GM Prasad and GM Panchanathan take on The Dragon

Continuing with their weekly review of openings on Chess.com, GM Prasad and GM Panchanathan are reviewing the Sicilian Dragon variation this week with Karjakin - Radjabov (2008).

Being one of the riskiest of choices, the Dragon has never enjoyed a consistent popularity among the top grand masters. It was used only occasionaly as a surpise weapon at the top level. One of our all time chess greats, Garry Kasparov surprised our current world champion Viswanathan Anand in their PCA world championship match in 1995 by employing this opening with very good results. The Dragon, which has been dormant for a while now, has started resurfacing at the top level thanks to our young grand masters Magnus Carlsen and Teimour Rajdabov.

Previously they have looked at the Sicilian Najdorf and the Ruy Lopez. And don't forget, if you enjoy Chess.com and decide to join, don't forget to tell them that EJ sent you. :)

13-year old wins Western Chess Congress

Michael Aigner writes about Daniel Naroditsky's impressive result in Concord. The Western Chess Congress was a 5 round "adult" tournament with a total prize fund of over $10,000.

However, one junior stood taller than all of the rest. Always short for his age, former World U12 champion FM Daniel Naroditsky, now 13 years old, has grown in more ways than one over the past year. In Concord, he proved that he was the man to beat, transforming from a shy player with a mid-2300 rating into a confident champion with the composure of a veteran professional.

IM Mark Ginsburg also attended the event and finisted tied for 2nd place. David Adelberg, rated 2122, turned in an impressive performance rating of 2438!

Read the complete article on the USCF website.

The Ruy Lopez by GM Prasad and GM Panchanathan

GM Prasad and GM Panchanathan have written an article on Chess.com that gives a basic overview of one of the most popular openings of all time. They analyze the game Karpov-Unzicker (1974) to illustrate the common strategy of the Ruy Lopez.

Here it is, the Ruy Lopez opening for white. Other than white's direct threat of capturing the Knight on c6 and taking the e5 pawn, white in the long term decides to keep his bishop on the queen side. Notice that keeping the bishop on the queenside does not mean that it has nothing to do with the king side. White's light squared bishop is used along the a2-g8 diagonal as well as the b1-h7 diagonal defending against black's future f5 ideas.

One of the basic traits of this opening is the possibility to play on both sides of the board, particularly when the center gets closed.

This is the second article in their weekly series. They have also done a similar article for the Sicilian Najdorf.

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Annotated game from Ben Marmont

Ben Marmont from the 2008 US Amateur Team West Champions has annotated one of his games from the tournament for us. Take a look at it and let us know what you think. Thank you, Ben!


Also, the West Champions will be facing off against the other Team Champions (East, North, and South) on April 12-13 on ICC. We'll have more information soon on the details when they become available.