EDUCAÇAO FÍSICA PROFESSOR WILLIAM PEREIRA: ChessCafe.com Weekly Newsletter, July 22

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Issue #14
July 22 - 28

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

Max & Sam
The death of Walter Cronkite reminded Hans Ree of a story that was told to him by the Dutch IM Nico Cortlever concerning the world championship match-tournament of 1948.

The Teacher
According to Bruce Pandolfini, a private lesson should be given in private and many teachers don’t appreciate the importance of silence. He notes, “teaching is less about knowledge and more about conveying how to think about knowledge and everything else.”

Position Searches
One of the most useful features of ChessBase 10 is the ability to search for specific board positions. In fact, Steve Lopez believes this single feature is why many people purchase the ChessBase program.

The Latvian
In the Latvian Gambit after 3 Nxe5 Nf6 4 Bc4! the main line has been avoided and the second player’s task is much more difficult; at least that’s the conclusion in this month’s Over the Horizons.

Book Notes

In AVRO 1938, all the games from this last great tournament before the Second World War are annotated, with substantial background information that puts the tournament into historical perspective. It also includes an interview with Sam Reshevsky and a “Facts and Trivia” section.

Chess Strategy for Club Players, by IM Herman Grooten, is designed to enhance the readers understanding of how to recognize the most important features of a position and to develop a plan accordingly. It presents amateur players with a structured course to positional mastery.

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

The ABC of the Anti Dutch
by Andrew Martin

According to Andrew Martin, no one should play 1...f5 without a thorough study of White’s anti-Dutch weapons, especially at club level. The most important of these are 2.Nc3, 2.Bg5, and the Staunton Gambit 2.e4. He notes that these lines will be seen at least as often as the main variations; however, if Black knows what he’s doing, White cannot claim any opening advantage.

In all he looks at twenty games over the course of three hours. Nine games in the Staunton Gambit, two with 2.Nc3, two with 2.Bg5, two with 2.g4, two with 2.Nf3, and one game each with 2.h3, 2.Qd3, and 2.e3. In each case Martin shows the resilience of Black’s position and offers advice for Black to gain a playable game with fighting chances by accurate play.

It won’t come as any surprise to those who play 1...f5 that the positions often become quite complex in the middlegame and are often hard to evaluate. Yet Martin does a good job of explaining where the pieces are ideally placed, what the resulting plans should be for Black, and the logic behind the moves. This is a good companion volume to Martin’s DVD, The ABC of the Leningrad Dutch.

Chess Strategy for Club Players
by Herman Grooten

Subtitled “The Road to Positional Advantage,” this book presents amateur players with a structured course on how to recognize the key characteristics of a position, and how to make a plan based on those features. IM Grooten has built on Steinitz’s Table of Elements to provide stepping-stones to positional mastery.

The book is organized so that each element is illustrated as aptly as possible, with model examples, and exercises at the end of each chapter. Many of the positions in the book have been used by the author in his own role as a trainer over the past twenty-five years. In this time his students have included Loek Van Wely, Jan Werle, and Benjamin Bok.

The book is designed to enhance the readers understanding of how to recognize the most important features of a position and to develop a plan accordingly. The emphasis is placed on determining the strategic characteristics of the position. Grooten writes, “positional play is essentially about directing your pieces to the right squares” and that “pursuing a plan that is in accordance with the demands of the position is absolutely necessary to achieve better results in games.” He also notes that “the importance of opening theory is grossly overestimated.”

This is a great book!

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)
6/26: 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)