Nigel Davies

Game 6 of the World Championship featured another 5…a6 Semi-Slav and another draw. Once again Vishwanathan Anand defended very well with an excellent pawn sacrifice on his 14th move. Lagging behind in development White was obliged to return the pawn and the game fizzled out to equality. I still think the match could come to [...]

The extent of Boris Gelfand’s preparation for this match became clear today as he unveiled another new opening against Vishwanathan Anand’s 1.e4. The Sveshnikov Variation of the Sicilian Defence is known to be a razor sharp and highly theoretical line in which White needs some very serious preparation to hope for anything. But how could [...]

Returning to the subject of thinking protocols a student of mine pointed out that in Chess Made Easy by Purdy and Koshnitsky, there’s a nice section giving five steps. Personally I suspect that this many might get in the way a bit if you try to do enact them consciously on every move. But methodical [...]

Well Boris Gelfand was better in game 4, but somehow his edge slipped away at some point. Both 17.Qb2 and 21.Be3 look like interesting tries.

Game 3 of the World Championship was the most interesting so far. With Gelfand preparing to play another Gruenfeld, Anand tried the unusual 3.f3 in order to test his opponent’s breadth of knowledge in an opening that is new to him. In the event Gelfand reacted well, his 16th move being a theoretical novelty. Of [...]

Here’s a nice clear example of a pawn storm from a Queen’s Gambit Declined in which Black comes second. Note that White was a noted endgame specialist, so the game also contradicts those who think their ‘style’ means they shouldn’t have great expertise in other things too.

There’s not much getting away from the fact that this was a very dull technical draw. The connoisseur will see Vishwanathan Anand’s defence of this line as being very adept but the man on the street will not be very impressed. It’s at times like this that I recall how staunch advocates of classical chess [...]

I tuned into the first Anand – Gelfand match yesterday and wondered if White could sacrifice the exchange with 14.c4!?. Probably it isn’t good enough but it does offer some compensation for the exchange. Gelfand made a clever opening choice, adopting the Gruenfeld could hardly have been expected and Anand’s innocuous 8.Bb5+ left him with [...]

There’s nothing more embarrassing than losing a game of chess to a chick. Well said Rachel, though I’m not so sure about your choice of chess set or calling knights and rooks ‘horses’ and ‘castles’. Nevertheless this is a nice clear video for beginners: Fortunately I have a pretty good score against chicks (wins versus [...]

Here’s a must read article for anyone seriously interested in junior chess in which he explains why much of the accepted thinking is wrong. I’ve long admired Richard’s deep and thoughtful writing and have frequently turned to his Chess Kids site for insights into how and why to teach my own son. I have taught [...]