This Monday's ChessBase Show

Most of the time, my show presents old games, in part because chess players coming of age in this internet, primarily post-book generation are far less likely to be aware of these masterpieces. Why then am I presenting a game from the ongoing 18th World Correspondence Championship?

The answer is twofold: first, while my focus is on older games, my eyes are open to rich, beautiful games, no matter when they were played. But second, and in keeping with the motivation stated above, correspondence chess is badly neglected by over-the-board (OTB) players, so I'm motivated to help bring some of its jewels to the attention of the broader chess world.

And this week's game is indeed a jewel, a heavyweight battle between the newly crowned 18th World Correspondence Champion Joop van Oosterom and Manfred Nimtz. The game as a whole is really impressive, and starts off with a bang, featuring one of the hottest lines in contemporary chess, the English Attack in the Sicilian Najdorf. After

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.f3 b5 8.g4 h6 9.Qd2 Nbd7 10.O-O-O Bb7 11.h4 b4 12.Na4 Qa5 13.b3 Rc8 14.Rg1 Nc5 15.g5, the following ultra-sharp position arises:



Previous games saw 15...Nxa4 and Nimtz tried 15...hxg5, but what's really going on? I'm not completely sure myself, but I'll do my best to provide as much clarity as I can. And even if we can't figure everything out (who can?), we'll still have seen a beautiful game and come to know more about the Najdorf - a must for most serious tourament players.

I hope to see you Monday night (click here for information about viewing the show)!