EDUCAÇAO FÍSICA PROFESSOR WILLIAM PEREIRA: ChessCafe.com Weekly Newsletter, September 9

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Issue #21
September 9 - 15

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

Superfluous Piece
One of the most intriguing modern ideas that has actually been codified is the brainchild of the Russian super-trainer IM Mark Dvoretsky.

Databases Reloaded
Tim Harding spent some time during the late summer working on game databases and was pleased to discover that some of his games from the 1984 Thessaloniki Olympiad have been returned to his name.

New Masters
Eric Rosen and Abby Marshall both share a special accomplishment that they earned in the same place at nearly the same time - they are among America’s newest chess masters. Steve Goldberg reports in this month’s Scholastic Chess.

Practical Pando
Endgame Workshop, by prolific writer and instructor Bruce Pandolfini, consists of lessons developed by Pandolfini over the past thirty-plus years. Read more in this week’s review.

B+N Mate
This introductory video discusses the transferable skills beginner students can learn from the bishop and knight mate that apply to other areas of the game.

Book Notes

The new Club Special Set has proven to be a popular choice among players, tournament organizers, and clubs. This black and ivory set features a 3-7/8’ King, four Queens, and the weighted version weighs more than two pounds.

On the new DVD The f4 Sicilian, GM Nigel Davies shows that the line with 2.Nc3 and 3.f4 can have devastating consequences against anything but the most accurate play by Black. Accordingly, Davies’s four hour presentation is offered for players wishing to play this opening with White or Black.

Endgame Workshop, by popular chess author Bruce Pandolfini, is designed to give the reader maximum comprehension of this critical phase of the game in an easy-to-follow presentation. In it he follows the format tested in thousands of actual private and classroom settings.

Reviews in Brief

The f4 Sicilian
by Nigel Davies

On this DVD, Nigel Davies looks at the f4 Sicilian from the perspective of both players. He notes that the opening is a perennial favorite with club players and that it occurs much more frequently in their games than it does at super-GM level. He points out that the GMs tend to avoid 2.f4 because of the gambit line 2...d5 and instead prefer 2.Nc3 and only then 3.f4. Of contemporary practitioners Davies spotlights Israeli GM Emil Sutovsky who especially enjoys this variation against Najdorf devotees, when 2.Nc3 d6 3.f4 is very dangerous for Black.

Davies discusses the history of the line and the theory behind the development of certain move-orders. He notes that the f4 Sicilian is such a menace at club level because it can provide White with an absolutely ferocious attack on Black’s king that is simple enough for a five-year-old to learn to play quickly. He showcases these motifs in a game played by Mark Hebden from the British championship in 1982 and comments that Hebden won a lot of crushing victories with the 2.f4 move-order until the d5 gambit started to become popular. Accordingly, he begins the DVD with two sections that look at 2.f4 d5, which are important from Black’s point of view.

The next twenty sections all provide the theory of 2.Nc3 move-orders. Davies concludes with a look at the move 3.Bb5, which he notes has become somewhat fashionable as of late and contains a really great trap that has caught a number of strong players. He also points out that the opening can be played with colors reversed against the English Opening. A good companion volume to this DVD is The Closed Sicilian.

The DVD also contains the whole training course in audio-format for Pocket Fritz 3. No additional software is needed to run the DVD as it comes equipped with the ChessBase Reader that installs onto your hard disk. If you already have CB10 or one of the Fritz family playing programs, then you do not need to install the reader. The nice thing in this scenario is that if you have a question concerning a move that isn’t covered, you can just click on Fritz for an answer. The system requirements are Pentium-Processor at 300 MHz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows XP/Vista, DVD drive, etc.

Endgame Workshop
by Bruce Pandolfini

Endgame Workshop, by prolific writer and instructor Bruce Pandolfini, consists of lessons developed by Pandolfini over the past thirty-plus years. More specifically, five specific courses taught by the author, to classes consisting of players with USCF ratings between 1600 and 2000, served as the impetus for this text.

Basic but crucial endgame material is presented, although much of what is here has relevance to earlier portions of the game as well.

Pandolfini writes, “Clearly, this is not an all-inclusive manual. Yet I can say that most of what appears here has been fashioned for real people with real problems about chess problems.” That’s a mouthful, but it does explain Pandolfini’s approach. It’s not an encyclopedia, in the manner of Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual, and it’s not a progressive step-by-step manual on the order of Silman’s Complete Endgame Course. Instead, Endgame Workshop is Pandolfini being Pandolfini. He writes in his refreshing, slightly offbeat manner, so that the reader feels that he is sitting one-on-one with the author.

Read the full review by Steve Goldberg here.

New Catalog Additions

9/1 DGT Electronic WIRELESS Chessboard
8/18 Power Play 10: Calculation (DVD)
8/17 Shirov: The Sicilian with 3.Bb5 (DVD)
8/16 Davies: The f4 Sicilian (DVD)
8/15 Bologan: The Caro-Kann (DVD)
8/14 Kaissiber #34
8/13 ABC of the Vienna (DVD)
8/12 ChessBase Magazine #131 (DVD)
8/11 The Safest Sicilian 2
8/10 Endgame Workshop
8/7: New In Chess Magazine, 2009/5
8/6: New Club Special Set (weighted)
8/6: New Club Special Set (unweighted)
8/6: Pirc Alert (2nd edition)
8/5: The Classical King’s Indian Uncovered