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
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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…
February 21, 2016
Matthew Sadler
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One of my favourite chapters in Chess for Life (a new book I co-authored with WIM Natasha Regan – see the books section on this blog for more details) is dedicated to the analysis of the Black opening repertory of Russian Grandmaster Sergei Tiviakov, in particular his use of the 3…Qd6 Scandinavian (1.e4 d5 2.exd5…