Con Caruana, Godena, Brunello, Ortega, Shytaj, Dvirnyy, Piscopo… Forza Azzurri!!

Alle 15,30 bianco in moto per una gara che, come già accennato nella prima parte di questa presentazione, si annuncia con tutte le caratteristiche del grande evento. Credo che il numero di professionisti di alto livello sia  oggi molto superiore rispetto al passato e la percezione di equilibrio che emerge scorrendo il tabellone iniziale, anche arrivando ben oltre il 50° posto della griglia di partenza, sarebbe stata difficile da riscontrare in un torneo di 20 o 30 anni fa.

Una gara resa molto particolare non solo dal titolo europeo in palio ma anche dalla qualificazione alla World Cup e dall’essere un open fortissimo, con un eccellente montepremi. Il tempo di gioco è di 90 minuti per 40 mosse più 30 minuti per finire la partita con 30 secondi di incremento a partire dalla prima mossa, uno dei tempi standard validi anche per il riconoscimento delle norme. Non mi sembra di aver letto deroghe rispetto ad eventuali ritardi, quindi partita persa se non si è alla scacchiera all’inizio della partita. Sistema svizzero ad 11 turni, tutto sommato non molti per gli oltre 400 partecipanti. Si gioca sempre alle 15,30 , con giorno di riposo sabato 13 (dopo il settimo turno) e ultimo round mercoledì 17, con gli spareggi previsti per il 18.

Il moderno Zamet Center, sede di gioo

Per titolo e medaglie dell’europeo e per l’assegnazione dei 22 posti di qualificazione per la World Cup sono infatti previste partite di spareggio (prima con coppie di 15 minuti + 10 secondi per mossa, poi con blitz da 5 + 2 e eventuale “armageddon”), con metodologia da attagliare al numero di giocatori che devono disputare gli spareggi. Il sito di riferimento è http://www.eurorijeka2010.com/home , con molte scacchiere in diretta: sembra di intuire 40 dal torneo open e 15 dal femminile. Risultati su chess results e faccio nuovamente riferimento a questo link per il superlativo campo di partenza.

Difficile parlare di favoriti e una singola gara di 11 turni diventa un po’ una lotteria. I più bravi e in forma emergeranno, certo, ma a fare la differenza potrà essere una sfumatura o una coincidenza. Gara tanto difficile che francamente non saprei dire se un top player potrebbe essere tanto tranquillamente pronosticato. Se in gara ci fosse anche un Aronian, o un Carlsen, vincerebbe? Forse… Tra l’altro, 20 o 30 punti Elo di differenza dicono ben poco sui valori in campo. Verrebbe da pensare che in un torneo come questo conta di più vincere, e che quindi possano essere favoriti i giocatori che pur prendendo maggiori rischi sanno essere più incisivi, ma di fatto bisogna anche non perdere!

I precedenti dicono che a 8,5 si colloca la quota podio / primo posto, il che significa 6 vittorie e 5 patte, o 7 vittorie 3 patte e una sconfitta. Con due sconfitte diventa davvero difficile. L’esperienza dimostra che bisogna comunque saper giocare una gara solida, senza impazienza, non sempre ad un avvio “fulminante” consegue un successo. Rispetto ai super open, come l’Aeroflot o Gibilterra, sembra incidere nella tipologia di gara l’aspetto della qualificazione alla World Cup, che può portare a considerazioni ben diverse negli ultimi turni. Potrebbe aiutare in parte la “traccia” dei precedenti in competizioni analoghe, ma il mio piccolo giro d’orizzonte a ritroso, tra europei, Mosca, Aeroflot e GibTelecom, non porta facilmente a qualche conclusione. Mi limito così a qualche considerazione, necessariamente del tutto personale, su alcuni giocatori, più con “domande” che non “pronosticando”.

