About Fianchetto Kings´s Indian Defence

During Cannes Winter Open 2013

Many of faithful readers of my blog are disappointed by recent level of (in)activity on the blog.

Unfortunately, there were not so much chess lately for my part.

However, I wrote an article during June (I know, I know.....) about Fianchetto variation of Kings Indian Defence for Chess teacher site.

You can read article here.

For those who are interested in opening theory it contains some interesting ideas from my own games in one specific variation of Fianchetto variation.

Some of these games are not published anywhere, and has a big influence on theory of some of the variations mentioned in the article.

Here comes the list of the reference games in the article.

• Tkachiev, V. (2637) - Bejtovic, J. (2407), Cannes winter open
• Hawkins, J. (2499) -Bejtovic, J. (2385), 119th CH-SCO 2012
• Rasmussen, A. (2510) - Bejtovic, J. (2382), Politiken Cup 2010, 
• Drozdovskij, Y. (2608) - Bejtovic, J. (2404), 5th Xtra Con Open 2010
• Drasko,Milan (2474) – Bejtovic,Jasmin (2413) Neum BiH-chT1 

Down Memory Lane

The next competition for me is around corner, and in the meanwhile I decided to publish some photos that I took this year during my travels (not all are chess related).
I am currently in Mostar, so I´ll use the opportunity to publish some photos of this city (these photos were not taken by me, but I do not know the authors).

Madrid

Toledo

Mostar

Solution for April combinations

After you have plenty of time to solve these combinations, I decided to publish the solution.
Many of you were wondering if this site is on it´s way to be closed or not updated. I can assure you that it will not happen. Sometimes, I have more inspiration to write and sometimes I do not have inspiration. Also, sometimes the priorities are different, so the frequency of writing is always different, but blog will definitely go on. Chess is one of my passions, I will always play chess and I always has something to write about it and I like to share my opinions.
These lines are just for those who had some speculations in the last period. I have to thank the readers for patient and visits, as blog reached the record of monthly visitors already today  (there are six more days in April) and for comparison, in March and April Chess & Life had more visits then in whole 2012.

April combinations

It took really long time for me to finally write an article on the blog.
What can I do, some other priorities in other parts of my life, and one really pleasant travel to Madrid and Toledo (expect pictorial reports) deprived om writing.
In any case, everyone prefers quality over quantity, right?
Right?
All right, so due to really busy schedule in March, I could not publish monthly combinations during last month, but as a compensation, this months article will be extended.
As always, try to solve these combinations (and studies) by your own, and you are always welcome to write your answers in the comments.
Besides that, I really need to thank the readers for visiting this blog, as the last month visits  set the new record in monthly visitors (nearly 9000).
It seems that this month it will be even more readers.

FIDE World Candidates Tournament

There are ten rounds behind us, and four rounds in front of us in FIDE World Candidates tournament.
It seems that we will see one more match between Anand and Carlsen. Ten rounds is quite a serious material to draw some conclusions, compare this tournament with the last year edition in London, and to compare the performances of the players.
It is also possible to make some predictions about further development and trends in chess.

Do not underestimate defencive resources!

Today, I will try to write about interesting chess subject, but in a way that I want to include some recent tournaments that I played (not only my games!).
After an intense playing period I entered a training phase, and I can conclude that my results somehow went down, in 2014. It is quite strange to say that, as I played really good in Cannes but Elo does not lie!
A slight disappointment in Stockholm in Rilton Cup, and very strange results in Elitserien tells for it self. Chess is very hard sport and it is very hard to maintain high level without some drops in performance. I had very successful last year ( by my top achievements in 2013, it is by far the most successful year in my life) and I think that part of the reason for that lays in my decision, at the end of 2012, to get rid of "the takers", the people who just takes a lot of energy in endless circle of complainants, incompetence, and Schadenfreud as the Germans say.

FIDE World Candidates Tournament 2014

As the readers could notice in the last period there was not so much activity on the blog.
There were objective reasons for that, as I had very tight schedule, with a lot of competitions and other chess activities.
I can promise that it will be much more frequent articles in the coming period, as I am opening the training phase (which usually comes during Autumn for me, but this year I decided to do a bit different) and it will be almost two months before my next tournament (which will also be a quite little event of five rounds). I would not forgot to show some things from Cannes and Malmö, not only from my games, and it will be also some other thoughts about various subjects. For the start of the new period I want to share some thoughts about FIDE World Candidates Tournament 2014.

