Chess in Israel

The second edition of Shaun Taulbut's How to Play: The French Defence (Batsford, 1991) comprises nineteen chapters. Chapter 13 is devoted to the Exchange Variation of the French Defense and features one illustrative game: Laszlo Kovacs vs. Viktor Korchnoi, 1969 . Kovacs, representing Hungary, and Korchnoi, representing the U.S.S.R., were among sixteen competitors at an annual tournament in Sarajevo -- at the time a city in Yugoslavia -- that persists to this day, and Korchnoi would go on to win the 1969 edition. When White opts for the Exchange French, what he is saying is, My opponent knows the French Defense better than I do, so my best chance at leveling the playing field is the Exchange Variation. At the amateur level, White has a point. It is a mixture of disappointing and frustrating for Black to play a variation of the French Defense that is un-French in nature and where White's first-move advantage reduces Black to a reactive role. Taulbut, however, sees an upside ...

In August 1991, eight of the world's top nine players gathered in Brussels, Belgium to compete in the FIDE Candidates Quarterfinals. Two of those players were Vasyl Ivanchuk of Soviet Ukraine and Artur Yusupov (Jussupow) of Soviet Russia. After eight regulation Classical games, Ivanchuk and Yusupov were tied with four points each and consequently had to play a pair of tie-breakers at Rapid time control. The game featured here is the first of those two tie-breakers. Later dubbed "Brussels Rout," Ivanchuk-Yusupov 1991 is notable for the profound effect a Black pawn advanced to the e3-square early in the game had on the game's later stages. It is also notable for each player's steadfast commitment to his game plan, almost to the point of executing it in blind disregard for the plan of his opponent. Throughout Brussels Rout there are sequences whose complexity could not have been appreciated without the YouTube commentaries of Yasser Seirawan and Jozarov. 1. O...

When searching for example games featuring the French Defense, the results tend to fall into two categories: games where White wins in spectacular fashion and games where the Winawer Variation is played. The good news for French Defense devotees who don't play the Winawer is that the two categories largely overlap. The game showcased in this memorization exercise, Alexander Shabalov vs. Alexei Shirov , was played in the 2005 edition of the Canadian Open and features the Euwe Variation of the Advance French. Shabalov and Shirov were both born in Riga, Latvia during the Soviet era, and in 1994 Shirov was ranked number two in the world. Last year Shirov won the Canadian Open and, as it happens, in that tournament he played a game against the Euwe Variation as White and drew after eighty-eight moves. 1. Opening: Advance French, Euwe Variation Black replies to White's 1.e4 with 1...e6 , the French Defense. After 2.d4 d5 , White continues 3.e5 , the Advance Variation. Blac...

John Shaw's Starting Out: The Queen's Gambit (Everyman Chess, 2002) contains seventy-three complete chess games. They are used to illustrate common variations of the Queen's Gambit opening, e.g. the Queen's Gambit Declined, the Slav Defense and the Queen's Gambit Accepted, as well as middlegame ideas and engame technique. The first game in the book is between Suat Atalik of Turkey and Emanouel Bagakis of Greece . They faced off in a chess tournament in Chania on the Greek island of Crete in 1994, and the game is illustrative of the Tartakower Variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined. Relative to other variations, the Tartakower is rarely encountered at the beginner/intermediate level -- but the game is nonetheless instructive, and its brevity makes it an easy one to memorize. 1. Opening: Queen's Gambit Declined, Tartakower Defense White opens with 1.d4 , Black replies 1...d5 , White plays the Queen's Gambit with 2.c4 , and Black replies a-la Qu...

Part 3 of the missed tactics series features eleven puzzles. Each of the first eight is from a different game, and the last three are from the same game. New to this installment is the inclusion of a position from an OTB game. Gilan, my opponent in the game, and I have made it a custom to play each other every week after the Adult Improver class at the Jerusalem Chess Club and to record our moves in writing during the game. Also new to this installment is the inclusion of positions whose solutions don't result in a clear material advantage for the winning side. A crucial component in growing as a chess player is to evaluate not only the material imbalances of a position, the potential to deliver checkmate, or the opportunity to create a passed pawn but also those aspects of a position that are more abstract. Puzzles 3, 6 and 9a are examples of this new approach. 1. 2024-04-06 Black to move (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.a3) In this position, from an anonymous Lichess Rapid game, Whit...