Le mie prime simpatie, azzurri esclusi ovviamente, vanno a due creativi come Navara e Vallejo. Non mi aspetto tuttavia una gara da podio per il 25enne campione ceco, che sembra dedicare tempi minori agli scacchi rispetto ad altri top players, mentre Paco… Il Vallejo del recente periodo è parso trovare equilibri migliori pur mantenendo un gioco molto incisivo e a Linares mi è sembrato tenere magnificamente il campo.

Paco! (foto Chessbase)

Domande su due top parzialmente usciti dal “grande giro” come Bacrot e Adams. A 27 anni Etienne potrebbe proporre una piena maturità come giocatore ma il suo percorso sembra aver deviato, un po’ per il difficile confronto con i primissimi, forse con un rapporto di odio – amore per gli scacchi (che non consiglierebbe come “carriera” a suo figlio, come ha dichiarato), con qualche digressione con il poker. Scuola e talento di primissimo livello comunque, e un Aeroflot 2009 a dire che Bacrot può esprimersi bene anche in queste gare! Adams la vetta l’ha sfiorata più volte ed è difficile dire se a 38 anni sia l’età o una certa disaffezione a incidere sul suo minor rendimento degli ultimi tempi. In ottime condizioni di forma il campione inglese sembrerebbe perfettamente adatto a vincere un torneo come questo, con buona solidità ma abbastanza incisivo, specialmente con il bianco, da accumulare parecchie vittorie.

Zoltan Almasi, n° 1 del tabellone, sembra aver raggiunto una piena maturazione come giocatore ma non sembra esprimersi al meglio nelle furenti e incerte battaglie degli open. Più navigato in questi territori Sergei Movsesian, che con tutta probabilità sarà tra i protagonisti.

Alekseev (foto Russiachess)

Trio russo tra i primi 10 con Motylev, Tomashevsky e Alekseev, giocatori che sanno di norma essere protagonisti in gare come questa. Menzione particolare per il campione in carica Tomashevsky, 23 anni, che mi sembra persino capace di raddoppiare l’impresa, cosa finora mai riuscita e molto difficile da realizzare; tuttavia, credo che troveremo Evgeny nelle posizioni di testa nella fase finale, poi starà alla “lotteria” del torneo dire la sua. Per la prima volta dal 2007 Alekseev rischia di scendere sotto quota 2700; grande solidità e grande scuola ma il 25enne russo sembra aver perso un po’ di smalto… Potrebbero essere le ultime parole famose!

Mi sono accorto di essermi orientato esclusivamente (e involontariamente) sugli over 2700… Poca fantasia! D’altra parte, troppi i protagonisti. Mi aspetto un bel torneo da Inarkiev, che non solo ha dimostrato di saper eccellere in queste gare ma dà anche l’idea di una maturazione che potrebbe condurlo tra i primi trenta del mondo. Citerei anche gli ucraini Moiseenko e Korobov, considerando invece che una gara così tesa e abbastanza lunga può non favorire guerrieri navigati come Akopian o Bareev (altre ultime parole famose?).

Tanta curiosità per il torneo di Anish Giri, che ha vinto in modo così impressionante il Corus B da andare ben oltre le pur grandi attese sul suo talento. Naturalmente una gara non brillante non inficerebbe l’impresa realizzata a Wijk aan Zee, parliamo ovviamente di un giovanissimo (16 anni il prossimo giugno), mentre una gara da protagonista sarebbe ancora più impressionante… Tra gli altri giovani presenti ancora grandi potenzialità per Sanan Sjugirov, ormai diciassettenne, rendimento ancora alterno ma creatività come pochi, con un balzo in avanti che potrebbe arrivare in qualunque momento, anche se è difficile fare previsioni sul futuro del giovane russo. In lista d’attesa per quota 2700 il 20enne Ian Nepomniachtchi, specialmente se saprà trovare equilibrio tra le sue doti di attaccante e il necessario livello di gioco dei piani alti: Nepo tra i protagonisti in questo europeo? Perché no!

