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Coffee Break Chess

GM Alexander Baburin's online newsletter

more chess texts by GM Baburin


No. 16, 8 October 1999:

Dear Chess Friends!

   With the launch of my Web site my workload increased considerably, which resulted in some delay with sending out this issue of CBC. Thus, I have some catching-up to do. Let's begin with a few puzzles (solutions are given in the end of this issue):

1. I. Boleslavsky - V. Savon, Kharkov 1963








White to play

White is certainly much better here, as the dark squares around Black's king are weak. How would you play, if you would be in Boleslavsky's shoes?

Now have a look at the following position:

2. S. Loyd, 1886








White checkmates in 3 moves

This position really puzzled my Fritz 5, as even after 20 minutes 'thinking' the program believes that this is checkmate in 5. Can you do better than Fritz?

My Web page

   It was launched about two weeks ago and during its first day the site had approximately 600 hits. I must now confess that almost 80% of those hits were mine! The counter did not like this and broke down... Now I've calmed down a bit and go there only 50 times a day. :-) You can see my page at:
members.tripod.com/ababurin/index.htm

My student, Michael Dooley, helped me to design the page and helps to maintain it. At the moment you can see on my page chess puzzles (3 new positions added every week), links, selection of chess books for sale, samples of my teaching, rates for my lessons, etc. The site is still evolving - recently we added Questions & Answers section and a discussion forum, called Questbook. The Calendar section already features advertisements about some international tournaments and I welcome chess organisers to post their ads in that section. Naturally, all issues of CBC are posted on my site as well. I plan to have more interesting stuff on the site soon (time is the only restriction!), so please visit it and see for yourself! Your feedback is always appreciated, so if you have any ideas or comments, please don't hesitate to contact me.

My online chat

   On the 26th of September I participated in online chat, conducted by David Dunbar. The chat went very well and now you can read its transcript at:
chess.about.com/games/gamesgenl/chess/library/blababchat.htm.

Coffee Break Chess in German and Dutch

   Manfred Rosenboom has translated some issues of CBC into German, which you can see at: www.marochess.de. He is going to translate earlier issues later on. Now CBC is also available in Dutch, thanks to Leander Laruelle. He has posted them on the Web site of the Belgian chess club which you can find at:
www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Dungeon/6860/index.html.

New interesting links

   There is a lot of good chess stuff on the Net now and it's hard to follow all good sites. Below are a few pages, which I certainly recommend to visit: www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Slope/4448 - this page is devoted to Anand. Also don't miss the Web site of Tim Krabbe - www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/chess/chess.html. Another good site is Rebel's page: www.rebel.nl. Recently this program beat GM R. Scherbakov. In December 1999 I will play against Rebel, so good few visits to this page are planned!

My new review at Chess Cafe

   Two days ago my latest book review was posted at: www.chesscafe.com/baburin/baburin.htm - there I discussed 3 opening books: on the Yugoslav Variation of the KID by GM Soltis, on the Catalan by IM Dunnington and on the Bb5 Sicilian by IM Pedersen.

Solutions:

Position No. 1. In Boleslavsky-Savon White played very energetically and smashed Black's position: 21 Rxe6! fxe6 22 Rxe6 Nd5 23 Qf4! Qb8 [or 23...Nxf4? 24 Rxg6+ Kh8 25 Bg7#] 24 Qe4 Kh8 25 Bxd5 cxd5 26 Qxd5 Rd8 27 Qe4 Rdd7 28 d5 1-0.

Position No. 2. S. Loyd, 1886. The solution is neat: 1 Qh6! It's interesting that now Fritz 5 claims that this is mate in 6... :-) Not quite right, as we shall soon see: 2 Qc1! and White checkmates on the next move.

Have a nice weekend!

Alexander Baburin, Dublin.

Copyright © 1999 by GM Alexander Baburin. All rights reserved.


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