The Chess Mind

Yesterday's Chess Today included a Dragon Sicilian from the Politiken Cup. The game features a nice combination, but what caught my eye was Black's opening preparation. Black played a line of the Dragon with a poor reputation and a lousy track record, offered up a novelty on move 22 in a position the computer thinks is losing and which the database confirms, and goes down to defeat without his opponent needing to do anything special. If this had been an obscure line, easily overlooked by Black, that would be one thing. But White is just following all the main line recommendations, except on move 13, where he plays the #2 move - though it's quite common as well.

I don't really mean to pick up on the victim in this game, who was an amateur facing a strong grandmaster and would have been a heavy underdog in any case. I just don't understand what was going on! Dragoneers, help? Here's the game, with my analysis.

Maybe not yet. Although Shabalov used this line against the significantly lower-rated Goletiani and lost, he enjoyed a nice advantage in the early middlegame; Zvaginsev's pet line isn't to blame.

You can replay the game here.

About a month ago, I unskeptically linked to an article on the ChessBase website, in which Fyodor Skripchenko proclaimed his authorship of the so-called Chebanenko System in the Slav: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 a6.

Since then, I have received an email from Gerard Welling:

There have been several players that have introduced 4..a6 before the F.Skripchenko/Chebanenko era. Notably Alatortsev, who played it in the 7th USSR championship, 1931. The earliest example I could find is a game that is not in the databases, R.Mitchell-Sultan Khan from the 1929 British championship.

The wellknown Moldavian coach Chebanenko is the man who analysed the idea, who mapped out new ways, and made it into a system that remains valid in top play until today.. He deserves credit for that!

While I didn't deny Chebanenko the moral right to naming honors, I am slightly embarrassed not to have looked up Skripchenko's claim in my database before writing my post. According to Mega2006, which, as Welling states, lacks the Mitchell-Sultan Khan game, there are seven games with 4...a6 that predate the 1972 game Chebanenko-Skripchenko.

Back in 1972, of course, there weren't any databases, so I have no reason to doubt that, as far as Skripchenko knew, it was a novelty when he played it. But 34 years on, there are, and first he, then ChessBase, and then yours truly should have checked this claim before publishing it! My apologies to the reader, and my thanks to Gerard Welling.