Anish Giri (foto Chessbase)

Parlando di giovani una piccola citazione la merita forse anche Fabiano Caruana…   (rendere i cori da stadio scrivendo un articolo non è facile, ma fate conto di sentirli!!). Finora Fabiano non sempre si è espresso al meglio negli open, dove anzi ha disputato alcune delle sue gare meno positive, ma… World Cup e Corus ci hanno restituito a mio avviso un Fabiano ben più forte, maturo e consapevole della propria crescita e credo che riuscirà a portare tali qualità anche in questo Europeo! Il suo gioco, che tanto raramente si accontenta della patta, potrebbe essere adattissimo a un open durissimo come questo e penso conti anche la considerazione degli avversari, che credo lo rendano ormai un giocatore non solo rispettato ma anche temuto! Mi sembra che le ultime prove potrebbero averlo temprato anche dal punto di vista della tenuta nervosa. Insomma, Forza Fabiano!!

Ovviamente gara terribile per tutti gli altri azzurri, ma siamo presenti in forze e con giocatori comunque capaci di fare bene. Michele Godena é sempre Super Michele, in grado di tenere la scacchiera contro chiunque. Conterà l’avvio della gara, il feeling che Michele troverà con la competizione, specialmente se riuscirà a superare i primi scontri contro avversari di rango. Rinnovata vis agonistica per Lexy Ortega, già in crescita la scorsa estate e fino ad arrivare al titolo italiano, una soddisfazione meritata!

Sabino Brunello (foto Scacchierando)

Percorsi diversi per Sabino Brunello e Luca Shytaj, con la fase di “stasi” per un Sabino comunque atteso ad una piena crescita e un Luca che deve fare i conti con il notevole impegno universitario. Per entrambi l’idea di una norma GM, molto difficile da realizzare in un torneo come questo. In linea di massima la norma si trova intorno ai 6,5 punti su 11, anche se ovviamente bisognerà fare i conti in base agli avversari effettivi e può essere realizzata anche sui primi 9 o 10 turni. Spero però che il pensiero della norma non condizioni la loro gara, in cui il piacere di giocare in un contesto così importante potrebbe avere la precedenza ed essere un buon viatico. Poi, se il torneo si svilupperà in positivo, si vedrà!

Luca Shytaj (foto Scacchierando)

Nel frattempo grandissimo tifo qui dagli spalti di Scacchierando, a sostegno anche di Dvirnyy e Piscopo! Anche la loro una gara tutta da seguire, e se l’età di Daniyyl pone all’orizzonte anche il titolo di GM non va sottovalutata la creatività di Pierluigi, che ha a sua volta notevoli margini di crescita, e non è detto che con un po’ di convinzione…

In gara poi Lanzani, Bentivegna, Valsecchi… Approfittando della vicinanza diversi altri italiani si sono concessi il piacere di una cornice così speciale, capeggiati dai veterani Barlocco e Valenti. Insomma, un bel po’ di azzurro in questa avventura europea e… Bianco in moto!

Yaroslav Zherebukh Saturday won the strong open in Cappelle-La-Grande. The Ukrainian grandmaster, just 16 year old, was the only player to finish on 7.5/9. Veteran GM Mihhail Gurevich was doing well, but lost the crucial round 8 game to Zherebukh.

Yaroslav Zherebukh | Photo Jean Michel Delfosse

The 26th edition of the Cappelle-La-Grande chess festival was held 13-20 February. The main event was a big 9-round Swiss.

The rate of play of 90 minutes plus 30 seconds per move for the first 40 moves and then 30 minutes plus 30 seconds per move to the end of the game. Draws by mutual agreement in under 20 moves were not allowed.

The tournament was organized by the “L’Echiquier Cappellois” chess club and took place at the Palais des Arts in Cappelle-la-Grande, just south of Dunkerque, France.

