When did that ever happen? No less than five tournament highlights one after the other in October and November: the chess Olympiad, the Grand Slam Final in Bilbao, the European Cup in Plovdiv, the Pearl Spring Tournament in Nanjing and finally the Tal Memorial in Moscow. All in all, a tightly packed and very varied programme with numerous winners and losers. On this DVD you will find all games from these top tournaments. Top players such as Anand, Kramnik, Karjakin, Movsesian, Vachier-Lagrave etc. provide comments on their best games. And our regular authors like GMs Marin, Stohl, Krasenkow, Müller, Rogozenco etc. have sought out for you new ideas in the opening and strategic masterpieces and they present them on this DVD.

Introductory videos
What awaits you in this issue of ChessBase Magazine? Karsten Müller gives in his Video introduction an overview of the numerous top tournaments, high class analysis, training videos and repertoire suggestions from our authors. As a little appetiser, Müller introduces two of the openings articles on the DVD in brief videos: on one hand the "Accelerated Bogo-Indian" (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 Bb4+) by GM Marin and GM Kuzmin’s analyses on the Ruy Lopez Four Knights, which should be equally interesting both for White and for Back players.

The Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk in Siberia takes up the most space in Dorian Rogozenco’s first video survey of the top tournaments of the last two months. The Romanian GM lays special emphasis on the outstanding performance of Ivanchuk, who, on first board, led the Ukraine to victory in the Olympiad. Rogozenco presents in detail two strokes of genius by the Ukrainian. On one hand Ivanchuk’s amazing novelty in the  Volga Gambit Declined with 4.Qc2 and his grandiose victory over Jobava in the Caro-Kann "Fantasy"-Variation. At the same time Rogozenco takes a look at the European Cup in Plovdiv and honours the performances of Moiseenko and Andreikin, who collected the decisive points for the renewed victory of their team "Economist".
 
In his second, video survey Dorian Rogozenco presents the high points of the recent top tournaments. From the Grand Slam Final in Bilbao he comments on Kramnik’s convincing first-round victory over Carlsen, which laid the foundation stone for the Russian’s splendid victory in the tournament. The Tal Memorial in Moscow is singled out particularly by Rogozenco on account of the large number of exciting games. For example, he annotates for you the strategic subtleties of Aronian’s innovation in the Catalan against Gelfand and Karjakin’s crashing attack on the king against Kramnik’s Petroff Defence.
 
Tal Memorial Moscow
The Tal Memorial finished only a few days prior to the printing of this ChessBase Magazine. The race at the top was close to the very last moment. Before the final round, Sakhriyar  Mamedyarov occupied the first place with 5,5 out of 8 and half a point lead. Yet Boris Gelfand, who apart from that didn't do too well in Moscow, duped the top player from Aserbaidschan and with a dashing victory prevented solitude on the winner's podium. For Levon Aronian and Sergey Karjakin both drew their last games and thus managed to join the top of the table.

Pearl Spring Tournament in Nanjing
How similar the pictures are. Unfazed by the rather mediocre results (for him) at the Olympiad and in Bilbao, Carlsen dominated the field in Nanjing almost at will as in the previous year. And that though this time the tournament was even stronger and more star-studded due to the presence of Vishy Anand. Before the tenth and final round Magnus Carlsen had already won, because his 6.5 out of 9 put him a point and a half ahead of Anand and Bacrot. The fact that Carlsen’s desire to play chess had not suffered from the busy schedule of the past months can be seen from his final round game against Gashimov. Many players would have been happy with a colourless draw. Carlsen wanted more and went the full distance of 71 moves. 

Univé Tournament in Hoogeveen
Every year in the Netherlands there are various high-class all-play-all tournaments. One of these is the Univé Tournament in Hoogeveen. In the "crown group" four players measure up against each other in a double round-robin. This year there were two experienced players in Alexei Shirov and Sergei Tiviakov facing up to two young stars in the form of Anish Giri and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. After two draws the French player really hit out and secured victory in the tournament with three wins in succession. The extremely busy Alexei Shirov, who had been there at the Olympiad, the European Cup, in Bilbao, in Moscow and in Hoogeveen, occupied second place.

Grand Slam Finale Bilbao
For three of the participants in the Grand Slam Master Final, namely for Kramnik, Carlsen and Shirov, it meant a rapid trip after the Olympiad in Siberia to Bilbao in the Basque country. Only World Champion Vishy Anand had once more declined to take part in the numerically biggest event and spectacle in the world of chess. Vladimir Kramnik laid the foundations for a majestic victory with two victories over Carlsen and Shirov in the first two rounds. In the following four games the Russian was never really in any danger. With Black, Kramnik was even on the verge of inflicting a second defeat on Carlsen.

Chess Olympiad Khanty-Mansiysk
They can also do it without Sergei Karjakin. The young super-GM had for years been the rising star of the Ukraine. At the Olympiad he achieved a more than solid score of 8 out of 10 – but this time for his adopted country, Russia. But it was not enough for a victory for Russia, which had a total of five teams in the starting blocks for the men’s event. Because the Ukraine triumphed surprisingly splendidly – above all thanks to a brilliant performance by Vassily Ivanchuk on top board. The Israeli team took third place behind Russia. The DVD contains 3240 games from Khany-Mansiysk, selected games from the top teams have been annotated, for example by Karjakin, Movsesian, Efimenko, Caruana etc.

