— Total Chess Ending (Download or CD) course includes over 700 games/lectures, each of them illustrating theoretical and practical endgame methods.

Games start at 13:30 UTC. Final round starts at 11:30 UTC
ChessOK is going to broadcast all games of the tournament with Rybka Aquarium commentary.

Games: Round 1 [ PGN], Round 2 [ PGN], Round 3 [ PGN], Round 4 [ PGN], Round 5 [ PGN], Round 6 [ PGN], Round 7 [ PGN], Round 8 [ PGN], Round 9 [ PGN], Round 10 [ PGN]

Carlsen - Ponomariov 1/2 \br\Gelfand - Wang Yue 1-0 \br\Nisipeanu - Radjabov 1-0 \br\Radjabov - Carlsen 1/2 \br\Gelfand - Nisipeanu 1/2 \br\Wang Yue - Ponomariov 1/2 \br\Carlsen - Gelfand 1/2 \br\Ponomariov - Radjabov 0-1 \br\Nisipeanu - Wang Yue 1/2 \br\Carlsen - Wang Yue 1-0 \br\Radjabov - Gelfand 1-0 \br\Ponomariov - Nisipeanu 1-0 \br\Nisipeanu - Carlsen 0-1 \br\Gelfand - Ponomariov 1-0 \br\Wang Yue - Radjabov 1/2 \br\Ponomariov - Carlsen 0-1 \br\Radjabov - Nisipeanu 1/2 \br\Wang Yue - Gelfand 1/2 \br\Carlsen - Radjabov 1-0 \br\Nisipeanu - Gelfand 0-1 \br\Ponomariov - Wang Yue 1/2 \br\Gelfand - Carlsen 1/2 \br\Radjabov - Ponomariov 1/2 \br\Wang Yue - Nisipeanu 0-1 \br\Carlsen - Nisipeanu 1/2 \br\Ponomariov - Gelfand 1/2 \br\Radjabov - Wang Yue 1/2 \br\Wang Yue - Carlsen 0-1 \br\Gelfand - Radjabov 0-1 \br\Nisipeanu - Ponomariov 0-1 Carlsen (2813) (NOR) \br\Wang Yue (2752) (CHI) \br\Gelfand (2741) (ISR) \br\Radjabov (2740) (AZE) \br\Ponomariov (2737) (UKR) \br\Nisipeanu (2672) (ROM)

Sending Games and Positions to IDeA

There are many different ways to feed interesting positions into IDeA for analysis. You can use the following methods at any time and it doesn’t matter if the project is analyzing or not.

Enter moves manually. The simplest method is to make moves on the chessboard in IDeA or browse the tree and use the buttons in the “Interactive” group in the ribbon to create the analysis tasks. Most users probably know and use this method, even if they also use some of the other methods described below.

Copy/paste engine analysis. A good player will use all the resources available to him for improving his analysis. Therefore, It is natural to combine the strengths of infinite analysis and IDeA. If you are analyzing a position with infinite analysis, you can easily copy any of the variations in the analysis window to IDeA.

Start infinite analysis. When you see an interesting variation in the analysis window, select it by clicking on it and then right-click.

Select “Copy” and then “Current variation” from the right-click menu. Experienced users may prefer to use the Ctrl+Ins keyboard shortcut. What happens here is that the selected variation is copied in PGN format, so you can paste it directly into IDeA. Simply switch to IDeA, select the notation window and press Ctrl+V or use the right-click menu to paste the PV from the engine into the notation. After that you can, for instance, click “All Positions” to add it to the analysis queue.

Copy/paste a game. Another method is to copy a game from the Sandbox or a database, paste it into the IDeA notation window and click “All positions.” IDeA will go through the moves in the notation window and add any position to the analysis queue that has not been analyzed previously.

Sometimes you don’t want to analyze all the moves in the IDeA notation. You may, for instance, want to skip the opening moves of the game. After pasting a game into IDeA go to the position where you want the analysis to start and press the Delete (or Del) button. The “Deleting moves” dialog box will be displayed.

Select “Delete previous moves” and press OK. After that you can click “All Positions” to analyze the remaining moves. You should note the various other options shown here, which can be useful for trimming the notation before sending it to the analysis queue.

Copy/paste a game fraction. Instead of pasting a whole game into the IDeA notation, you can copy a range of moves from a game and paste only those moves into IDeA. The method for doing that was explained in Aquarium’s Hidden Treasures, Part One.

Send selected positions to IDeA. When you are viewing a game and switch to the Analysis tab, you will see the following group of buttons.

While browsing the game, you can click “Current Position,” “Auto-play,” and “Find Alternatives” to create tasks based on the current position. You can create tasks for as many positions as you like. These buttons work similar to analogous buttons within IDeA, and they send the tasks directly to selected IDeA projects. The name of the project is displayed below the buttons and you can switch to a different project by clicking the tool button shown in the lower right corner of the image.

Send the current game to IDeA. The “Other” menu button in the image above displays a menu with two items as shown below.

“Clear Marks” clear the task markup from the current move, but Send Game is a very flexible method to send positions from the current game to an IDeA project. It displays the “Send positions to IDeA” dialog box.

Starting at the top, “From move” and “to move” specify a range of moves to copy from the game to the IDeA queue.

“Side” can be “Both,” “White,” “Black,” “Winning,” or “Losing.” It determines if moves for both sides or only one side (and then which side) are sent to IDeA.

If you select “Include variations,” both the mainline and the variations in the game are sent to IDeA. Otherwise, only the mainline is sent.