Yet another relatively unknown Ukrainian grandmaster won in Cappelle this year. 16-year-old Yaroslav Zherebukh scored 7.5 points and only lost to the winner of last year, Yuri Vovk. As Chess Today reports, both are in fact pupils of IM Vladimir Grabinsky.

Zherebukh finished ahead of many favourites, such as Yuri Drozdovskij (2625), Murtas Khazgaleyev (2643) and Ivan Sokolov (2649). The latter probably won’t like to be reminded of the tournament, finishing 85th with 5.5/9 as the top seed. His performance rating was just at GM level: 2507. In Wijk aan Zee Sokolov told me that he’ll be tournament director of the big Bosna chess festival this year, so, well, he has more important things to do!

Selection of games

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

The Linares tournament started peacefully today, with draws on all three boards. Topalov surprised Vallejo with a Breyer against the Spaniard’s Ruy Lopez and easily equalized. Grischuk needed a lot of time on the clock, but was also doing fine with Black against Aronian in a 4.f3 Nimzo ending. Gelfand had some advantage against Gashimov’s Benoni but just before the first time control a drawn ending was reached.

The 27th Torneo Internacional de Ajedrez “Ciudad de Linares” takes place February 12-25 in Linares, Andalucia, Spain. As a result of the financial crisis, the event went back to the (nowadays almost universal) formula of six players, double round-robin.

This year Veselin Topalov (2805), Levon Aronian (2781), Boris Gelfand (2761), Vugar Gashimov (2759), Alexander Grischuk (2736) and Francisco Vallejo Pons (2705) play. The rounds start at 16:00 CET; rest days are on the 17th and the 22nd. The rate of play is 2 hours for 40 moves, then 1 hour for 20, then 20 minutes for the rest of the game, wit 30 seconds increment starting from move 61. The Sofia rules for offering a draw apply in Linares for the first time.

Round 1 report by Rick Goetzee

The famous Linares tournament is on its way again. It is true that the event has lost some of its aura and some say that Corus has taken over as the Wimbledon of chess, but it is still one of the greatest tournaments around. And not only because of its history. It’s quite remarkable how the organisers have kept the event alive through great adversity and without corporate sponsorship. In the last year they had to deal with the economic recession and voices in the local government challenging the decision to invest in a chess tournament. Also the plan to host the first half of the tournament in Dubai fell through. Despite all this, the Linares organizers have secured this famous event for another year.

The field once consisted of 14 players, but since 2006 (after Kasparov retired) there have been eight players, competing in a double round robin. This year, because of financial constraints, it went down to six. While this is a pity it puts it on par with the Grand Slam tournaments in Sofia and Nanjing. Only Corus still has 14 players in their A-group.

One of the consequences of a relatively small field is that the tournament is very strong. In Wijk aan Zee there were a few players (predominantly the local ones) who acted as the rabbits in the field, as GM Joel Benjamin referred to them on ICC’s Chess.FM. In Linares the only local player is Vallejo Pons but with a rating of 2705 he can hardly be called a rabbit.

Although he has always been a top player, it’s been already 13 years since Boris Gelfand has last played in Linares. In the polls before the start of the tournament Aronian was the favourite, undoubtedly because Topalov will have the upcoming world championship match in the back of his mind.

The opening ceremony on Friday was short but entertaining with flamenco dancers and Spanish traditional music. The first round started on Saturday at 4pm which is quite late compared to other tournaments. It must have to do with the great Spanish tradition of ‘la siesta’.

All games were drawn in the first round. Vallejo-Topalov lasted 41 moves after a Ruy Lopez opening, Breyer variation. This solid system isn’t something Topalov regularly plays, and Vallejo was probably not well prepared for it. The Spaniard chose an old system but got nothing, and after many exchanges Topalov couldn’t play for a win either.

Aronian-Grischuk was a Nimzo-Indian with 4.f3, the system popularized by Fritz Sämisch. White’s move 8.Qd2 led the game into a position that was popular in the 50s (!) and Grischuk used a lot of time in the opening, but he was able to solve all his problems. In fact if anyone was better it was Black, who could have tried 19…N7e5 if he’d had more time. After 26 moves the players shook hands. Aronian only used 40 minutes for the whole game.

