New in Chess 26/1992 [antikvár]

NICSURVEYSI 12.5SURVEY: A.C. VAN DER TAK NOTES: ALEXANDER BANGIEVSicilian Defence Najdorf VariationFear of the stunning 8 d5 (in the Najdorf with 6.f4 e5 T.'iifa 'Sibd/ 8.a4, dealt with in Yearbook 17) has gradually faded. In recent games, such as Adams-Van der Wiel and Timoschenko-Skalik, White netted a clear advantage in simple fashion.Therefore the continuation 8 e7 9.Ad3 0-0 10.0-0 'iicS 11.'?'hi is back in the limelight. This is probably a better moment for Black to evoke tactical complications with 11 d5!?. The most common reply is la.'SieS, which is usually answered by either 12 de4 or 12 'Life4. In his Najdorf monograph John Nunn has drawn attention to a third possibility: 12 '$:ice4. The sole example with this move until recently was the game Kengis-Loginov (1987), not mentioned by Nunn, but now interesting new material has popped up on the postal chess scene. Bangiev has adopted this line in two correspondence games recently and in both Black had sufficient counterchances.In Poletaev-Bangiev Black improves significantly on Kengis-Loginov. Black has to give up a pawn, a phenomenon we often observe in this system, but he obtains active piece play in return. In Goth-Bangiev White adopts Nunn's recommendation 13.Ae3 J.f5 14.^62, but here too Black was doing well, although he still lost after a few inaccuracies later on.Bangiev has subjected both games to extensive scrutiny. His analyses provide food for further examination. I suspect we will see much more of 12 $ice4 in future.