In this first issue of the New Year you will find all the players at the very pinnacle of world chess. All the top players have been active in tournaments in these last few months: Magnus Carlsen (winner of the Tal Memorial), Vladimir Kramnik (victor in the London Chess Classic), World Champion Vishy Anand and his challenger Boris Gelfand, and also Aronian, Radjabov, Topalov, Karjakin, Ivanchuk, Morozevich, Gashimov, Nakamura, Caruana etc. etc. And the list of star authors on this DVD scarcely differs from the above one: the best and most successful players, namely Carlsen, Kramnik, Anand, Aronian, Giri, Karjakin, Caruana, Meier, Fridman, etc annotate their latest games for you. A particular highlight of this edition is formed by the good 10 hours of live analysis from the players at the London Chess Classic. In addition, the DVD offers you 11 openings articles on, for example, the Ruy Lopez, the French and the Nimzo-Indian: another long series of exciting ideas for your repertoire.

 

 

Introductory videos
In his introductory video Karsten Müller takes a look at the recent top tournaments from November and December and passes comment on a few selected highlights, like the decisive moments in the game Movsesian-Meier, which clinched the gold medal for the German team in the European Championship and Kramnik's impressive win against Short in the London Chess Classic. Of the eleven openings articles on the DVD Müller mentions two in which ideas for your repertoire against the Ruy Lopez are presented. On one hand Marin's contribution on "Bird's Defence" (3...Nd4), and on the other Kuzmin's recommendation of 3...a6 4.Ba4 Nge7.

 

Dorian Rogozenco begins his video review of tournament life with a selection of interesting game fragments from the European Championship, including a great innovation in the Queen's Gambit Accepted by GM Sulskis. From the Tal Memorial Rogozenco has chosen to demonstrate the decisive moment in the game Aronian-Svidler as an example of the creative playing style of the Armenian. In conclusion, the Romanian grandmaster presents Anish Giri's stroke of genius in Reggio Emilia in his pawn ending against Ivanchuk.

 

Reggio Emilia 2011/12
Chess tournaments cannot be any more exciting than this one. In a world-class field with an Elo average clearly above 2700, one round before the end three players were heading the table with the same number of points. In, as it were, a proxy battle the decision fell in favour of Anish Giri, the only one of the three not to lose his final round game! Morozevich gave away his game against Vitiugov shortly before the time control and Nakamura, who could have finished as the very clear winner in Reggio Emilia, lost three games in succession at the end of the tournament. You will find on the DVD all the games from this long-running tournament as well as a tournament report.

 

London Chess Classic 2011
For the first time, the third London Chess Classic was not won by number one in the world rating list Magnus Carlsen. To do so the Norwegian would have had to defeat Anand in the last round but one... with Black, but that was not on the cards. Instead, in the same round, Vladimir Kramnik pulled away decisively with a victory over McShane. For this issue the tournament victor has commented in classical form on his victory with Black over Nigel Short. In addition, this DVD with its approx. 10 hours of audio analysis by the players (all recorded directly after their games) offers you a presentation in which you will not only learn heaps about chess but which will allow you to form an impression about the personalities of these top players. We offer you a selection of these analyses in the following sections. You will find the list of all the audio analyses on the DVD on the page devoted to the London Chess Classic.

 

Moscow Tal Memorial 2011
The Tal Memorial in Moscow must have secured a firm place in the history of chess tournaments. With Anand, Carlsen, Aronian and Kramnik there were four players with over 2800 Elo in the starting blocks, and then there were the WCh challenger Gelfand and three talented young players in the form of Karjakin, Nakamura and Nepomniachtchi - all possible future candidates for the WCh throne. An unusual rule accorded victory in the tournament to Magnus Carlsen, who had 5.5 out of 9 just like Aronian but who was declared winner because he had the larger number of game with Black. In any case in Moscow the Armenian gained some more Elo points and in the FIDE ranking list (as of January 2012) occupies second place, ahead of Kramnik and Anand.

 

European Team Championship 2011
The greatest success in German chess for more than 70 years happened on a memorable date: On the 11.11.11 the team of Arkadij Naiditsch, Georg Meier, Jan Gustafsson, Daniel Fridman and Rainer Buhmann sealed the win of the 2011 European Team Championship with a 2.5:1.5 victory over the reigning world team champions from Armenia. A glance at the countries which the German team was able to defeat on its way to the title makes it clear that their success cannot be characterised as anything other than well deserved: in Hungary, the Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia they swept aside four major chess powers. The only one top favourite "missing" from the list of Germany's opponents was Russia. Once more that team built around Grischuk and Svidler fell out of the running at an early point and once again were out of the medals in 5th place.