“Filter tree” is used to filter out certain positions in the game. If a position from the game is found in the tree, then it is not sent to IDeA. The tree could be an opening tree, which would filter out known opening moves, or it could be your IDeA tree, which would prevent positions already in the tree from being analyzed again.

“Generate Alternatives” is used in connection with “Alt tree.” When it is selected, each position that is sent to IDeA will be used to find an alternative move instead of analyzing the position normally. The move in the game and the moves that are found in the “Alt tree” will be excluded in the search for the new alternative. One method of using this feature is to send the moves of the losing side to IDeA and search for improvements that have not been analyzed before.

“File name” is only useful if you want to save the positions to an EPD file.

The positions will be sent to the project specified in “IDeA project” for analysis. If you have specified “File name,” you can select “< none >” from the project drop-down list and the positions will only be saved to the EPD file, but not sent to an IDeA project.

Sending several games to IDeA. Sometimes you may want to send not only one game, but a number of games to an IDeA project for analysis. Say that you are analyzing an opening. You would start by searching a database for the position that you are interested in. The search will return a list of games. Highlight the games you want to include in the analysis (using the Insert (or Ins) keyboard shortcut or the Mark Range button). After marking the games,right-click over the game list.

Select “Send games to IDeA” from the menu. This will bring up the “Send positions to IDeA” dialog box that was described above. The difference is that this time Aquarium will collect positions from all the highlighted games.

Loading positions from an EPD file. The eighth and final way to add positions to an IDeA analysis queue is through an EPD file. If you have an EPD file with positions that are relevant for your IDeA project, you can load them into the analysis queue via the “Manage” menu in the Stage Status window. Clicking the “Manage” link opens the following menu.

Select “Add Tasks” from the menu and a standard Windows file open dialog will be opened, allowing you to locate the EPD file and open it. All the positions in the file will be added to the analysis queue of the project.

Optimal Analysis Quality Settings

Many users have asked about the optimal analysis quality settings for IDeA. Unfortunately – or perhaps I should say fortunately – chess is a very complex game and there is no single setting that is optimal for all situations. Here are some of the factors that may need to be considered when choosing analysis quality settings in IDeA:

1. The position on the board. Is it dominated by deep tactics? Is it a positional battle? Is it an opening, middlegame, or endgame position? Etc.
2. Are you running IDeA exclusively in automatic mode (not recommended), or are you interacting with the analysis?
3. Are you a weak, average, or a strong chess player?
4. Are you an experienced computer and chess software user? Do you have good knowledge of the chess engine you are using, its analysis features, strengths, and weaknesses?
5. How powerful is you computer (or computers if you are also using remote engines)? See Networked Computers with Aquarium 2010.
6. How much time do you have for the analysis? A few hours? A day? Several days?
7. What is the goal of your analysis session? Besides searching for the best way to play a position, IDeA can be used for a quick insight, as a source of ideas to explore further, or for providing a general overview of where the game may be heading.
8. The engine you use is also important. Different engines behave very differently and analysis quality parameters need to be chosen with that in mind. As an example, the depth reported by Rybka is generally much lower than the depth reported by other engines.

The ideal situation is to have a huge IDeA tree based on deep analysis of every position in the tree. The problem is that the deeper the analysis is, the longer it takes and the fewer positions will be analyzed. Analysis depth and the number of positions are two dimensions that compete for the same resource, namely time. That’s why items five and six above must be considered when selecting the Analysis Quality Settings.

If you are a strong player with a good understanding of IDeA and the chess engine that you are using for the analysis, you can get away with faster analysis if you also use your chess knowledge to take advantage of IDeA’s interactive features and focus the analysis on the lines that really matter (See items two, three, and four above).

Even if you are not a strong chess player, you can still get great results with IDeA. The key is to understand how it works and use the interactive features to guide the analysis. There are many examples in recent years of players who are very proficient in using chess analysis tools, although they are not strong players themselves.

If you are running IDeA purely in automatic mode, you are not taking advantage of your chess strength, your human insight, or your knowledge of Aquarium, IDeA and the chess engine you are using. Leaving all the analysis to IDeA without contributing anything yourself goes against the basic purpose of IDeA and, honestly, is simply boring. Besides, pure engine analysis without interaction will not give you the results you hope for, as will become painfully clear if you, for instance, play correspondence chess against strong players. This applies to infinite analysis and other methods of analysis as well.

IDeA is based on repeated application of infinite analysis. Therefore, the quality of the analysis of individual positions is exactly the same as you will get by applying infinite analysis directly with the same parameters. The difference is that IDeA learns more about a position as it expands the analysis tree by adding alternatives and extending variations. The new knowledge flows up the tree and corrections are applied to previously analyzed positions. Therefore, the effective depth of the IDeA analysis is higher than the analysis depth for individual positions indicates.

With the above in mind, let’s look at a few examples of analysis quality settings. I assume that Rybka is being used for the analysis. If you are using a different engine, you might need to adjust the “plies” for comparable results.

10 seconds AND 12 plies
Wait for next depth

If you have a fairly powerful computer, this would be considered fast analysis, suitable for getting an overview of the position. As an absolute minimum, you want a few hundred (preferably a few thousand) positions analyzed from the current root node. If a setting like this is required to analyze that number of positions within your time limits, then it might be an acceptable choice, but only if you guide the analysis by using the interactive features of IDeA. A strong player might be able to get excellent analysis using these parameters, but it would depend on the position and how skilled he is in using the interactive features.

30 seconds AND 15 plies

These settings would give you deeper (and better) analysis, although considerable manual interaction is still required. One purpose of the 30 seconds is to allow the analysis to exceed 15 plies in endgame positions and other positions where the engine needs little time to complete each iteration.

