ChessBase Magazine # 166 Review

Mariya Muzychuk, queen of women’s chess has graced the cover of this issue. She earned her crown recently when she won the world championship for women. All the games of the event find their place here, several with annotations. The tournament had its highs and lows with a few players lacking preparation.

ChessBase Magazine # 166
June/July 2015
Editor:Rainer Knaak
(DVD+Booklet)

Mariya Muzychuk, queen of women’s chess has graced the cover of this issue. She earned her crown recently when she won the world championship for women. All the games of the event find their place here, several with annotations. The tournament had its highs and lows with a few players lacking preparation. Muzychuk, however, overcame the fierce challenge of her rivals. Here is an elegant finish.

Apart from the women’s world championship this issue also includes games from major tournaments like World Team Championship and European Championship with several annotated games. While I was going through one of these games I was intrigued by the following position:

Here White could have won a pawn, but passed it over for another continuation. Had he overlooked the opportunity? The challenge before you is one of positional judgment and there are no pat solutions.

For the younger readers there is a mini quiz:

1. Who are the players?
2. What was the occasion?
3. Who won the game?

A deceptive position

This brings me to other sections of the magazine. There are as many as 13 opening surveys ranging from Caro-Kann to Queen’s Gambit.

This brings me to other sections of the magazine. There are as many as 13 opening surveys ranging from Caro-Kann to Queen’s Gambit. Among them I would single out Boris Schipkov’s analysis of an unusual line. It starts off as Anti-Grünfeld (3.f3) and transposes to King’s Indian Sämisch Variation (E60).

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.f3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Ne2 0-0 6. Be3 c5 7.d5

Personally speaking, I am not enamoured of this line and the whole circus of moving the knight from g1 to c3 (ask the knight on b1 what he thinks, will you?) All the same I am wary. None other than Anand used it against Gelfand in world championship 2012 and won in a mere 17 moves. Here I have shown a simple line with which you may draw with Black. There are other lines and they are quite complicated. You would need someone like Schipkov to navigate those choppy waters.

This brings me to the end of the review

The current issue carries trademark sections on tactics, strategy and the endgame. For reasons of space I have not dealt with them here.

This time I didn’t see Telechess column (correspondence games). Hopefully, it would be back in the next issue.

In all there are 2543 games of which 128 are annotated. That’s a miniscule number, did you say? I spent a whole month worrying about just one position.

Your move!

Recommended.

Mini quiz solutions:

1) Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik

2) 3^rd Gashimov Memorial Tournament, Shamkir 2015

3) Carlsen won.

Credits: The image of the Muzychuk-Humpy game is taken from the

official site of the FIDE World Championship for Women:

For more info. see the ChessBase site.