Vishy Anand is the most versatile world chess champion. After all, he won world championships in classical matches, knockouts, rapids and blitz and dominated the advanced chess in which players are able to consult the computers. In this respect, no other world champion comes even close. But the Indian superstar is also a class act and gives credit where credit is due. Twice this year, Anand turned a favorite defense of his former coach, Artur Yusupov, into gold.
"It was a pleasure to have Artur Yusupov working as my second, both personally and professionally," Anand writes in the preface to Yusupov's excellent book "Boost your Chess 2, Beyond the Basics," published by Quality Chess. Yusupov was Anand's coach in the matches against Kasparov in New York in 1995 and against Karpov in Lausanne in 1998, but their cooperation seems to continue.
In his two-volume coaching masterpiece, Yusupov brings chess enthusiasts to a master level. He teaches them tactics, positional play, endgames and gives them a solid and sensible opening repertoire. The Lasker variation of the Queen's Gambit is a solid defense that Yusupov mastered and is recommending to his students. It is also a defense Anand used in his victory of the crucial last game against Topalov at the world championship match this year in Sofia. But Anand was not done. In the Third Pearl Springs tournament in Nanjing, China, he beat Topalov again with the same defense.
Note that in the replay windows below you can click on the notation to follow the game.
Original column here – Copyright Huffington Post
Note that in the replay windows below you can click on the notation to follow the game.
Original column here – Copyright Huffington Post
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