120 seconds AND 17 plies

This would give quite good results. The tree will be smaller, but its quality will be higher. You would need considerable time to build a large tree unless you run the analysis with several instances of (single core) Rybka. Also here, manual interaction is required for best results.

60 seconds AND 20 plies
Max. time 1200
Wait for next depth

A setting like this one will only be practical in an endgame or if you have really powerful hardware. Shahar Tzafrir (Highendman), a strong player and one of the best “centaur” players around, used similar settings when he won a correspondence game against the Rybka forum team. He used forty-four single core engines for his IDeA analysis! Even with this powerful hardware and deep analysis, Shahar used interactive analysis extensively, both within IDeA and infinite analysis. At one point in the game Shahar found a really beautiful move, which turned out to be the key to his victory. This move would not have been found with automatic analysis. Extensive interactive analysis was required. His opponents missed the move in spite of using various chess engines and analysis methods.

[FEN "2rnb1k1/4r1p1/1p1qp2p/p3N3/1nPP2p1/1Q5P/1B1RBP2/3R2K1 w - - 27"]

The move I’m talking about is 27.d5!!, which was discussed extensively during and after the game. The game is also available with Shahar’s notes.

I have found that with increasing number of cores I also like to increase the depth of analysis in IDeA. I prefer increased depth as long as I still have enough time to build a sufficiently big tree. The other option is to keep the analysis quality constant and build a bigger tree as the number of cores increases.

Multiple Projects

If you are using several instances of Rybka (or another engine) for IDeA analysis, you can keep the engines busy at all times by analyzing more than one project simultaneously. If you only have one active project, go to the IDeA Control Center, select another project and press the “Active” button to activate it.

I often analyze three projects simultaneously, but there is no practical limit to the number of projects that can be analyzed at the same time. This is a very useful feature for correspondence players, opening analysts, etc.

Analysis Roots in Different Projects

Here is one trick you may not have thought of. A strong player told me that he sometimes creates two or more projects for studying the same opening. He uses the same tree and the same tree configuration for the projects. That’s another way to keep the engines busy. Of course, you should make sure that the projects are analyzing positions that have little in common. This is often easy to do. An example is a position where White’s best move is to castle, but he can choose between kingside and queenside castling. In that case you can create one project after each move and be sure that the resulting positions are different. In other cases it may not be as clear as in this example, but you will often find root positions that have little in common. Even if some of the analysis tasks happen to be the same, nothing terrible will happen aside from some wasted time. Identical tasks may be analyzed in two projects if they happen to end up in both queues at the same time. However, if a task is analyzed in one of the projects, the other projects will know about it when they generate the tasks for the next stage, and in that case the task would only be analyzed once.

Project CPU Settings

Although several active projects make better use of the analysis time of the engine, there is often one particular project that you are more interested in than others at a given moment. Let’s say that you have three active projects and you want to spend most of the time on one of them. Go to the IDeA Control Center, highlight the project in the list and click the Edit button in the ribbon. The IDeA Project Properties will be displayed.

In the “CPU usage,” select “Set CPU usage” from the drop-down list. A new percentage field will be displayed. Change the percentage to a high number, but make sure that it is lower than 100 percent. In the example shown in the screenshot above, I have set it to ninety-five percent, which means that other active projects will be analyzed when there are not enough tasks available in this project. Make sure that the “CPU usage” for the other projects is set to “Active.”

If you set the percentage to 100, then the other projects would not be analyzed at all, as was explained in Interactive Deep Analysis (IDeA) With Rybka Aquarium 2010.

Of course, you can change the “CPU usage” at any time, even while IDeA is running. This means that you can make another project the ” ninety-five percent project” any time you like.

This feature will be appreciated by correspondence players who want to emphasize the analysis of the most critical game while slowly improving the analysis of one or more other games.

Custom Tasks

Custom tasks are a very powerful feature for interacting with IDeA and specifying analysis tasks. The “Custom Task” button is in the ribbon in project view. When you click the button, the Custom Task Properties dialog box, shown below, is displayed where you can define the parameters for the task.

In the lower half of the image, you can see the familiar “Analysis Quality” pane (showing the project’s settings). This allows you to choose settings for the task that are different from the project settings. This can come in handy when you are dealing with an interesting position that you want to analyze deeply.

Near the top of the image, you can see that I have set “Number of alternatives” to three. This means that three new alternatives will be generated for the current position. This is a convenient way of automatically adding several alternatives in one task.

“Auto-play plies” is set to two. This means that after generating an alternative, IDeA will play one additional move in that variation. This parameter defines how long the generated lines will be. If I had set “Auto-play plies” to one, only the new alternatives would be generated. If I had set it to five, each alternative would be followed by four new moves.

If you want to limit the analysis to moves within a certain evaluation interval, you can set the “Score is between” parameter. In the example above, I have set the interval to -100 to +100 centipawns, which means that I am not interested in variations outside that interval. This can save you from spending too much time on positions which are not interesting. Let’s say that the evaluation of the second alternative had been -150, then IDeA would not have generated the third alternative. The same applies when IDeA extends a line. If it hits a move with an evaluation outside the interval, the line will not be extended further.

If I only want to extend a line in the tree, I can set the parameters as follows.

In this example, a single line of five plies will be generated. If the tree is currently positioned at the end of a variation (a leaf node), it will be extended. Otherwise, a new alternative will be generated and then extended according to the “Auto-play plies.”

