Dutch Defence A90-A99
Choosing the Dutch Defence with the black pieces is a clear signal that you are willing to go for the full point. There are no such things as exchange variations or an early trade of queens. What's more, limited theoretical knowledge will serve you quite well here, for a change. What both parties do have to know in the Dutch Defence, however, is a couple of good ideas and manoeuvres – then a successful opening is guaranteed. On his new CD Boris Schipkov deals with the variations in which Black plays e6, mainly the Stonewall (with d5) and the Iljin-Schenewski Variation (with d6 and eventually e5). The database on the CD contains about 14,000 games, 300 of which annotated. 17 database texts feature introductions to the variations, 57 sample games have been annotated by the author. A training database includes 20 games with 70 training tasks to check your freshly acquired knowledge.

General Introduction

The Dutch Defence 1.d4 f5 is an asymmetrical opening leading to complicated positions. In contrast to the Queen's Gambit Accepted or the Slav Defence, White cannot play something like the Exchange Variation or exchange queens per saltum (promptly) in the opening to manoeuvre in a boring endgame. It is not easy to make a quick draw in the Dutch for the first player. So the Dutch ideally suits the tournament situation when we must play for a victory with Black or we play with a rival who likes a dry ending.

The Dutch Defence is the opening for the player with great fighting spirit and nice understanding of position. A distinctive feature of the Dutch should be noted: winning often depends on good strategical ability.

Chess player and theoretician Elias Stein (1748-1812) from Holland first wrote about 1.d4 f5 opening in 1789, so it passed by the name of the Dutch Defence.

Famous exponents of the Dutch Stonewall A90-A99 are Evgeny Gleizerov, Anatoli Vaisser, Viktor Moskalenko, Igor Naumkin, Lars Karlsson, Mikhail Ulibin, Eckhard Schmittdiel, Predrag Nikolic, Sergey Dolmatov, Nigel Short, Artur Jussupow and Teimour Radjabov. A lot of ideas for Black or White were created by Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Botvinnik, Alexander Ilyin-Zhenevsky, David Bronstein, Tigran Petrosian, Bent Larsen, Samuel Reshevsky and many others.

1.d4 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.g3 e6 4.Bg2

The variations A90-A99 are examined in this work. Besides the Stonewall 4...d5 we look also at the Ilyin-Zhenevsky Variation, Alekhine Variation, Variation 4...Bb4+ etc.

After 4...d5 5.Nf3 Black can choose between the Modern Stonewall 5...c6 6.0-0 Bd6

and the Classical Stonewall, which continues 5...Be7 6.0-0 0-0.

The Stonewall is somewhat reminiscent of the medieval dark castle described by Shakespeare in Hamlet, which is very difficult to capture.

Therefore this opening was well suited for Botvinnik – severe and iron-bound warrior, managing his knights and bishops. At any moment armies can jump out of thick walls of the castle and put a shattering impact in a counter-attack.

Other main lines are the Variation 4...Bb4+, the Alekhine Variation 4...Be7 5.Nf3 0-0 6.0-0 Ne4 and the Ilyin-Zhenevsky Variation 4...Be7 5.Nf3 0-0 6.0-0 d6.

Content of the CD

There are altogether 17 chapters (Introduction, 15 chapters covering all the main variations of the Dutch A90-A99, Conclusion), 57 model, stem and essential games with my notes, 20 training games with questions plus a tree of variations.

The author

Boris Schipkov: The Russian chess theoretician Boris Schipkov, 40, lives in Novosibirsk and has already published several books and articles, and for ChessBase the CD Rom Queen's Gambit Accepted. He is the editor in chief of the online magazine Chess Siberia.

Review by Steve Lopez

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