EDUCAÇAO FÍSICA PROFESSOR WILLIAM PEREIRA: ChessCafe.com Weekly Newsletter, July 15

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Issue #13
July 15 - 21

Welcome to the ChessCafe.com weekly newsletter. You can keep up-to-date with new product releases, read reviews of selected products, and follow the latest postings at ChessCafe.com. Plus, try your hand at solving our weekly puzzle. Enjoy!

Here & There

Passed Pawns
At the start of Endgame Corner in January 2001 Karsten Mueller did not think that he would reach column #100. This time Charles Sullivan has sent him an amazing piece of analysis from Petrosian-Fischer, Portoroz 1958.

Center Pawns
Most chess players know the principle “when two pawns can make a capture on the same square, choose the one that captures toward the center.” As Dan Heisman explains, this principle is just a corollary of a less known, but more powerful, general idea: More pawns in the center are good.

Illegal Moves
This month Geurt Gijssen looks at when an illegal move can be considered as illegal, and what to do when a tournament director offers you bribe money.

Chess History
Olimpiu G. Urcan is no stranger to ChessCafe.com readers as he has contributed a number of articles in The Skittles Room. We are pleased to announce that Urcan will begin a new column on chess history on July 25.

Book Notes

In Beating the Sicilian Defense: Chameleon Variation, American grandmaster Andy Soltis reveals a concept of playing against the Sicilian Defense in which the idea is to play an Open Sicilian when Black has prepared to play a closed one, and vice versa.

International Master Andrew Martin has a new five-part DVD series entitled Train Yourself Chess Course. This series covers every basic aspect of the game in five easy-to-understand videos, with a total running time of approximately eleven hours.

This month you can enjoy tremendous discounts on a great selection of books, software and sets. Some for as low as 99 cents!! Plus, enjoy free UPS Ground Shipping on all domestic US orders of $75 or more!*

Reviews in Brief

Chess Opening Essentials, Volume 2
by Stefan Djuric, Dimitri Komarov, & Claudio Pantaleoni

The aim of this book is to explain the ideas, plans, and counterplans in all the main variations that begin with 1.d4 d5, 1.d4 various, and Queen's Gambits. This is part of a three-volume work that was originally published in Italian in 2004. The first book covered 1.e4 and a third book covers 1.d4 Nf6; each volume has been updated and revised since its first publication.

Each section generally includes a short introduction, some coverage of the main lines and a number of un-annotated illustrative games. Important moves and key positions are highlighted in color, while italics are used to underscore unsound lines. Graphic devices such as colored pieces or colored squares or arrows are used to emphasize moves, plans, and strong and weak points.

This book provides beginners with a decent way of becoming familiar with a wide gamut of theory. It can help someone starting out to navigate the spectrum of openings and it provides more verbal information than a tabular list of moves such as in an MCO or ECO.

The ABC of Chess Openings, 2nd edition
by Andrew Martin

This DVD contains the original twenty-two video segments from the first edition, as well as eight new segments that offer ideas for a stable repertoire as white. Martin begins by reviewing the basic ideas of opening play that are common to all openings; these include developing your pieces quickly and to active squares, controlling the center, castling early, etc.

The remaining contents are divided into segments on Open Games, Semi-Open Games, Closed and Semi-Closed Games, Flank and Irregular Openings. At the beginning of each section Martin offers basic guidelines, followed by some thematic games. Along the way he offers general instruction and advice on what to look for and what to avoid in each opening under consideration.

As the “ABC” in the title suggests, the material is geared towards beginners. Viewers can certainly begin to employ any of the openings straightaway, though further research will be necessary for a deeper understanding of any of the recommended openings. The running time is six hours and twenty-four minutes.

The DVD also contains the whole training course in audio-format for Pocket Fritz 3. The system requirements are Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz+, 64 MB RAM, Windows XP/Vista, etc.

New Catalog Additions

7/10: Foxy Openings Volumes 84-88 (DVD)
7/10: Foxy Openings Volume 88: Endgames Self-Training Easily Explained (DVD)
7/10: Foxy Openings Volume 87: Attack/Defense/Space/Time (DVD)
7/10: Foxy Openings Volume 86: Dynamics of Strategy (DVD)
7/10: Foxy Openings Volume 85: Essential Chess Tactics Easily Explained (DVD)
7/10: Foxy Openings Volume 84: The Basic Principles, Checkmates and Elements (DVD)
7/9: Beating the Sicilian Defense: Chameleon Variation
7/8: AVRO 1938
7/3: The Luneburg Variation (Damaged)
6/30: Top TNT, Vol. 3 (CD)
6/29: Chess Informant #104 (Book)
6/29: Chess Informant #104 (CD)
6/29: Chess Informant #104 (Book + CD)
6/28: Botvinnik-Smyslov, Three Championship Matches
6/26: The Chess Garden (Damaged)
6/25: New In Chess Magazine, 2009/4
6/23: ABC of Chess Openings, 2nd ed. (DVD)
6/22: ChessBase Magazine #130 (DVD)
6/21: My Best Games in the Spanish, Vol. 2 (DVD)
6/20: Shirov: The Philidor Defense (DVD)