Elitserien - Fiasco at the end

Swedish team championship, for 2013/2014 is over, and the new champion is Rockaden Stockholm.
The second place took Team Viking.
For Eksjö S.K. things did not went as we expected, and after three narrow defeats, with minimal possible margin 4,5-3,5 we finished on seventh place.
It does not look good, but the general performance and feeling during the season was much better then the table shows.
In this article I am going to describe what happened in the last three rounds, but also some thought about result of Eksjö S.K.

Swedish league final - preview

During the next three days it will be played the final of Swedish team championship - Elitserien for 2013/2014.
The final will be played in Malmö, and there will be five teams that will fight for the medals.
In this article I am going to present the chances of top five clubs. The club that I am playing for, Eksjö S.K. is on the fifth place for the moment, but the hopes that we will reach the medal are still alive.
Many clubs from the top will meet each others in the final three rounds and the position on the table can be different from round to round.

Cannes 2014 - Promising story without final touch

Cannes winter open eventually finished, so the readers of this blog can finally get a chance to read about the tournament.
In all three groups played about 400 players which makes this tournament one of the biggest in this part of the year. Somehow in the same period, there are also tournaments in Cappelle la Grande and in Reykjavik, and they get a much more attention in chess media.
However, the reason that the players are separated in three groups, which means that there are no weak players in A group, makes this tournament my favourite open, not only during this period, but in the whole calendar.
There are a lot more reasons of course, and the playing hall is one of the most important!
Because of very busy schedule, I could not write from the tournament, but this article will not be the only one about Cannes winter open.

February Combinations - Solutions

It is time to show the solutions for the combinations.
I thought that the first one was hard, but some of the readers solved it without any problems.

1...Rxd4

White is winning now with

2. Qxd4, Ne2
3. Bf4!!

The third move was very hard for me.
White has alternative in 2. Bxf4 but after 2...Rxf4 Black has enough compensation for knight on h2 (three pawns and some positional pluses).

February combinations

For this month I prepared some combinations which have unexpected solutions, but are not so hard to solve.
Some of them are from my games, and others are from my database on combinations.
The first one is the combination that I failed to solve.
Black is on move, and the question is:
How do you evaluate a chances after 1...Rxd4 ?
Is White better?
Is Black better, or maybe the position is equal after some Ne2-Ng3 perpetual?
Calculate, and you will see.
This combination has very clear solution that does not leave a place for speculations.

Static against Dynamic

The game that I want to present for my readers today, was played in Rilton Cup in Stockholm, in the very last round.
The game was not particularly good, because of my bad play, but there was one very instructive point in the game.
My opponent went for the position in which he had clear strategical plus.
His knight was dominant to my bishop, and the pawn structure in the centre secured this.
However, the things in chess are rarely one-sided.
Black is somehow better developed, his knight on f4 is strong and there is some pressure along f-file.
What actually happened is very interesting.
I did not understand that the position on the diagram is critical, and I played natural move, very quick.
There were some candidates in this position, and you can think on your own and try to figure out what should be played.

XXVIII Festival of Games - Cannes

My next tournament will be very strong open tournament in Cannes, on French Riviera.
I played in the same tournament last year, and my impressions were very positive. It was not so hard to take a decision to take part in this tournament again.
For this year organisers decided to extend the tournament for two days, so this time we will play with only one double round (instead for last year´s three double rounds).
The starting list for this year is much stronger in comparison with the last year, even if tournament was very strong in 2013.
The tournament is part of the Cannes festival of the games, and besides the A group (Only the players with Elo higher then 2100) it will be competition in group B and C.
Even if you are not a chess player, you can surly find some game in which you can enjoy.
If you are good at darts, board games, strategy games, card games, video games....anything, you can come to Cannes and enjoy.

Elitserien - Report

Before I write extended report on everything what happened this weekend in Swedish Elitserien, you can read this report, with one position from one of my games.
Our expectations in Scania were to win at least something, but we didn´t manage that, and we lost both matches.
Saturday´s match against current champions, Limhamn from Malmö, was the strangest match that I ever played
Hospitality and general good impression were never in doubt when it is about Limhamn S.K. and our hosts did everything in order that we can feel comfortable.
Thumb up for them.
On the chess boards things was a bit different as expected.