The most interesting game of the day was Gelfand-Gashimov. The Azerbaijan GM went for his favourite Benoni, an opening we don’t see very often in the elite tournaments. According to GM Benjamin this is a sign of the new philosophy of modern top players. Chess is becoming more of a sport than a science. A fight over the board is preferred over home preparation.

Well, in any case Gelfand was, as so often, very well prepared. The World Cup winner went for the 7.Bf4 line, and knew all ins and outs of Gashimov’s pawn sacrifice on move 9. Gashimov always seemed to have compensation, but was it enough? White’s bishops looked very strong. Eventually Black won his pawn back and the game ended after 54 moves with a repetition of moves in a knight and bishop ending.

Photos © María José Sánchez Rivera

The pairings for the 2nd round on Sunday are Topalov-Gashimov, Grischuk-Gelfand and Vallejo-Aronian.

Games round 1 with brief annotations

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

Si sono appena spente le eco del magnifico Corus ed ecco che i fari si riaccendono, come ogni anno, sul palcoscenico dei grandi scacchi. Cerimonia inaugurale oggi per il 27mo Ciudad de Linares: minor tradizione forse rispetto a Wijk aan Zee ma un evento diverso, da sempre o quasi riservato all’assoluta élite mondiale, che ha scritto alcune delle pagine più straordinarie degli scacchi moderni. Dopo 4 anni  con 8 partecipanti si torna a 6, come già avvenuto nelle edizioni 2000 e 2001.

Motivi di carattere economico hanno indotto a questa “edizione di transizione”: l’accordo con Dubai come sostituta di Morelia non è stato trovato per quest’anno ma sembra prospettarsi per l’edizione 2011, in cui Linares si è già assicurata, notizia di questi ultimi giorni, la presenza del n° 1 Magnus Carlsen. Come dire: qualche difficoltà quest’anno, ma Linares continuerà e sarà sempre grandissimo! Non possiamo che esserne contenti!

Il primo premio scende, dai 100.000 euro dell’anno scorso ai 75.000 di quest’anno, via via fino ai 15.000 euro per il sesto, che restano pur sempre poco meno del 1° premio dell’Aeroflot! Confermata la scelta di riservare tutto al montepremi, in luogo degli ingaggi, per incoraggiare la combattività, una caratteristica sempre ricercata storicamente da Luis Rentero.

Primo turno sabato 13, riposo il 17 e il 22, ultimo turno il 24. Si gioca alle 16, con un tempo di gioco, se non ho compreso male, privo di abbuoni: 2h x 40, 1h per le 20 mosse successive e mezz’ora per finire la partita. Zeitnot in vista! Partite online, ovviamente, sul sito ufficiale http://ajedrez.ciudaddelinares.es/  e grande copertura live anche da parte di Chessdom, che per diversi mesi è stato il primo sito a dare notizie su un Linares 2010 avvolto da qualche nebbia. Per il terzo anno consecutivo, comunque, torneo di XXIma categoria (media 2758):

Giocatore, anno di nascita, nazionalità, Elo, posizione in classifica mondiale, liverating

Veselin Topalov (1975) BUL 2805 (2 – 2805)

Levon Aronian (1982) ARM 2781 (5 – 2782.3)

Boris Gelfand (1968) ISR 2761 (6 – 2750.4)

Vugar Gashimov (1986) AZE 2751 (7 – 2740.2)

Alexander Grischuk (1983) RUS 2736 (14 – 2756.0)

Francisco Vallejo (1982) ESP 2705 (30 – 2708.0)

Una nota curiosa é che nessuno dei partecipanti al Corus é presente a Linares, fatto decisamente inconsueto.

