What's New- December 2002

To download the December '02 Anti-Sicilian games directly in PGN form, click here:

The Closed Sicilian [B26]

The Closed Sicilian is well known to be a solid opening with attacking aspirations so something special has to occur in the game Hofene-Savchenko to allow Black to win in just 12 moves!

A game from the recent Olympiad, Jones-Espinosa, sees a lower rated player as White comfortably draw with a top international.

Eskola-Mavrichev is surprising because in a main line White declines to castle kingside and instead engages in a rapid and successful attack.

The traditional kingside pawn storm is the winning plan in the instructive example Mastrovasilis-Aydinalp.

Please keep sending your e-mails and I welcome games by subscribers.

Gary