Possible uses for manual analysis

Besides the normal IDeA analysis where the analysis tree is expanded automatically, you can use IDeA similar to infinite analysis. This approach has the advantage that all your analysis is stored in the analysis tree, ready to be used for normal IDeA analysis.

Define a new project (or select an existing project). Make sure that the analysis quality settings are high enough so you will have time to interact with the tasks that you create. Next, switch to the IDeA tab in the IDeA Project Properties.

All you need to do here remove the check mark from “Automatic tree expansion (IDeA).” This means that IDeA will not generate any tasks automatically and you can use it to analyze the positions that you are interested in. You can use this method when you are starting the analysis of a new position where you have your own ideas about how it should be played.

Note that the original idea of this setting was to let IDeA work like an “EPDprocessor” and load the positions to be analyzed from an EPD file as was described above (see Sending Games and Positions to IDeA).

After defining the parameters for the project, you can open it and start analyzing. Use the interactive features to select the positions that you want to analyze. Make some moves on the board and press “Current Position” to analyze the position and any moves in the variation leading to the position. You can also ask IDeA to generate a new alternative in a position, by clicking the “Alternative” button. If you have been examining several variations on the board and want IDeA to analyze all the positions in the notation window, click “All Positions” to analyze all positions which haven’t been analyzed already. “Custom Task” can also be used to generate analysis tasks.

You can decide for how long each task is analyzed and when to stop the analysis of a particular task.

When you want to stop the analysis of a task, first select it in the analysis queue by clicking on it and then click “Finish now,” as shown in the image above.

Sometimes you may see that a move you wanted to try is actually a terrible blunder and you don’t want to add it to the tree. Then you can click the “Delete” link instead of “Finish now” and the task will be deleted.

When you are analyzing an interesting position, you may want to let the analysis run longer than it normally would. Select the task as described above and click the “Infinite” link. Now the analysis will run until you stop it manually by clicking “Finish now.”

Basically, everything is working just like in a “normal” IDeA project, but by using this manual method, you can build an analysis tree based on your own ideas. It is important to realize that you can switch to normal IDeA any time you like by opening the IDeA tab in the IDeA Project Properties and selecting “Automatic tree expansion (IDeA)” again.

If you have an existing project that has been analyzed with normal IDeA settings, you can also switch to manual mode by removing the check mark from “Automatic tree expansion (IDeA).”

Conclusion

IDeA is an advanced analysis method that is very powerful in the hands of players who master its features. One of its advantages is that it can use the computing power of several computers for its analysis. However, regardless of how powerful your computers are, the best results require manual interaction. Although computers and chess engines are more powerful than ever, human input still makes the difference between good and great analysis.

• Rybka 4 is now releaes, stronger than ever.
• Aquarium 4, a new version matching Rybka 4, is also introduced, with loads of improvements, some of which have been described in my recent columns. Additionally an update to Aquarium 2010 (4.0.3) will also be released as a free update for current customers.
• Last, but not least, a new Rybka 4 Aquarium opening book is now released with thoroughly researched and up to date collection of modern opening lines.

These are exciting announcements for Rybka and Aquarium users. It has been a long wait for Rybka 4, but it will be worth the wait. With Aquarium now being used at the highest levels of chess competition, it is bound to catch the attention of many new players. However, the subject of this column is the Rybka 4 Aquarium opening book, which was prepared by Rybka team member Jiri Dufek.

Jiri Dufek

Jiri has been playing chess since the age of six, when his grandfather taught him how to play. He holds a title of national master, as well as being an international master of correspondence chess. His hobbies include computer chess and collecting chess books. He has authored the opening books for Rybka’s official competitions where his choice of solid but active repertoire, often involving little explored lines, proved to be a great success. He has also been very successful in freestyle chess, with his latest triumph being a victory in the Mundial Chess tournament earlier this year. Jiri wrote the book Bijte francouzskou! (Beating the French) along with his friend and long-time associate IM Roman Chytilek. Jiri no longer plays over-the-board chess, but focuses instead on opening analysis and chess analysis in general. Jiri is an IT system administrator by profession. With this background, and his obvious passion for chess, Jiri is clearly an ideal team member of any chess or computer-chess team.

Jiri was kind enough to answer my questions regarding the new Rybka 4 opening book, but I couldn’t resist also asking him about his work for Veselin Topalov in the world championship match against Viswanathan Anand and the analysis tools he uses in the match.

Q: You are in the enviable position of being a member of the Rybka team as well as Topalov’s analysis team. Additionally, you are the only new member of the Topalov team in his match against Anand. What is the story behind you joining the Topalov team?

A: As a reward for my result in the Mundial Chess freestyle tournament, I was invited to the Linares tournament site to play a game against Veselin Topalov. During my stay in Linares I met Veselin’s seconds – Jan Smeets and Erwin l’Ami. After my game against Topalov, which ended in a draw, I also got a chance to speak to the master himself.

Veselin Topalov vs. Jiri Dufek

We discussed chess in general, openings, chess engines and the differences between human chess and the world of chess engines. Shortly after I returned home from the trip, I got an invitation from Silvio Danailov to join Topalov’s team for his match against Vishy Anand.

Q: I’m sure that your expert opening knowledge played a big role in Topalov’s decision to ask you to join his team. However, the times are changing and knowledge of computers and advanced analysis methods plays a bigger role now than in any previous world championship match. Do you think that your extensive experience and knowledge in these areas also played a role in Topalov’s decision?

