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Chessville
Advertise to Single insert:
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About two month’s ago, the weekly web
publication
TWIC Theory
premiered. As the name indicates, this new service is affiliated with
Marc Crowther’s indispensable
The Week in Chess (TWIC) site, and as such
For the price of $15 you receive 12 weekly issues delivered straight to your inbox. Each issue reviews an opening line through the use of illustrative games. Based on the first dozen issues, which I have had the pleasure of looking at, the articles seem to average around 20 pages. TWIC Theory comes in three formats: an Acrobat PDF-file suitable for on-screen reading or printouts, and the games with annotations in two database formats: PGN and Chessbase (CBV) format. While the PDF-format is good for old-fashioned types such as myself, who prefers to go over games from a piece of paper, the database files are a great advantage to those who want to double-check with their own database and perhaps look closer at the covered lines using their favorite chess engine. I am old enough to remember the days when newspaper clippings and dusty chess magazines posed one of the most significant sources of new games from around the world. The comprehensive scrapbook of games (neatly organized by opening system) maintained by an early mentor of mine made a deep impression on me. Of course, these days we are blessed with multi-million-games databases, so that handling a pair of scissors has long ceased being a prerequisite for staying abreast with opening theory. Rather ironically, this development has helped accelerate theoretical developments. Thus, while the lifecycle of opening theory was essentially semi-annual in the glory days of Chess Informant (which appears twice a year), new ideas are now often created, disseminated via the Internet, and sometimes even refuted in a matter of weeks. Obviously, the most profound impact from all of this is seen at the highest level, but even the chess amateur cannot help notice this trend. Whereas decades ago finding an appropriate set of games to help study and grow an opening repertoire was often a major obstacle, today the main challenge has become to monitor and process the plethora of information at our disposal. This is an overwhelming task, so it becomes essential to get help sifting databases for valuable new ideas, and this is where services like the New in Chess Yearbooks, Chesspublishing.com, and TWIC Theory can assist. In order to hit the ground running, TWIC Theory started with the publication of three free issues by IM Martin himself. You can use the links below to download these sample issues, which is obviously a good idea if you are considering a subscription and want to form your own opinion.
If you do look at these three issues, please consider that they may not be particularly representative. Although all TWIC Theory issues share the format, individual writers will inevitably approach things quite differently. I will show this later by means of some examples. Since such variation in style and quality cannot be avoided, I think it would have made more sense if the people behind TWIC Theory had selected sample issues from three different contributors. US National Master Dennis Monokroussos, who is best known for his weekly lectures on the Playchess-server, has offered a detailed critique in several parts of the February 15th issue at his website. Monokroussos first compares IM Martin’s annotations with other sources here, and then look at possible improvements over the published analysis here. I see this as a good illustration of how TWIC Theory should be used – not as a final verdict but as a source of inspiration for further analysis. The same can of course be said about any other publication of chess analysis. At the time of writing, ten pay-issues of TWIC Theory have been published. You will find them listed below. Clearly, not every issue will be of equal interest to you, but the subject coverage promises to be sufficiently wide-ranging that it will serve most players well.
