Most CDs are still about openings, and ChessBase is the leader in this field by a large margin. In fact, this is one of its advantages over Chess Assistant (discussed below). Two of the above opening CDs I have already used fairly extensively and am very positive about. Alexander Bangiev’s THE PHILIDOR DEFENSE covers just about every conceivable move order in this venerable defense and boldly defends its playability. One does have to pick through the specific variations to find out what works best for White. In the end, I was impressed most with the “closed” variations after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3, in which Black plays ...Nbd7, ...Be7, ...0-0, ...c6, and normally ...b6, ...a6, ...Qc7, and ...Bb7 followed by ...b5 at some point. The “open” variations with ...exd4, whether Black plays for ...Be7, ...0-0, and ...Re8, or for ...g6 and ...Bg7, seem to me ultimately unsatisfactory (in theoretical terms), although the latter setup can be dynamic and exciting.

Bangiev’s CD has 17 Chapters (with many subdivisions). By comparison, Curt Hansen’s SCANDINAVIAN DEFENSE has 62 chapters, in part because Scandinavian theory diverges into so many subsystems and different attempts by White to gain the advantage. The fundamental breakdown after 1.e4 d5 is between 2...Qxd5 and 2...Nf6, the former move having received the most attention from strong players over the last 15 years or so. These players have generally been a couple of levels down from the elite GMs, although Bent Larsen was instrumental in bringing 2...Qxd5 to widespread attention at the end of the 1970s. The CD’s author Curt Hansen has played it often, as have Matthias Wahls (who wrote a book about it), Niels Jorgen Fries Nielsen, and Ian Rogers. Anand famously got an excellent game with the ...Qxd5 Scandinavian versus Kasparov in their World Championship match, but faltered and lost. Otherwise the move hasn’t received as much playing time as have even much less solid openings, which is interesting, because its theory doesn’t indicate that Black is necessarily worse. If White plays slowly, a few lines end in a light advantage for him, but that’s true of most openings. There are also a few critical and highly tactical lines. One of the most interesting (with options for both sides along the way) goes 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.h3 Bh5 7.g4 Bg6 8.Ne5 e6 9.Bg2 c6 10.h4 Nbd7 11.Nxd7 Kxd7!, when Black’s structure is very good but of course his king position is suspect. Now the conservative 12.Bd2 h6 is probably okay for Black, so Hansen gives his own original analysis on the aggressive 12.d5! exd5 13.h5 Re8+ 14.Kf1 Qa6+ and 15.Ne2 Rxe2 or 15.Kg1 Be4 16.f3 Bc5+ with a very messy game in which Black gets an attack and two or sometimes three pawns for his piece. This is a typical Hansen contribution, and his effort and openness on the CD makes both it and the opening worth considering.

NIMZO-INDIAN 4.f3 and SAEMISCH by GM Vadim Milov is fun and absorbing. After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4, the author has scored extremely well with both 4.f3 and 4.a3. These are fascinating lines but in looking at the theory on the CD, no matter how you add it up, Black is doing fine and it is White who often has to scramble for counterplay or risk getting a long-term positional disadvantage. Milov is very honest about pointing out such problems. Even obscure lines like 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 c5 6.e3 b6!? he considers difficult for White, the main line being 7.Bd3 Bb7 8.f3 0–0 9.Ne2 Nc6 10.e4 Ne8 11.0–0 Na5 12.Ng3 cxd4 13.cxd4 Rc8 14.f4 Nxc4 15.f5 f6 16.Rf4 b5! “with counterplay and probably an advantage for Black.”

Similarly, we have variations like 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.f3 d5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 c5 7.cxd5 Nxd5 8.dxc5 Qa5 (Milov also thinks that 8...f5 equalizes) 9.e4 Nf6 (the main lines with 9...Ne7 also give Black equality in several ways, according to Milov) 10.Be3 Nfd7 11.Qb3 0–0 12.a4 Qc7 13.Qa3 b6! 14.cxb6 axb6 15.Ne2 Ba6 with equality.

In a sense, this is the drawback of the CD: it’s not clear why White would want to play these lines, except perhaps as a short-term weapon or against targeted opponents. As a theoretical contribution it is first-rate: Milov gives an excellent overview of the lines but more importantly identifies the critical ones and finds out the truth about them.

6th WORLD CHAMPION MIKHAIL BOTVINNIK by Khalifman & Soloviev has a very different approach. It contains, as the cover says, “1069 games played by Botvinnik from 1924 to 1970. The games have been deeply annotated by [Khalifman & Soloviev].” And they really are annotated! Not with verbal notes, but with considerable analysis throughout the game, with very thorough attention paid to the World Championship matches, as might be expected. My understanding is that this material almost exactly corresponds to that in the Chess Stars book on Botvinnik (which I haven’t seen). Of course most players haven’t read that book and even those who have done so may want to have the games in a form that they can play over effortlessly on a screen. They also get some great photographs that apparently don’t appear in the book.

The CD begins with a very short written section about Botvinnik’s life with things like the dates of birth and death and descriptions such as “he learned to play at 12,” “was educated as engineer,” and facts such as that Botvinnik won the world championship and retired after 1970 to work on chess computers. Pretty dull stuff. But then we begin to see the body of the presentation: first, a year-by-year description (chess details) of all events with plentiful games and crosstables. Perhaps some of us need reminding that
Botvinnik was certainly one of the very greatest players in history, winning events of high quality throughout his career, not to mention a few World Championships. According to most observers (and from his playing record), he was the best player in the world from roughly the late 1930s through the mid-1950s, and was among the top three or better for a long time thereafter. Playing just a little, he still managed to maintain his strength beyond the usual age of declining powers. As late as 1969 (at age 58), for example, he ties for first at Wijk aan Zee with Geller ahead of a strong field including Keres and Portisch. He was 2nd to Larsen in Monte Carlo 1968, and at Palma de Mallorca 1967 he was 2nd to Larsen tied with Smyslov ahead of Portisch, Gligoric, Ivkov and others. In 1966/7 he won Hastings by a full point. In Amsterdam (IBM) 1966, a short tournament, he was the winner by 2 points! He took first by 1½ points in the 1965 Nordwijk aan Zee tournament. And a year before his match loss to Petrosian, at age 51, he triumphed in Stockholm 1962 finishing 3 points ahead of Flohr in a 9-round tournament (in a relatively weak field, but still...). This from someone who had ceased to play an active schedule.

The CD has 24 very nice photos, some with great players, and the usual training exercises, with opening material that is still relevant today. It comes with “Chess Assistant Light” and doesn’t require any outside program. I should also mention that the Convektta CDs here come with pamphlets describing the use of Chess Assistant in considerable detail. In any case I recommend this product, not the least for the excellent annotations.