[chessmind] Dennis Monokroussos: This Week's ChessBase Show: Lerner-Dreev

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Posted by Dennis Monokroussos:
This Week's ChessBase Show: Lerner-Dreev
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1198033696.shtml


   Caro-Kann players have to be a hardy lot. There are quite a few
   aggressive schemes against it, and a moment's carelessness can get
   even a player slaughtered in 25 moves or less. (Just ask Larsen, Hort,
   Tal, Timman, Speelman, Akopian, Dreev, Shirov, Karpov and Kasparov!)
   One must be alert. Once one has survived White's early initiative,
   however, any result is possible. In fact, there are a number of lines
   in the Caro-Kann where the long term prospects tend to favor Black,
   and that makes this opening an attractive choice to players with good
   technique.
   One such player is Alexey Dreev. A great player who occasionally pops
   into the Linares group, Dreev is an outstanding technician, and he has
   used the Caro-Kann to good effect throughout his career. As an
   example, we'll have a look at his game with Konstantin Lerner from the
   Rostov-on-Don Open in 1993. Lerner played 1.c4 c6 2.e4 (transposing to
   the C-K) d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.cxd5 Nf6 5.Bb5+ and held on to the pawn,
   eventually ceding the bishop pair to do so. When we take a superficial
   glance at the position after, say, Black's 15th move, we might think
   that Black's compensation isn't anything special.
   When we take a deeper look, however, we'll see that Black's
   compensation is substantial. Dreev's technique is so powerful and
   logical that we're likely to do an about-face and wonder if White
   could have saved himself in the queenless middlegame. We'll examine
   this game in depth, because most of us could stand to improve our
   technique, and analyzing the games of players who excel in that area
   is a great way to improve.
   So if you're a player whose technique could be just a little better,
   you could do a lot worse than to join us tomorrow night - Wednesday
   night - at 9 p.m. ET. The show is free, and you can find directions
   for tuning in [1]right here.

References

   1. http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1114234449.shtml