Per il Corus si era annotato che difficilmente Anand si sarebbe espresso al meglio, con la necessità di preservare il suo arsenale di aperture per il prossimo match mondiale con Topalov. Non sono sicuro che lo stesso argomento sia completamente valido per Veselin: certo, il campione bulgaro terrà le carte coperte, ma la sua voglia di vittoria e il suo desiderio di sbilanciare le partite alla ricerca del punto intero potrebbero far capolino. Credo che a Topalov non dispiacerebbe presentarsi al match di Sofia con la vittoria di Linares: penso che dopo San Luis Veselin abbia acquistato la convinzione di essere il miglior giocatore del mondo e che avverta il desiderio di dimostrarlo in modo eclatante, ad esempio con una sequenza tipo Linares – Titolo Mondiale – Finale del Grande Slam! Un 2010 da leggenda, nel caso, ma il rischio è quello di strafare, di perdere qualche partita a Linares, e con essa qualche sicurezza. Vedremo un Topalov “disciplinato” e pienamente orientato sul match mondiale o fortemente motivato a vincere questo torneo? Da notare che Anand, restando imbattuto e superando Kramnik, un piccolo segnale l’ha lanciato. Per la prima parte del torneo Topalov non avrà l’apporto come secondo di Cheparinov, impegnato a Mosca, ma potrà contare su Dominguez (!!), che presumo faccia parte anche del suo team per il match mondiale.

Il ruolo del favorito potrebbe passare comunque ad Aronian, che ha sicuramente qui l’impegno più importante di questa prima parte del 2010, una gara che ha avuto pienamente il tempo di preparare. Il campione armeno si è spinto a novembre fino al suo massimo Elo, 2786, con un 2009 tutto condotto ad alto livello, dal secondo posto al Corus alle vittorie di Nalchik e di Bilbao, inserendosi a pieno titolo nella top five. La domanda, necessariamente rinviata ai match dei candidati, è se Aronian possa essere appieno un contendente per il titolo mondiale. Considerando Carlsen e Kramnik, di spazio sembra essercene poco, sta a Levon mandare qualche segnale di forza e questo Linares potrebbe essere un punto di passaggio interessante. Una vittoria potrebbe aggiungere convinzione e un piccolo vantaggio c’è: manca Ivanchuk, bestia nera del campione armeno (lo scorso anno, qui a Linares, un tremendo doppio zero contro Chuky)!

La vittoria di Grischuk a Linares 2009 è stata senz’altro una sorpresa, non tanto per il talento, indiscutibile, quanto per la sequenza di risultati relativamente anonimi cui Alexandar ci aveva abituati, con la sensazione di una non piena applicazione agli scacchi e lasciando un po’ scivolare, anno dopo anno, la percezione di un giovane che forse avrebbe potuto / potrebbe lottare fino al livello del titolo mondiale. Dopo Linares un 2009 “come al solito”, fino all’eliminazione da Jakovenko in Coppa del Mondo. Acuti recenti però con il titolo russo e un buon World Team Chess Championship, restando imbattuto in entrambe le manifestazioni. Grischuk riuscirà mai a trovare la determinazione necessaria per nutrire pienamente il suo talento? Parrebbe di no, finora, ma una certa curiosità per il suo comportamento in questo Linares è legittima. E’ forse il miglior outsider per la vittoria finale e, nel caso, il bissare Linares potrebbe porgli qualche prospettiva su cui riflettere.

