exchange on f6. In the resulting typical Rauser positions our author sees an advantage for White in all lines.
• Kosintseva: Sicilian B67 (Recommendation for White) 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bg5 e6 7.Qd2 a6 8.0-0-0 Bd7 9.f3 Be7 10.h4 h6 11.Be3 h5 12.Bg5
  • There is a lot in favour of Black’s setup; breakthroughs for White on the kingside are made considerably more difficult. But as Nadezhda Kosintseva shows in her contribution, the specific variations show that White achieves a notable advantage.
• Papp: French C06 (Recommendation for White) 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.Bd3 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.Ne2 cxd4 8.cxd4 f6 9.exf6 Nxf6 10.0-0 Bd6 11.Nf3 Qc7 12.Nc3 a6 13.Re1 0-0 14.h3
  • The heart of the white setup is the planned next move: Bd2. as Petra Papp demonstrates in her article, the positioning of the bishop has only advantages. Black does not get equality and must perhaps replace 11...Qc7 with 11...0-0.
• Schandorff: Petroff Defence C42 (Recommendation for Black) 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.0-0 Bg4
  • Actually the pinning move 7...Bg4 looks really logical. However, it does nothing for short castling and is not very popular with top players. In his article Lars Schandorff is guided above all by games played by Daniel Fridman, who is the greatest expert in this variation.
• Stohl: Four Knights Game C48 (Recommendation for Black) 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4 Bg7 5.Nb5
  • Whether Black equalises with 4...Bd6 is unclear, because there are still too few games. The bishop move, however, is easy to learn and deviates from theory, which according to Igor Stohl results for the better player in the possibility to play for a win with Black too.
• Postny: Ruy Lopez C78 (Recommendation for White) 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 b5 6.Bb3 Bc5 7.c3 d6 8.a4 Rb8 9.d4 Bb6 10.a5
  • In the introduction to his article Evgeny Postny characterises the move 10.a5 as unsound; since White was actually putting pressure on the b5-pawn. But chess is a game of specifics, in any case Black usually has to know what he is doing to steer around all the reefs.
• Ris: Slav Defence D15 (Recommendation for White) 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 a6 5.Qc2
  • Although, would you believe it, 5.Qc2 is only no. 11 of the moves, it was played three times in December in the Russian championship. That caught the attention of Robert Ris, who has looked into the subject thoroughly.
• Langrock: Catalan E05 (Recommendation for Black) 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.g3 Be7 5.Bg2 0-0 6.0-0 dxc4 7.Ne5 c5
  • With his repertoire suggestion for Black our author Hannes Langrock turns specifically to non-professionals. Because instead of 7...c5 there is in 7...Nc6 an established and objectively completely satisfactory move. With 7...c5 the theory is manageable, there are no tactical traps.