New in Chess 24/1992 [antikvár]

i 1 l' 1.NICSURVEYSI 18.7SURVEY: GENNA SOSONKO NOTES: MIKHAIL GOLUBEVSicilian Defence Dragon VariationThe diagram position represents one of the key positions of the Yugoslav attack with 9.Ac4. Apart from the dangerous continuations 16. J.h6, 16.e5 and 16.'Lide2 White also avails of several less usual options which require accurate defensive measures from Black in order to stay alive. One of these is 16.i^b3 intending to forestall Black's counterplay by preventing the queen's sortie to a5. This line was covered in a Database Survey by me in Yearbook 20.16.'ib1 is another possibility, featured in our survey game. Before taking immediate action White makes sure his king is in a safe spot and simply keeps all options open. It is clear that 16 He8 in order to preserve the Dragon Bishop on g7 is the best reply. The games from the study material in which other moves were adopted confirm this observation.The critical position arises after 17.d5. In my opinion the alternatives do not promise much. In the featured game Black played 17 e6, the usual move. 17 iiid5 strongly comes into consideration. On an old yellowed sheet of paper I recently found the following piece of analysis made together with Kortchnoi over 20 years ago: 17 dS 18.ed5 e5 19.de6 ?e6 20.1'h2 h5 21.gh5 .^dS! 22.b3 Se2 23.bc4 l.d4!But In the game Black was not doing too badly until move 19, when he should have played 19 e5. The game Riemersma-Pirlsi ended in a short but eventful draw and it is quite difficult to suggest any Improvements on White's play in that game. However, with 19 h6 Black was following I. Gurevich-Rachels, USA 1986, which is supposed to be satisfactory. Dragon expert Mikhail Golubev proved hinn wrong with a strong novelty netting an immediate advantage.