A: I think this question is more complicated than it looks at first sight. Firstly, Topalov and grandmasters in general have their own ideas on how to play the openings. Their priorities are completely different from those normally applied when preparing opening books for chess engine matches. There is no interest at all in long lines which may lead to a draw after dozens of precise moves. Memorizing lines is difficult and time-consuming, with little hope of practical reward. It’s simply bad investment of match preparation time. Therefore a good chess engine book author is not automatically a good assistant for human opening preparation. He must be flexible and adapt to the different requirements.

Secondly, I often checked existing analysis, looking for improvements or used “my methods” to analyze lines, which were considered important for the match. Every time my conclusions agreed with the analysis of the other team members. The quality of opening analysis at this level is extremely high, but of course every team member makes an important contribution to the preparations. I have the greatest respect for the other team members. They have proven time and again that they are second to none in opening preparations and more than once they have stunned the chess world with their opening novelties.

Thirdly, my computer background has allowed me to provide IT support for our team. You could say that I have been the team’s “IT Department.”

Veselin Topalov and Jiri Dufek

Q: Your Rybka 4 Aquarium opening book will be released soon. It’s clear that you put a huge amount of work into the book.

A: Yes, I put a lot of work into it. It helps that I find it really interesting to analyze unknown positions and ideas from chess books, chess practice or computer games and find my own solutions. Today’s opening preparation is very deep. In some cases players know their lines from the opening all the way to the endgame. A less prepared opponent will probably lose his way somewhere in the middlegame against such preparation. Things are looking even worse in computer games – long lines, often 50 moves or more, leading to a draw are similar to pre-arranged draws in human games.

The technical advances mean that opening analysis is very different from what it used to be a few years ago, not to mention a few decades ago. However, even with today’s amazing computer tools, the work of the modern opening book author is still very demanding.

My method of creating a strong opening book consists of several steps. Assuming you already have a good database, the first step is the selection of games. Making a good hand-typed book is impossible. The selected games serve as the “raw material,” and generate the initial version of the book. This step may only require a few hours of work. The next step is to fine-tune the move priorities. This is a very time consuming task, and in the case of the Rybka Aquarium book, it took a few weeks.

Testing the book is an independent process. First you run a test and then you look at the results and try to find weak points in the book. After further analysis you may find some improvements, which require updates to the book and another test cycle must be run. This process will take a few days.

Last, but not least is the creative phase of making an opening book. Here you need to find new ideas and get a deeper understanding of the lines in the book. One recurring question in this phase is why engines give a low evaluation, or play badly positions which are very good according to my own understanding of the position. This phase is not only very time consuming, it also needs a lot of creativity and manual interaction and guiding of the engine analysis.

Q: You made a very successful opening book for Rybka-Cluster. Did some secrets from that book make it into the Rybka Aquarium opening book?

Rybka Cluster currently runs on 13 powerful computers

A: Yes, I moved priorities from the tournament book which I used with Rybka-Cluster to the Aquarium book. I think I’m not far off when I say, that the Aquarium book includes around 95% of the Rybka-Cluster book which I used in official tournaments. However, the Aquarium book is much bigger and contains a lot of new material and analysis, up-to-date games etc.

Q: How would you describe your opening book? Is it a “narrow” book, covering a few selected openings deeply or is it a “wide” book containing most openings that arise in practice?

A: Generally, the book is relatively wide covering many openings and variations. I wanted to offer two different ways of playing every opening, but sometimes I ended up with only one, because I felt that it was the best way to handle the position.

A narrow book might score pretty well in the short term, and I would have chosen that path if a high score in engine matches was my only goal. However, I wanted the Rybka Aquarium book to address the needs of a much wider audience which means that a much greater number of openings needs to be covered. This is why I added many openings which are popular in human play. The variations are color coded with green color (recommended moves), red (not recommended), blue (recommended for human tournaments but not computer tournaments) and black (neutral moves). Aquarium allows users to juggle the move priorities based on the color codes, so it’s easy, for instance, to use the book as a “tournament book” in chess engine matches.

Although I have a wide range of users in mind for this opening book, I’m not sure that it will suit everyone. The first group I am targeting is of course Rybka users and chess engine fans in general. They will find up-to-date information about their openings. The second group would be everyone who wants something new, new opening ideas or new opening setups. Last but not least, I tried to make it a thoroughly researched and up to date, general opening guide for the tournament player. Although I think it might even be useful for grandmasters, I think they haven’t caught on to the opening developments in the chess engine world and still prefer their current methods of opening preparation. On the other hand I would be extremely interested in getting feedback from grandmasters. Perhaps it will be useful for my next opening book.

From the white size, the main repertoire of the Rybka Aquarium book is based on the Sicilian Najdorf Variation with 6.Be2/h3/Be3/Bg5, Caro-Kann with 3.e5, Ruy Lopez, French with 3.Nc3 and 3.e5, Catalan, classical King’s Indian Defence with 9.Ne1 and 10.Be3, the Exchange Variation of the Grünfeld Defence, Nimzo-Indian Defence with 4.f4, etc.

For black there is the Sicilian Kan Variation (e6+a6), which proved to be very successful for Rybka-Cluster in official tournaments, the Sicilian Najdorf Variation and the Rauzer Variation with Bd7, Caro-Kann and Ruy Lopez (Berlin Wall and Jaenisch). After 1.d4 there is the Grünfeld Defence and a lot of Slav Defence (Chebanenko 4…a6) and Semi-Slav analysis as well as the Nimzo-Indian Defence – where I used my openings from the Rybka-Cluster opening book.

Q: When Jeroen Noomen’s opening book for Aquarium was released he said that “IDeA is the best opening book tool at this moment.” Do you use IDeA in your opening analysis?