A disclaimer: I have not studied every single issue in detail for the purpose of this review, but rather I have focused on those issues that dealt with openings I know fairly well. At its best I have found TWIC Theory to be a great source of inspiration, but on the other hand a few issues failed to deliver sufficient analysis and guidance at critical points. You can more or less split the individual issues into two categories. Those that provide short, yet systematic, reviews of established theory in a line, and, those that look at novelties where the jury is often still out. The novelties which have been presented so far have included both mainstream and offbeat ideas. For example, GM Mikhailevski’s article on new ideas buried 14 to 17 moves deep in the King’s Indian Fianchetto variation is distinctively mainline, whereas IM Martin’s look at a rather unorthodox idea in the Scandinavian (1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Ne4) is designed to part with book lines early on. It is my impression that TWIC Theory is mostly geared towards players of strong intermediate strength and upward. This is only natural, since the novice should not preoccupy herself with such detailed opening study in the first place. I would be hesitant to recommend a subscription to anyone below 1600 rating, and that is probably setting the limit of who will benefit a little low. Having said that, I think that a few of the articles are suitable for a wider range of playing strengths, in particular those authored by IM Martin. Martin has made a living of writing about quirky openings for the common man. You can check out some of his other writing here at Chessville or at the site of Jeremy Silman. IM Martin on the Sicilian O’Kelly variation
A typical example of IM Martin’s honest and
uncomplicated writing is the issue on the Sicilian O'Kelly Variation (1.e4
c5 2.Nf3 a6):
This is the conventional wisdom on the O’Kelly, although mortals apparently continue to play 3.d4 all the time. After a few historic games, featuring respectively O’Kelly himself and Taimanov on the Black side, we arrive at what is probably the most interesting game in this issue. It features 3.c4, but shows Scottish GM Jonathan Rowson demonstrate how Black can still play for a win. His victim was Turkish IM Haznedaroglu at the recent Calvia Chess Olympiad. In the notes for that game IM Martin arrives at the following conclusion: I'm now absolutely clear in my mind about how the O'Kelly might be used in these days of the database:
I found this article to be informative. Since it deals with a line without a huge body of theory, the short TWIC Theory format is quite suitable to teach you the basics. The Sicilian O’Kelly article contains a total of five annotated games and twenty supplemental games. GM Mikhailevski on the King’s Indian Fianchetto
And now for something completely different!
An example of an article, which I feel only appeals to very advanced and
theoretically proficient players, is GM Mikhailevski’s article on new ideas
after with 9.Be3 in the King’s Indian Fianchetto. This is apparently
an old idea of Botvinnik’s, which was featured in his first world
championship match against Smyslov.
I find GM Mikhailevski’s annotations here to be very inadequate. Why not tell us what he has in mind after 18.Re1!?, other than Qf4 at some point. It take the article more than two full pages to reach 17.Qc1!?, but in a critical position, just one move downstream of this novelty, all we are told is that 18.Re1 was the way to go. The position is rather messy so it is not like the concrete continuation is self-explanatory. For example, what happens after 18.Re1!? c4 (?) White has been contemplating 19.Qf4 after which Black could continue 19…Nc5. Or what about 19…a3 20.b3 d3 21.e5 c3 22.Ng5 Rf8 23.Bxf8 Rxf8 (?)
As White I would at least worry a little about Black’s far advanced and connected passed pawns. This is just one example of the questions left in my mind, which I think this article ought to have addressed. WGM Yelena Dembo on the Caro-Kann Advance with 4.Be3
This was probably my favorite issue so far, and
it might actually persuade me to change my ways in the Advance variation in
the Caro-Kann. It is evident from the 36 supplemental games
accompanying this article that Dembo is sticking her head into a hornet’s
nest. The proponents of 4.Be3 in those games include Anand, Kasparov,
Karpov, Shirov, Grischuk, and Short just to name a few.
This article is chock full of similar lucid explanations of where to put your pieces etc. In turn, WGM Dembo looks at how to meet 4…Qb6 and various lines after 4…e6. Curiously enough, this article does not build upon illustrative games like all the other TWIC Theory issues have done. It is also one of the longer articles, but one of the beauties of internet publishing is that editors need not come down as hard on large page counts (printing cost is not an issue). I have started to look forward to the new issue of TWIC Theory dumping in my mailbox every week. There is something manageable about these short theory articles, which invites you to read them at once rather than stoving them away only to forget about them. The quality is generally good, although the amount of new analysis offered does vary quite considerably, and I did find a couple of issues a little “thin”. Only fairly strong players will be able to derive sufficient benefit from this service to warrant a subscription. Whether or not the service is worth the price is an entirely subjective matter. You will pay roughly the equivalent of a cheap chess book ($15) to receive twelve issues. Of course. you might find that only half or less of these to be of interest. However, something similar can be said about the theory reviews found in the significantly more expensive New in Chess Yearbooks. It is also possible to buy individual TWIC Theory issues for $5 a piece. The publication schedule (subject to change) looks the following:
Chess Web Site and Product Reviews
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The
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backed
by the industrious people at the London Chess Centre. Prolific chess
writer and coach IM Andrew Martin has taken on the role as commissioning
editor, and he is quickly building an international team of titled
contributors.
