Video training with Romain Edouard and Leon Mendonca (total duration: over an hour!). Plus 44 detailed analyses from Romain Edouard, Spyridon Kapnisis, Adrian Mikhalchishin, Krishnan Sashikiran, Samvel Ter Sahakyan, and many others. ChessBase Magazine Extra is the perfect complement to ChessBase Magazine.
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 0-0 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.0-0-0 d5
In this CBM Extra, French opening expert Romain Edouard begins a four-part series presenting new ideas for Black in the Sicilian Dragon Variation. The topics covered are the lines after 9.0-0-0 and 9.g4 (9.Bc4 is not the subject of Edouard's analysis). The first part addresses the secondary lines after 9.0-0-0 d5: 10.Rb1, 10.Nxc6, and 10.h3 (the main continuation 10.exd5 will be covered in the second part of Extra 213). In his video analysis, Edouard offers numerous tips—Black must often be prepared to sacrifice an exchange for active play with the bishop pair—and demonstrates essential tricks for a Dragon player. However, those familiar with the variations should have no trouble maintaining balance in these lines with Black.
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.N1e2
Leon Mendonca was awarded the FIDE International Grandmaster title at the age of 14. This season, the 17-year-old Indian is playing his first Bundesliga match (for SK Hamburg). In this video, he looks back on his Bundesliga game against Anton Demchenko in early February. In his analysis, he discusses the variation 6.S1e2, which his opponent tried against him in that game, and explains the differences from the main sequences 6.h4 or 6.Nf3, as well as 6.Sh3. Mendonca's explanation of the opening phase is very clear, as is Black's play. In the game, he only started thinking for the first time after the move 14.Qf3
The position appears balanced and calm at first glance. But Mendonca's analysis shows that Black can quickly find himself in trouble, for example, after the immediate exchange of queens after 14...Qd5 15.Qxd5 exd5. White could continue with 16.Bf4 and, after f2-f3, Ke1-f2, put pressure on both the kingside (g2-g4-g5) and the queenside (a2-a4-a5). Moreover, the white knight on d3 is perfectly positioned and prevents any Black counterplay. In the video, Mendonca describes his thinking in detail and explains how he achieved an improved version of the endgame with the intermediate moves 14...Bd6 15.Bd2. Another important and instructive moment of the game, as well as the analysis, is Demchenko's move 19.g4: a natural move, but a strategic error that with a bit of luck his opponent could have exploited by more than half a point.
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