Chess Program Review Archive

Here’s a pop quiz: When I say the phrase "Opposite colored bishops", what is the first word that comes to your mind? If you said "draw", then I think you’d be in the majority. If you answered, "that depends on factors X, Y and Z…" then this CD from Chessbase might be what you are looking for. If you didn’t know what to say, then you might not be ready yet for this instructional material.

The CD was authored by Evgeniy Solozhenkin of the GMChess school in Saint Petersburg. It contains 32 short texts, and 166 annotated games. There are 17 games containing a number of quiz positions each, so that you can test your knowledge. Annotators on the CD include people such as Anand, Yusupov, Kasparov, Khalifman, Shirov and of course, Solozhenkin, with the author contributing most of the annotations on the CD. And don’t let the title fool you, it covers many different endgames when more than bishops and pawns are on the board – the underlying common thread being the presence of opposite colored bishops. And there are only 32 drawn games in the database, so that might tell you a little bit about where the emphasis is.

To be honest with you, gentle reader, I was prepared not to like this CD. In fact, I can count the decent endgame books that I’ve read on one hand. For instance, the much touted GM Secrets: Endgames. I’ve tried, but I just cannot remember all the rules that are set forth in that book. Most of what I know came from Yuri Averbach’s Chess Endgames: Essential Knowledge (which is a book I would recommend). So it was with a jaundiced eye that I approached this CD.

To be sure, the CD contains text with a lot of rules that could be difficult to remember. To counterbalance this, there are also a lot of general comments on what factors are important when playing these endgames, as a function of the remaining material and various positional features. This information is typically presented in the form of a short introductory text, with a set of hyperlinked games containing light annotations. The interface used in Chessbase lite, which I’ve written quite a bit about in the past.

One of the things that I liked was the presence of hyperlinks within the text to assist you in navigating around the database on this CD. It is very easy to get back to where you started from, for instance. This simple little touch makes the material much easier to navigate than some other instructional material I have seen.

To be honest, it takes a better player than I to evaluate this CD effectively. What I can tell you is that it is well organized, but is probably most suitable for very advanced players; although there is a section on playing basic opposite colored bishop endgames. I think the first paragraph of the review should help you sort out whether this CD is suited for you or not.

Languages:
English, German

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