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Analysts at work                Chess

Masters and theoreticians at the top level are always busy studying the latest opening variations. When a grandmaster wins a game with a novelty, the position becomes well known all over the world; it's unlikely that a player would get a second chance to win with that variation or the new move. The analysts try hard to find some kind of improvement for the losing side, and if they succeed the improvement enters the masters' repertoire and the process continues. But if they fail to encounter the latest move, the whole variation could be laid to rest, or abandoned temporarily. In the past, it happened many times that an antidote was found after months or years, as players had to depend solely on their analytical ability. But matters have changed greatly, thanks to the computer. All you need to do is load it with your data and wait for an answer. The computer doesn't miss anything! So the soundness of a move can be tested a lot more quickly.

Are players tired of wrecking their brains in search of good moves? Perhaps not. It's like discovering something, much the same way a rescue operator looks for throb of life under huge piles of debris. New moves are like little nuggets of truth which add to the treasure of chess theory. Believe me , they are working almost day and night in important chess centres across the globe. The search for truth is also accompanied by a full point when you discover something great.

Some players are less competitive in this area. They play slightly off-beat openings which have not been analysed to death. They want to rely more on their positional sense than memory. Obviously, playing the first 25 or 30 moves according to book will always put a lot of pressure on memory, and that's one reason why young players are doing so well these days. The unusual lines are usually found in old games. Masters tried almost every conceivable move in standard positions. So you can choose from a wide range of variations used in tournament chess over the last 100 years or even more!

In the following game, Frank Marshall was at his lethal best.

White- David Janowski
Black-Frank James Marshall [C42]
Biarritz 1912

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Bd6 7.c4 00 8.cxd5? Bb4+ 9.Kf1 Qxd5 10.Qc2 Re8 11.Nc3 Nxc3 12.bxc3 Qxf3! 13.cxb4 Nc6 14.Bb2 Nxb4! 15.Bxh7+ Kh8 16.gxf3 Bh3+ 17.Kg1 Nxc2 18.Bxc2 Re2 19.Rc1 Rae8 20.Bc3 R8e3! 21.Bb4 Rxf3 22.Bd1 Rf6! 0-1

Position after.12....Qxf3

-PATZER

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