Di lista in lista Boris Gelfand continua ad aggiungere qualche punticino al suo record di punteggio Elo, con un trend stupefacente per i suoi quasi 42 anni e con tanti giovani super-computerizzati che si affacciano oltre quota 2700. La conferenza stampa di qualche mese fa a Roma ci dà però delle risposte: Boris ha ancora una grande passione per gli scacchi ed è un uomo di spessore, un lottatore che si dà sempre degli obiettivi, per piccoli passi, un approccio che possiamo ritrovare nel suo stile alla scacchiera, solido e insidioso, con grandi capacità posizionali. Grande soddisfazione la vittoria nella World Cup e poi un periodo di riposo e di preparazione. Facile immaginare come Gelfand sia orientato sui match dei candidati. Nella World Cup 2005 mi colpì una sua dichiarazione in cui affermava che la sua generazione (con Anand e Ivanchuk) aveva espresso dei grandi giocatori ma che Kasparov era “imbattibile”, impedendo loro di arrivare fino al titolo mondiale. Non facile da dire per una persona volitiva come lui. Penso che Gelfand sarà uno di quei giocatori dal declino molto lento, capace di stupirci anche a 50 anni ed oltre, uno che non molla, mai!

Prima volta in un super torneo per Vugar Gashimov, il “n° 3 dell’Azerbaijan” che in questo 2009 è diventato il n° 1, scavalcando, almeno per ora, Radjabov e Mamedyarov. Un’escalation costruita a partire dalla sua vittoria a pari merito nel Gran Prix di Baku 2008 e proseguita perdendo pochissimo, senza tuttavia brillare. Decisamente insolita per lui la debacle subita nel World Team Chess Championship, con tre sconfitte in sole sette partite, ad opera di Grischuk, Sasikiran e Adly, anche se le prove a squadre possono essere psicologicamente particolari. Una World Cup all’insegna delle patte, superando faticosamente Fabiano ed uscendo con Ponomariov. Difficile pensare che Gashimov possa spingersi oltre nella sua scalata del ranking mondiale; questo Linares ci saprà dire, comunque, qualcosa in più.

Cinque partecipazioni consecutive a Linares per Vallejo, dal 2002 al 2006, fruendo del suo essere la migliore speranza spagnola, in cui “Paco” è sempre rimasto nelle posizioni di coda. Il suo talento, molto creativo, non è finora riuscito ad esprimersi fino ad uno stabile inserimento nell’elite mondiale. Nel 2009 è arrivato, finalmente, oltre quota 2700 ma anche stavolta sembra difficile che possa inserirsi nelle prime posizioni qui a Linares. Vallejo vanta anche due partecipazioni nel nostro CIS, prima nel Master 2008 con il Massimo di Palermo, condotto fin quasi allo scudetto, e poi nell’A1 2009 con il Dorico Ancona. Da queste occasioni il ritratto di un giovane simpatico e alla mano, che non si dà arie da super GM, molto disponibile ed eccellente forchetta! Per chi non avesse letto l’articolo da non perdere la sua partita, commentata per Scacchierando, giocata contro Malfagia, in cui è disponibile anche l’eccellente commento dello stesso Malfagia, una doppia rivisitazione della stessa partita di straordinario valore didattico!

Ciò che mi sembra accomuni quest’anno Wijk aan Zee e Linares, pur nella notevole diversità nella tipologia di gara e con partecipanti completamente diversi, è il senso di attesa rispetto ad una stagione scacchistica straordinariamente incerta e interessante. A breve il match mondiale tra due grandissimi protagonisti e all'orizzonte dei match dei candidati che si prospettano estremamente interessanti, fino alla nuova sfida mondiale del 2011. Forse Carlsen sarà il dominatore del futuro ma ancora non lo è del tutto e non è facile immaginare chi sarà il campione del mondo alla fine del 2011.

Un corridoio dell'Hotel Anibal (da Chessbase)

Poi, ovviamente, Corus e Linares sono accomunati dalle grandi storie scacchistiche che hanno scritto. Nell’Hotel Anibal, in passato sede di gioco e tutt’ora albergo di soggiorno dei giocatori, ci sono moltissime immagini dei grandi campioni che hanno partecipato al torneo, anno dopo anno.

Un 22enne Gelfand (da Chessbase)

Superba vittoria di Vassily nel 1991! (da Chessbase)

Garry 1992 (da Chessbase)

Il fantastico do di petto di Karpov 1994! (da Chessbase)

Insomma, il vento dei grandi scacchi soffia impetuoso in Andalusia!

