Peter Lane, 2nd March 1998

  Studying opening theory is one of the best and worst tasks for the ambitious chess player: the best, because catching your opponent with a prepared tactical or strategical plan gives you a headstart to victory; the worst, because no- one likes mugging up variations.

Peter Lane, 30 October 1997

Dr. Emanuel Lasker was not only World Champion for 27 years from 1894 to 1921, but was also one of the great thinkers of the game. He introduced and regularly used many strategical concepts decades before Nimzowitsch's formulations in `My System' and `Chess Praxis'. He is known as one of the great fighters, and, in his games, we see no attachment to dogma or `correctness'; the point of a game is to win. I imagine Simon Webb of `Chess for Tigers' learnt a lot from Lasker.

vogt - andersson (STEAN) [B84] minority attack in the Sicilian, Capa memorial 1975

This is nearly always Black's fourth move in the Sicilian, to force the N on b1 in front of the c-pawn. Left alone, White may play c2-c4, stopping counterplay with d7-d5 or b7-b5, and removing danger on the c-file.

5. Nc3 e6 6. Be2 a6 7. f4 Qc7 8. O-O Be7 9. Kh1 Nc6 10. Be3 Nxd4 11. Qxd4 O-O 12. Rad1 b5