A: Yes, for opening analysis there is no better solution, because it allows you to find some very interesting, “non-human” continuations which would be hard to find otherwise. I emphasize quality over quantity, so I prefer to give the engines a longer time for the analysis of each position – this mean that I use automatic IDeA tree expansion and as the analysis progresses I check analysis tree, compare the results with my own notes and decide which positions are important and analyze them more deeply. For analyzing the middlegame I still use my own, much simpler methods, to decide which move to play, but my IDeA analysis is constantly running.

Q: Do you use the new features of IDeA in Aquarium, such as remote engines?

A: I really like the option to use remote chess engines. It is small revolution for IDeA and it really works! For critical positions I run the analysis from my PC connected to approximately 40 remote engines, located in four different places of the world. For smaller projects I often use slower computers with only local engines.

Q: Did you develop the Rybka 4 Aquarium book using the opening book tools of Aquarium itself?

A: I use Aquarium both because it allows very fast addition and editing moves in the book and while I am doing that I can have chess engines analyzing one or more positions in the background. Aquarium has many advantages and useful features for the serious player, such as for analyzing individual positions or whole games; it’s also good for basic work with databases and of course the option to use remote engines for analysis. On the other hand, features such as playing against the engine are of no use to me, regardless of the GUI. 

Q: Which opening line did you spend the most time on?

A: It’s very hard to answer. Probably the Sicilian Najdorf was the most time consuming, but still i am not 100% sure about truth in this opening.

I probably got the biggest kick out of analyzing the Jaenisch Gambit in Ruy Lopez, because very often the best moves according to the chess engine are not really the best.

But this is not all. I added about 700 variations to the book in different openings, many of which are seldom seen in tournament books. The main purpose was to make the Rybka Aquarium book more useful for players. In other words, there are continuation of sidelines, which improved existing theory or recent games – look and you will see!

Q: Can you show us a few interesting novelties from the book?

A: Sure. There are so many novelties to choose from, but I’ll start by showing my oldest novelty, which dates all the way back to 2004.

A16. English Opening

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Qa4+ c6 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. Qd4 f6 7. e4 e5 8.
Nxe5 Nxc3 9. Qxc3 Qe7 10. Nf3 Qxe4+

This line is now out of fashion and I can‘t wait any longer to show my novelty.

11.Kd1 ! +=

A30. English Opening, Hedgehog System

The Hedgehog is very popular at all levels of play. However, recent research shows that black is facing a lot of problems. Here are two examples.

1. c4 c5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 e6 4. g3 b6 5. Bg2 Bb7 6. O-O Be7 7. Re1 a6 8. e4 d6
9. d4 cxd4 10. Nxd4 Qc7 11. Be3 Nbd7 12. Rc1 O-O 13. f4 Rfe8 14. g4 Nc5 15. Bf2
g6 16. b4 Rad8

17.Bf3!

Here is another Hedgehog novelty:

1. c4 c5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 e6 4. g3 b6 5. Bg2 Bb7 6. O-O Be7 7. Re1 a6 8. e4 d6
9. d4 cxd4 10. Nxd4 Qc7 11. Be3 Nbd7 12. Rc1 O-O 13. f4 Rac8 14. Bf2 Rfe8 15.
e5 Bxg2 16. exf6 Ba8 17. fxe7 Qb7 18. Kf1 Qg2+ 19. Ke2 e5 20. Rg1 Qh3

21.Nc2+/-

A65: Benoni Defence

I am a very big fan and supporter of the Benoni, but now the only top player who likes it is GM Gashimov. There is a recent theoretical book about interesting ideas in the Benoni and I checked few of them. However, let’s first look at a very aggressive line:
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e6 4. Nf3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. Nc3 g6 7. e4 Bg7 8. h3 a6 9. a4 Nbd7 10. Bd3 Nh5 11. O-O Ne5 12. Be2 Nxf3+ 13. Bxf3 Qh4

And now the rook lift 14.Ra3! looks very unpleasant for black.

B80: Sicilian Defence

I wanted to pass over the Sicilian Najdorf, but it was not possible, of course. It was really a big torture for me. At the end I found a totally new way of playing one of the main lines, which is now under big pressure.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e6 7. f3 b5 8. Qd2
Nbd7 9. g4 Nb6 10. a4 Nc4 11. Bxc4 bxc4 12. g5 Nd7 13. f4 Qc7 14. O-O

And now

14..g6!?

C06: French Defence

I am a big fan of the French Defence. However, in recent months black’s life has not been so simple. Here is another source of worry for black. – a little bishop move and black has problems to solve.

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Bd3 c5 6. c3 Nc6 7. Ne2 cxd4 8. cxd4
f6 9. exf6 Nxf6 10. O-O Bd6 11. Nf3 Qb6 12. Bf4 Bxf4 13. Nxf4 O-O 14. Qd2 g6

15.Bb1!

C63: Ruy Lopez. Jaenisch Gambit

The Rybka Aquarium book includes a full coverage of the Jaenisch Gambit – everything is engine-checked and I made a lot of new analysis to support this interesting opening. Here are some “normal” (remember that this is the Jaenisch!) positions covered by the book:

With compensation

=

-+

C92: Ruy Lopez. Zaitsev Variation

From time to time I tested my book on Playchess. I was surprised, when I found the following line to be very popular.

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3
O-O 9. h3 Bb7 10. d4 Re8 11. Nbd2 Bf8 12. a4 h6 13. Bc2 exd4 14. cxd4 Nb4 15.
Bb1 c5 16. d5 Nd7 17. Ra3 Nb6 18. a5 Nd7

This looks pretty dubious for black. However, black scored about 66% after the “normal” continuation 19.Nf1 f5! When I first saw this method of playing, I felt that there had to be a simple countermeasure. I think that I succeeded in finding a simple solution, although finding it took more time and effort than I had expected.

