New in Chess 6/1987 [antikvár]

Hard times for the Dragon As always there has been an abundance of theoretically interesting developments in this opening over the past six months. In the Najdorf Variation the move 6.Jk.g5 appears to have been played a little less often than usual. We see a sequel to the crucial game Perenyi - Browne (YB/5) in Diaz - Herrera (Sl 9.9). The Poísoned Pawn Variation occurred in Nunn - Kasparov (Sl 8.1), in which the World Champion may have dealt once and for all with Jadoul's move 8.#d3, and in Timman - Ljubojevic (Sl 8.8) which Black managed to draw with considerable effort. The Polugaevsky Variation (Sl 7) offers an exceptionally dynamic type of game and one would expect it to appeal greatly to players with a sharp style. Its reiatively infrequent appearance in practice may weil be due to the vast number of deeply analysed variations one has to be familiar with in order to enter into it.The great speciálist FM Van der Vliet analyses somé recent games. A fairly popular way to combat the Najdorf is 6. JLc4, as for example in the game Kruppa - Gavrikov (Sl 13.4), and 6.^.e3 e6 7.f3 which may alsó be considered part of the Scheveningen complex. One of the great exponents of this variation, Nigel Short, keeps on achieving impressive results with it. In the OHRA Tournament in Brussels he even beat World Champion Kasparov with it in a very difficult and sharp fight (Sl 19.1). The line 6.f4 alsó continues unabated, featuring for instance in a fine game Dahlgrün - Brustman (Sl 12.5). Few people would have expected to see the move 6.É,d3, no doubt often played at a lower level, successfully adopted in grandmaster practice, though it may come less as a surprise that the one who played this amazing move was Bent Larsen. The indestructible Dane scored a fine victory with it agaist Portisch (Sl 14.1). The Dragon is going through a serious crisis after the game Short - Olafsson (Sl 18.9) in