From the opening trap to the endgame study
Training in ChessBase Magazine starts with the very first moves and includes all the phases of a game of chess. The 11 up-to-date openings articles with their numerous ideas and suggestions for your repertoire can be found here or above among the links. The column opening trap by Rainer Knaak (including its Fritztrainer video) contains three examples this time, click here, to get them. You will also find in video format the openings articles by Dejan Bojkov (Scandinavian Defence), Valeri Lilov (Dutch Defence), Adrian Mikhalchishin (English Opening) and Leonid Kritz (French Steinitz Variation). You will find these videos and other recordings in Chess Media format in the column Fritztrainer. Peter Wells’ subject in his Strategy column is called: "The Anatomy of a Key Pawn Push (e5-e6) Part One". In Daniel King’s long-running Move by Move it is a Mamedyarov game up for discussion. And in the Tactics and Endgames (s. Diagramm) columns Oliver Reeh and Karsten Müller have once again selected for you the best from current tournament practice.

Opening articles

Stohl: Reti Opening A13, 1.Nf3 e6 2.c4 d5 3.b3 Be7
Black counters the frequently played white setup by putting the black-squared bishops on the same diagonal and thus depriving his opponent of one of his biggest trumps. The only ambitious lines then are those with the exchange of bishops.
 
Marin: Keres Defence A40, 1.d4 e6 2.c4 Bb4+ 3.Bd2 a5 4.Nf3 d6 5.g3 Nc6 6.Bg2 e5
By holding back with the development of the king’s knight Black is pursuing two aims. On one hand, the extra tempo plays its part in the struggle for the centre, and on the other it is very possible to develop the knight to h6.
 
Marin: Caro-Kann B15, 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.h3 Nh6
In the first part of a series on a hybrid of the Caro-Kann and Pirc Defences, Mihail Marin examines variations in which White does without e4-e5 or e4xd5. Black then often develops with …f6, …Nf7 and aims for the advance e7-e5.
 
Grivas: Sicilian B33, 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Qb6
The lines in which White does without the natural 5.Nb3 are brought together by Efstratios Grivas under the name of the Medusa Variation. 5.Nb5 is of some importance, but after 5…Nf6 or 5…a6 Black has few problems and frequently seizes the initiative.
 
Postny: Sicilian B46, 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Be3 Nf6 7.f4 Bb4 8.Bd3
By holding back with …Qc7 Black prevents the popular setup with Qd2 and 0-0-0 (the Nf6 would be more useful in that case than the queen on c7). White then has another aggressive setup, the relatively rarely seen 7.f4.
 
Moskalenko: French C02, 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.Qg4
Every French player has perhaps already come up against this aggressive queen move, above all in blitz- or rapid chess. In these cases it is not easy to find the correct reply over the board. Viktor Moskalenko presents a variation which can be described as a refutation.
 
Kuzmin: Four Knights Game C49, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 Bb4 5.0-0 0-0 6.d3 d6 7.Bg5 Ne7
How can Black play for a win against the Four Knights Game? Alexey Kuzmin presents a setup which, of course, does not promise any opening advantage; but the resulting positions get away from the symmetrical character of things.
 
Kritz: Ruy Lopez C92, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.h3 Bb7 10.d4 Re8 11.Nbd2 Bf8 12.a3
After Igor Stohl in CBM 138 (with 12.a4) Leonid Kritz now tries to prove an advantage after the move 12.a3. White has several ideas: preventing …Nb4, the bishop can establish control over the diagonal if required by Ba2 and of course b2-b4 possibly followed by Nd2-b3-a5.
 
Schandorff: Semi-Slav D43, 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bxf6 Qxf6 7.e3 Nd7 8.Bd3 dxc4 9.Bxc4 g6 10.0-0 Bg7
In the chess Olympiad Wang Hao managed to defeat Alex Fier with the move 11.Re1. Lars Schandorff explains the idea behind the rook move – after 11…0-0 12.e4 e5 13.d5 Nb6 14.Bb3 Bg4 White can avoid the doubled pawns on the f-file with 15.Re3.
 
Krasenkow: Gruenfeld Defence D97, 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Qb3 dxc4 6.Qxc4 0-0 7.e4 a6
On move 7 Black has an unbelievable choice between six respectable moves, but 7…a6 has been played the most and has the best statistics. Michal Krasenkow presents you with a repertoire from Black’s point of view.
 
Schipkov: King's Indian E81, 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 0-0 6.Be3 c5 7.dxc5 dxc5 8.Qxd8 Rxd8 9.Bxc5 Nc6 10.Nge2
After Boris Schipkov showed in the previous issue how White can decline the pawn sacrifice 6…c5, he now examines the best way to accept it. In the variation with 10.Nge2 Black must play very accurately in order to keep things in balance.