19.Nh2! c4 20.Rg3! with very strong attack, but you can check the full analysis after 19.Nh2 in the book.

D27: Queen’s Gambit Accepted

The Queen’s Gambit Accepted is very popular nowadays, and often white players choose strange sidelines, because the mainline is holding for black. This is not true after:

1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Bxc4 c5 6. O-O a6 7. Bb3 b5 8. a4 b4
9. e4 Bb7 10. e5 Ne4 11. Nbd2 Nxd2 12. Bxd2 cxd4 13. Ng5 Be7 14. Qh5 Bxg5 15.
Bxg5 Qd7

Here white has the subtle move 16.Rfd1! and you can check the Rybka Aquarium book to see that life is very hard for black after 13.Ng5.

D44: Semi-Slav, Botvinnik Variation

The Botvinnik system has been a popular opening for the last 30 years. The theoretical debate is very, very deep and it looks like it will soon end in a simple endgame. The Rybka Aquarium Book includes the latest development of this line. After the moves

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. Bg5 dxc4 6. e4 b5 7. e5 h6 8. Bh4 g5
9. Nxg5 hxg5 10. Bxg5 Nbd7 11. g3 Bb7 12. Bg2 Qb6 13. exf6 O-O-O 14. O-O c5 15.
d5 b4 16. Na4 Qb5 17. a3 Nb8 18. axb4 cxb4 19. Qg4 Bxd5 20. Rfc1 Nc6 21. Bxd5
Rxd5 22. Rxc4 Rxg5 23. Qd4 Kb8 24. Rxc6 Rxg3+ 25. fxg3 Qxc6 26. Rd1 Qc7 27. Kf1
Rh5 28. Qd8+ Qc8 29. b3 Rd5 30. Rxd5 exd5 31. Qxd5 Qa6+ 32. Kg2 Qe2+ 33. Kh3
Qf1+ 34. Kg4 Qe2+ 35. Kg5 Qe3+ 36. Kh4 Qh6+ 37. Kg4 Qg6+ 38. Kf3 Qxf6+ 39. Ke4 Bd6, your engine will probably show something around 0.00, but do you really want to play this position as black over the board?

D85: Grünfeld Defence, Exchange Variation

The system with Rb1 and Be2 in the Grünfeld is still very dangerous for black. Many theoreticians have liked the system with Be5-c7-a5. However, in the recent months black has faced a lot of trouble here. I did my best to revitalize this line.

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Nf3 c5 8.Rb1 O-O 9. Be2 Nc6 10. d5 Ne5 11. Nxe5 Bxe5 12. Qd2 e6 13. f4 Bc7 14. O-O exd515. exd5 Ba5

For example, 16. d6 Rb8 17. Ba3 Bf5 18. Rbc1 Rc8 19. Bf3 Qd7 20. Rcd1 Rfe8 21. Rfe1
Rxe1+ 22. Rxe1 Bd8 23. h3 h5 24. Bb2

24…c4! =

D97: Grünfeld Defence

The system with 7…a6 is the main weapon. One of the key positions arises after the moves

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Qb3 dxc4 6. Qxc4 O-O 7. e4 a6 8. e5
b5 9. Qb3 Nfd7 10. h4 c5 11. e6 c4 12. Qd1 Nb6 13. exf7+ Rxf7 14. h5 Nc6 15.
hxg6 hxg6 16. Be3 Bf5 17. Ng5 Rf6 (17..Nxd4!) 18. g4 Be6 19. Nce4 Bd5

However, white now has a devastating continuation.

20.Bg2! Nb4 21.Ke2!! +/-

E04: Catalan Opening

The Catalan is very popular nowadays and after the world championship match between Anand and Topalov, it will get even more supporters! The Rybka Aquarium book contains many ideas and novelties in this opening, one of them being

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. g3 dxc4 5. Bg2 c6 6. Ne5 Bb4+ 7. Bd2 Qxd4 8. Bxb4 Qxe5 9. Na3 b5 10. Bd6 Qxb2 11. O-O Nd5 12. e4 Nc3 13. Qh5 Nd7 14. e5 Bb7 15. Qg5 f6 16. exf6 O-O-O 17. fxg7 Rhg8

18.Rae1 with attack.

E12: Queen’s Indian Defence, Petrosian Variation

The old Petrosian recipe for handling the Queen’s Indian Defence is not popular nowadays, but from time to time black tries too hard to win against this solid system and risks too much. This is line is an example:

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. a3 Bb7 5. Nc3 Ne4 6. Nxe4 Bxe4 7. Nd2 Bb7 8. e4
Qf6 9. d5 Bc5 10. Nf3 Qg6 11. b4 Qxe4+ 12. Be2 Be7 13. O-O Bf6

After 14.h3 exd5 15.Bd3 Bxa1 16.Bxe4 dxe4 17.Bf4 0-0 18.Nh2! black is lost.

— Chess: Simple Defense to learn how to defend your pieces from capturing
— Chess: Easy Ways of Taking Pawns and Pieces to learn how to capture the pieces
— Attack on the King I to learn how to attack the king in middlegame and mate in 2
— Attack on the King II to learn how to attack the king in middlegame and mate in 3 & 4

All courses cost €25.60 / $32.

Participants: Karjakin, Jakovenko, Jobava, Vitugov, Motylev, Rublevsky, Onischuk, Naiditsch, Ryasantsev, Bologan, Sutovsky, Sokolov.

