Category Archives: Articles

The latest issue of The New Winawer Report has now been posted. This is the first issue that deals with the 7 … 0-0 line, covering what Kindermann & Dirr call the ‘Wild Variation’ 8. Nf3 f5 9. exf6 Rxf6 … Continue reading →

This month’s issue of The New Winawer Report, now posted on the tnwr page, returns to the theme of recent games, with three games from the past few months, each featuring lines covered in previous issues. The first features the … Continue reading →

The latest issue of The New Winawer Report has been posted on the Winawer page. This one covers the positional lines, in which Black tries the setup … Ba4 and … c4, recommended in several recent books: Vitiugov, Moskalenko, and … Continue reading →

The theory of the Winawer Poisoned Pawn has built up over decades into such a dense and complex thicket that it requires something out of the ordinary for any variation to be called by the impressive title above. But this … Continue reading →

The latest issue of The New Winawer Report has been posted on the Winawer page. This deals with a side line in the Poisoned Pawn, which was the subject of new analysis in Emanuel Berg’s new volume on the 7 … Continue reading →

“Samuel Beckett’s obsession with chess: how the game influenced his work” runs the headline of a recent article in the Guardian by Stephen Moss, which continues “Chess was one of Samuel Beckett’s great obsessions, touching everything from Murphy to Endgame.” … Continue reading →

Emanuel Berg’s The French Defence Volume 2 arrived last month: 304 pages of ‘Grandmaster Repertoire’-style discussion on the Winawer with 7. Qg4, covering both the Poisoned Pawn and the 7. … 0-0 line. I can’t really give a full review … Continue reading →

Issue 12 of The New Winawer Report has now been posted on the Winawer page. It continues the discussion in last month’s issue of the gambit lines in the Alekhine (or Maróczy) Gambit. This month starts from the diagrammed position, … Continue reading →

It’s strange how the same move in the same position can have drastically varying meanings and interpretations in different games. The classic example is a sharp and startling innovation, successfully and tenaciously defended over the board and ending in a … Continue reading →