June 15, 2016
Matthew Sadler
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I recently managed to get hold of a copy of the 1930 book “Games Played in the World’s Championship Match between Alexander Alekhine and E. D. Bogolyubow” with annotations by F.D Yates and W. Winter. It’s one of those World Championship matches that I’ve never paid much attention to. The final score of 15,5-9,5…
May 10, 2016
Matthew Sadler
4 comments
In our “Chess for Life” chapter on Tony Miles, we looked at an original opening plan of Tony’s in which he released the central tension very early with …c5-c4 in one of his patented offbeat openings. Although we discussed this decision at reasonable length in the book, we couldn’t include all the material we’d gathered…
May 2, 2016
Matthew Sadler
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In an earlier post, I examined Alekhine’s predilection for centre-clearing gambits by analysing 2 of his games against Reshevsky and Rabinovich. I also mentioned Alekhine’s game against Winter at Hastings 1936/7 which featured a speculative Gambit against the solid Caro-Kann: 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 de 4.Ne4 Nf6 5.Bd3. I hadn’t realised it at the…
April 23, 2016
Matthew Sadler
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I’ve spent a bit of time recently taking a look at Alekhine’s opening repertoire. 3 things struck me in particular. First of all, Alekhine played gambits until the end of his life, even against the strongest players in the world. Some examples: 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 was a regular guest in…
March 26, 2016
Matthew Sadler
1 comment
One of the things that made Alekhine very frightening to play against was his inventiveness in the openings. His particular forte was provoking quick crises in solid-looking 1.d4 openings. Alekhine was a master at forcing the opponent to solve concrete problems an at unexpectedly early moment in the game. Without the buffer of modern opening…