One of the very important and leading contributors to advance chess these days are chess novelties. The authors of Opening Master databases since very beginning of the creation thought about chess novelties and how to best approach them using the chess database system. The game is all about the “right” opening.

If you play either as white or black a little bit better situation, you are taking this with you to the middle game where it is extremely important – especially when two equal players play against each other. Slight better position + or slight worse position – will take you up or down later on. Therefore players pay extreme attention to the opening of the games.

Every month players come up with something new in chess called – NOVELTY.

Many grand masters has written and said - the chess is about understanding of fundamental principles. They talk about static understanding - one particular snapshot of the game but as well as dynamic understanding of what will happen in series of moves. However, all these moves must make sense in any of the fraction. Finding new ways, exploring new routes is thus about understanding that at one particular moment the player will have an IDEA, to make something better, to surprise the opponent and to go the unexplored way.

There are quite many books on the market which explores the novelty world, naming few from Vacheslav Eingorn: “Create Opening Chess Preparation”, Gambit 2006. The author describes in very detail how to find the novelty and how to test it so one day it can be introduced to the chess world. On the other hand, the great detail of the book is devoted to novelties which were not so successful. Overall, very good analysis and definitely worth to read. Mr. Shirov on his videos talks about testing a novelty for 2 years before showing it life on big tournament.

So what are the right tools to find the right novelty?

1. Most importantly is to have the right reference database with most up to date data
2. One needs a constant inflow of new games
3. Software :
   1. ChessBase or ChessAssistant are able to compare a game against one big reference database
   2. Ability to find novelty

The point “b” is the most important and complex operation which one needs to do. The exact ways how to go step by step can be found in our tutorials.

In brief explanation - with function Find Novelty one may analyze the new games and compare them against the reference database however pay attention to differentiate between the novelties and between making mistakes with new move and then losing the game at the end. This is the most difficult to recognize therefore when somebody says he spent months of finding a new novelty this can be very true. The powerful systems and databases can help very much. In the old days, people had only books and notes, having hard times looking for a novelty. With computer information technology, with the right set of tools it is bit easier, but still very difficult even for advanced players and users of databases.

The novelty can start accidentally or with long term preparation but as mentioned earlier it must have an IDEA. If the move is only an unplanned adventure without any deep thinking or IDEA if it just goes away from the trend without any deeper dynamics it very well falls into category of mistakes. Same thing, if the new move happens and the player wins it still doesn’t mean it can be considered as a novelty, only time and statistics shows. Many grandmasters like Kasparov, had teams of supporting chess staff who were constantly inventing the novelties for him which he can use on the tournament and surprise the opponent.

Let’s look briefly how to distinguish between a novelty and mistake in ChessBase or other chess programs. One needs to manually look for the games which have necessary features to become a novelty and run different kind of analyses. It would be difficult to find a novelty with two players one with ELO 2600 and other one with ELO 2100. The better player could make a mistake in the opening / or middle game and yet win the game later on. This does not mean however he actually planned it or it was a meant a novelty. This area considers finding novelties between two strong players who know what to do and right before the novelty starts, one of the players has IDEA to implement it and then he wins.

This web site does not claim to have the completeness of the analyses of the novelties nor the 100% analysis proof against mistakes however we try to bring the new ways to public so everybody can analyze and benefit out of it. It’s very difficult to explain the theory of novelties in the short article there are whole sections, groups forums devoted to discussions. We can only conclude that having powerful reference chess database can help you finding your dream novelty. Let us know if this happens.

Best regards,

Alexander Horvath

CEO Opening Master