ChessOK is going to publish all games of the tournament with Rybka 4 analysis (post game).

Games: Round 1 [ PGN], Round 2 [ PGN], Round 3 [ PGN], Round 4 [ PGN], Round 5 [ PGN], Round 6 [ PGN], Round 7 [ PGN], Round 8 [ PGN], Round 9 [ PGN], Round 10 [ PGN], Round 11 [ PGN]

Rublevsky - Ryasantsev 0-1 \br\Onischuk - Motylev 1/2 \br\Bologan - Sokolov 1-0 \br\Naiditsch - Vitugov 1/2 \br\Jobava - Karjakin 1/2 \br\Sutovsky - Jakovenko 1/2 \br\Jakovenko - Jobava 1-0 \br\Onischuk - Rublevsky 1/2 \br\Motylev - Sokolov 1/2 \br\Vitugov - Bologan 1/2 \br\Karjakin - Naiditsch 1-0 \br\Ryasantsev - Sutovsky 1/2 \br\Jobava - Ryasantsev 1/2 \br\Sokolov - Vitugov 1/2 \br\Sutovsky - Onischuk 1-0 \br\Naiditsch - Jakovenko 1/2 \br\Rublevsky - Motylev 1/2 \br\Bologan - Karjakin 1/2 \br\Karjakin - Sokolov 1-0 \br\Rublevsky - Sutovsky 1/2 \br\Ryasantsev - Naiditsch 1/2 \br\Motylev - Vitugov 1/2 \br\Onischuk - Jobava 1/2 \br\Jakovenko - Bologan 1-0 \br\Sokolov - Jakovenko 1-0 \br\Naiditsch - Onischuk 1/2 \br\Sutovsky - Motylev 1/2 \br\Jobava - Rublevsky 1/2 \br\Vitugov - Karjakin 1-0 \br\Bologan - Ryasantsev 1/2 \br\Motylev - Karjakin 1/2 \br\Sutovsky - Jobava 1/2 \br\Rublevsky - Naiditsch 1/2 \br\Jakovenko - Vitugov 1-0 \br\Ryasantsev - Sokolov 1-0 \br\Vitugov - Ryasantsev 1/2 \br\Bologan - Rublevsky 1/2 \br\Jobava - Motylev 1-0 \br\Naiditsch - Sutovsky 1-0 \br\Sokolov - Onischuk 1/2 \br\Karjakin - Jakovenko 1/2 \br\Jobava - Naiditsch 1/2 \br\Onischuk - Vitugov 1/2 \br\Ryasantsev - Karjakin 0-1 \br\Sutovsky - Bologan 1/2 \br\Rublevsky - Sokolov 0-1 \br\Motylev - Jakovenko 0-1 \br\Naiditsch - Motylev 1/2 \br\Vitugov - Rublevsky 1-0 \br\Jakovenko - Ryasantsev 1/2 \br\Bologan - Jobava 1-0 \br\Sokolov - Sutovsky 0-1 \br\Karjakin - Onischuk 1/2 \br\Bologan - Onischuk 1/2 \br\Onischuk - Jakovenko 1-0 \br\Jobava - Sokolov 1/2 \br\Motylev - Ryasantsev 1/2 \br\Rublevsky - Karjakin 1/2 \br\Sutovsky - Vitugov 0-1 \br\Naiditsch - Bologan 0-1 \br\Jakovenko - Rublevsky 1/2 \br\Karjakin - Sutovsky 1-0 \br\Vitugov - Jobava 1/2 \br\Sokolov - Naiditsch 1-0 \br\Ryasantsev - Onischuk 1/2 \br\Bologan - Motylev 1-0 \br\ Karjakin (2739) (RUS) \br\Jakovenko (2725) (RUS) \br\Jobava (2715) (GEO), \br\Vitugov (2707) (RUS) \br\Motylev (2704) (RUS) \br\Rublevsky (2704) (RUS) \br\Onischuk (2699) (USA) \br\Naiditsch (2686) (DEU) \br\Ryasantsev (2674) (RUS) \br\Bologan (2668) (MOL) \br\Sutovsky (2661) (ISR) \br\Sokolov (2654) (BIH)

Rybka 4 Aquarium for download
Rybka 4 Aquarium on DVD
Deep Rybka 4 Aquarium for download
Deep Rybka 4 Aquarium on DVD

Rybka 4 Aquarium book by Jiri Dufek has also been released!

Rybka 4 Aquarium book by Jiri Dufek for download
Rybka 4 Aquarium book by Jiri Dufek on DVD

Chess Assistant 11 is there!
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You can also upgrade from Chess Assistant 10 for a lower price. Check out Chess Assistant & Databases catalog.

There’s also a 30% discount if you buy a combo of Chess Assistant + Rybka 4 Aquarium. Check out our Specials catalog.

— Deep Rybka 4 UCI for download

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— Deep Rybka 4 UCI on CD

Rybka 4 Aquarium and Opening Book by Jir Dufek will be available in a few hours. Stay tuned!

Please note, that (Deep) Rybka 4 Aquarium or Chess Assistant 11 already include Rybka 4 UCI / Deep Rybka 4 UCI without any additional payments along with a bonus program of Openings Encyclopedia 2010. There’s also a 30% discount package of Rybka 4 Aquarium + Chess Assistant available for order.

Rybka 4 UCI / Deep Rybka 4 UCI can be used in all modern chess programs such as Aquarium, Chess Assistant, Fritz, Shredder, Chessbase, Arena etc.