Alterman on the Marshall Attack

Boris Alterman writes: After the Classical moves in the Ruy Lopez Defence 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.c3 Frank Marshall used to play the magnificent pawn sacrifice 8…d5!

Black gets rid of the white pawn on e4, sacrificing his pawn on e5 in exchange for the strong pressure in the center and on the kingside.

The Marshall Attack is one of the oldest and most important openings in the history of chess. It is perhaps because of this reason that as white many Grandmasters, including the world number one Gary Kasparov, have decided to avoid the issue altogether, preferring the more tranquil waters of Anti-Marshall systems.

In current theory the ideas and strategies of both approaches are studied in-depth, and nowadays experts have come to the conclusion that White has no clear superiority in the main theoretical lines. For this reason the Marshall Attack is a frequent guest at almost all super-tournaments. The Marshall Attack has been employed by numerous top grandmasters including Spassky, Geller, Nunn, Adams, Short, Anand, Svidler, Kamsky, Shirov and others.

GM Boris Alterman is 34, and lives in Israel. He was born in Kharkov, Ukraine, where he started playing chess at the age of 7. His career highlights include earning the IM title in 1991 and the GM title in 1992.He is the winner of the following Open and GM tournaments: Haifa 1993; Bad Homburg 1996; Rishon LeZion 1996; Beijing 1995 and 1997; Munchen 1992. His hobbies include computers and swimming, his favourite food is Chinese, he speaks fluent Russian, Hebrew and English.

Boris has worked for and against Garry Kasparov. In 1999 he assisted the world champion in his spectacular Microsoft match Kasparov vs The World, and was also part of the team that built up the web portal Kasparov Chess. In 2003, on the other hand, he was part of the Deep Junior team that gave Kasparov a run for his money in the New York match.

Here are the world-wide starting times for Alterman's lectures.