Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: DVD Mistake

Thanks to new technologies, nowadays chess players have access to a massive amount of information. Top players have their own analysis and databases with thousands of games. Even they can access powerful engines with which they test new ideas in openings, middle and endgames.

Beside that, we are seeing an increase in the number of chess tournaments at the top level around the world. It means that new ideas are continuously testing.

Information is good, but knowledge is better. Knowledge comes not only from information but also from the study. Every year new chess books, videos and DVDs come to the market. The risk exists that when a book arrives at the bookshop, it is already out of date because one or some of its variations have been already refuted.

That is the case in one game from 2017 at the “Isle of Man International Tournament”. The players involved are GM Fabiano Caruana and GM Gawain Jones. They met in round 7. This is the game with Caruana’s comments.

Caruana won his game essentially at home: “I thought I might be able to win the game without making a move on my own,” he said about his deep theoretical knowledge of the position.

Caruana explained that since everyone has access to the same “supercomputers” these days, games like these are now “one in a thousand.”

He also said that the game was influenced by GM Peter Svidler’s DVD. In his work, Svidler analysed the variation played in the game but didn’t include a key wrinkle.

Is Jones 19th move a mistake? Is Svidler’s analysis wrong? I wouldn’t dare to say that. I would say that Caruana’s work went deeper and he saw chances that his opponent never imagined.

From today’s example, we learn the risk of blind trusting in other’s analysis. Caruana not only knew Svidler’s work, but he did his own homework and discovered a slight move alteration enough for giving him chances to enter in a favourable line.

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