 

From the opening trap to the endgame study
Training in ChessBase Magazine starts with the very first moves and takes in all the phases of a game of chess. The latest 11 opening articles with their numerous ideas and suggestions for your repertoire can be found above among the links. Rainer Knaak's opening trap (including its Fritztrainer video) contains on this occasion a trap in the Sicilian (B33). Also in video format there are the openings contributions by Leonid Kritz (French Winawer Variation), Valeri Lilov (London System) and Adrian Mikhalchishin (Nimzo-Indian). You will find these videos in the fritztrainer column. The subject of Peter Wells' strategy-column is: "Understanding prophylaxis". Daniel King's long running Move by Move contains a game featuring the Torre Attack. And in the columns devoted to tactics (subject: Sink or swim) and the endgame (subject: technique in rook endings) Oliver Reeh and Karsten Müller have once more brought together for you all that is best in recent tournament practice.

 

Opening Articles
Carlstedt: English A11 1.c4 c6 2.g3 d5 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Bg2 dxc4 White first has to make something of an effort to recover his pawn. Black can make use of this time and sometimes very sharp variations arise, in which the side with the better knowledge can have the advantage.
Stohl: Old Benoni A44 1.d4 c5 2.d5 e5 3.e4 d6 Here Black is trying to exchange the dark-squared bishops with Be7-g5, and after 4.Nc3 Be7 5.Nf3 he is even prepared to give up his good bishop with 5...Bg4 6.h3 Bxf3 in order to get rid of the worse one. Igor Stohl demonstrates several comfortable ways to an advantage for White.
Schipkov: Dutch Defence A98 1.d4 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nf3 e6 4.g3 Be7 5.Bg2 0-0 6.0-0 d6 7.Nc3 Qe8 8.Qc2 Putting the queen on c2 straight away is of course linked to the plan of getting in e2-e4 rapidly. But it has been shown that Black can simply allow this, e.g. with 8...Qh5, and White nevertheless does not achieve any advantage.
Grivas: Sicilian B33 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Qb6 5.Nb3 Nf6 6.Nc3 e6 7.Bd3 d6 8.Be3 Qc7 9.f4 a6 10.Qe2 With this setup White leaves open the question of to which side he will castle. But the slight pressure which the white queen exerts on the e-file is of less value, for example, than the possible transfer of the queen from f3 to h3, meaning that probably 10.Qf3 makes more sense.
Kritz: Sicilian B39 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.c4 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Nc3 Ng4 If you wish to use the Maroczy setup, you need to know the variation with 7...Ng4. Play divides after 8.Qxg4 Nxd4 9.Qd1, when 9...e5 is actually only weakening, whereas after 9...Ne6 White needs to know how he is going to achieve a better game.
Moskalenko: French C02 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.a3 Nh6 Viktor Moskalenko is convinced that the d4-point should be attacked straight away. From the diagram White mostly plays 7.b4 and after 7...cxd4 our author analyses the lines 8.cxd4 Nf5 and the one with the intermediate exchange 8.Bxh6.
Marin: Ruy Lopez C61 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nd4 4.Nxd4 exd4 Mihail Marin presents a repertoire for Black with Bird’s Defence. Equality may not be guaranteed everywhere, but the lines are playable and can confront an unprepared opponent with positions of a type which are completely unknown to him.
Kuzmin: Ruy Lopez C70 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nge7 The author is of the opinion that first 3...a6 and then 4...Nge7 is more precise. 5.Nc3 should be followed with 5...d6 with motifs from the Steinitz Defence. Also 5.d4 exd4 6.Nxd4 is not followed by the fianchetto, but best of all by 6...Nxd4 7.Qxd4 Nc6.
Breutigam: Tarrasch Defence D32 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.cxd5 exd5 In the third part of his repertoire for Black with the Tarrasch Defence Martin Breutigam investigates the Marshall Gambit and the early capture on c5. Only the latter is critical, above all whenever White first plays 5.Nf3 Nc6 and only then 6.dxc5.
Postny: Queen's Gambit D37 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Bf4 0-0 6.e3 Nbd7 7.Be2 Levon Aronian introduced 7.Be2 (instead of 7.c5) at the highest level, and above all he was the first to meet 7...dxc4 with 8.0-0. He managed to put his opponents under pressure but all the games ended in draws. Evgeny Postny also examines the variations which have as yet not appeared on the board.
Schandorff: Nimzoindian Defence E39 1.d4 Sf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 0-0 5.Nf3 c5 6.dxc5 Na6 7.c6 The move 7.c6 is an idea of Alexander Morozevich, who has employed this bizarre move highly successfully on several occasions. In doing so the Russian has varied after 7...dxc6, trying first 8.a3, but later 8.g3 and 8.e3.