More Hungarian Dragon tales to close the year.
While I was working (as a chess journalist) at Equarius Hotel or the Convention Centre, the only not-for-work picture I wanted to take was with Ding Liren's second, GM Richard Rapport. I didn't try to take selfies with Ding, Gukesh, Anand, Gelfand, Ni Hua for example, even thought there were opportunities to do so. A picture with Richard, was special to me as he was the inspiration for my Hungarian Dragon book due to his brilliant win with it against GM Ivan Saric in the 2022 World Blitz championships.
I had half a mind not to do so actually, as I could see he was already quite tired during the press conference.
In any case, I am glad I did, and I told him I wrote a book on the line because of a game he played. He sleepily mumbled 'That's cool...thanks' and I decided not to take more of his time.
Since my last blogpost on the HD, not that my book or I had any impact on these fellas, Magnus Carlsen (in a crucial game against Firouza) and especially Daniil Dubov has used the Hungarian Dragon this year. Dubov came in 2nd behind Svidler in the Jerusalem Masters and his HD scored an unbeaten 2/3 including a win over Ivanchuk. You can also see a nice Dubov win with it 3 months ago, annotated by the Dragon expert GM Chris Ward here.
I am also very appreciative of the messages some readers (masters included) who wrote of how they enjoyed reading the book and also using the lines. For that matter, I must say I am not the first to publish HD material. Spanish IM David Martinez wrote a chessable course on the line one year before I did (in Spanish though, that's why I missed it) and in February 2023, the English translation came up on Chessable with GM Simon Williams fronting the video. I am glad to say I am still receiving royalties on my book though (many thanks to my publisher FM Carsten Hansen's promotional ideas).
OK...now to the fun part, the games. After the World Championship, I got inspired to play in Early Titled Tuesday this week. The spirit is willing but the flesh...cannot make it. I overslept and missed the 12am Round 1 start . I also got routed in most of the games (scoring 3/9). But...HD scored 2/2 and the games, one of them very low quality for most of the moves, were really nice from an attacking viewpoint. The onlu other point I scored, I was hopelessly lost and was about to resign soon when my opponent ran into a Queen pin.
The first win was very clean from a theoretical viewpoint, and I got to execute the standard. Dragon ...Nxe4! motif to release the Dragon bishop to blow White's queenside pawn cover.
The following one however, wasn't so good, theory wise. But still, I got to use the Hungarian Dragon ...h5-h4 punt, flick in ...Rh8-h5, and then finish off with the ...Ng3 knight sacrifice to to clinch the point. These motifs are all mentioned (yes, product placement...sorry) in my book.
So with these, farewell to the Year of the Dragon (Chinese Zodiac) in a couple of weeks and we will be in the year of the Snake in 2025. What then? Write a book on the Snake Benoni (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nc3 exd5 5.cxd5 Bd6)?
A merry Christmas to you all and have a wonderful New Year!