Tomorrow the first round in Linares will be played. Last year Rick Goetzee spoke with the godfather of the tournament, Luis Rentero. “I owned 32 supermarkets and 4 hotels. I sold the supermarkets to a Belgian company but still have my hotels. Hotel Anibal is the only one with a chess theme, but sometimes visitors to my other hotels bring me chess memorabilia as they know I love the game.”

By Rick Goetzee | Photo: David Llada

Traveling to Linares is like a pilgrimage. Flying from Ireland, the flight is long enough to daydream about the days ahead and short enough not to get cramps from lack of leg room in the low fare airplane.

Every year the same lady at the Hertz desk tries to sell you extra insurance and every year she accepts refusal with a smile. You get stuck in rush hour traffic (at 9pm) on the highway labyrinth around Madrid, but you’re not in a hurry because the round will only start at 4pm the next day. The route planner guides you towards the A4 and you prepare yourself for the three hour journey south. At every kilometer sign you tell yourself that you are a bit closer to Linares, as KissFM plays lovesongs on the radio.

At kilometer 288 you get a new boost of adrenaline when for the first time Linares appears on the road signs. Ten minutes later you enter the town, in travel guides often described as ugly, but a chess player wholeheartedly disagrees. You follow Centro Ciudad and suddenly you recognise a roundabout. You feel as if you’ve come home when you arrive at Hotel Anibal, as it goes without saying that’s where you have booked a room. No need to make reservations months in advance, there always seems to be space. You park in the street next to the hotel, opposite the park where Leko always used to go for a walk just before the game, and you know for sure that you have arrived in the right place when you turn the corner and bump into Radjabov.

Hotel Anibal stopped hosting the tournament several years ago but it's still a chess hotel and the place where the players and journalists stay

This year I have come to Linares on a special mission, I have arranged an interview with the great man himself: Luis Rentero Lechuga, the founder of the Linares chess tradition.

Since last year the playing venue has moved from Anibal to the Cervantes theatre in the town centre. On entering the theatre well in time for the first round I notice a beautiful display chess set in the foyer. Admiration turns into astonishment when I see that not only the King and Queen are reversed but that there is also a dark square in the bottom right hand corner. We are used to seeing this in window displays and in movies but I hadn’t expected it at the venue of the most prestigious tournament in the game. The reparation is completed just in time before the start of the round.

My appointment with Mr. Rentero is at 6pm. I can’t find him in the pressroom so ask a member of the organisation if they have seen him. ‘Yes he is sitting in the auditorium in the front row and he is snoring loudly, so please get him out of there.’ As I move into the playing area I wonder why they haven’t woken him up themselves. Rentero’s English is almost as bad as my Spanish so I have asked María José to help me with the interview. I couldn’t have a better interpreter as she was also Kasparov’s interpreter when he announced his retirement in Linares in 2005.

After exchanging the usual pleasantries I start by asking Rentero about his own chess career. He learned the game when he was 8 years old by playing with friends at home. He has always been an e4 player and loves the Kings Gambit. He didn’t play much as he describes himself as a bad loser. ‘Especially when playing against children.’ In the end he gave up playing chess as he just could not stand losing. He has a passionate love for the game and during top tournaments he always plays over the games at home. In the press room it is a nice sight to see Rentero standing close to the monitors, totally engrossed in the positions on the screens.

From an early age onward it was clear that Rentero was better suited for organising chess events than for playing in them. When he was 15 he organised a simultaneous display in Linares by IM Roman Toran, who later became a good friend. In 1978 he organised his first tournament in Linares. At that time he didn’t have the ambition to make it a regular event, let alone make it grow into what it has become today. When Rentero talks about the 1979 tournament he grabs the opportunity to talk about his favourite topic. ‘Yes, Larry Christiansen won. That’s an aggressive player. Me gusta mucho!’ I don’t have to ask any more questions for the next five minutes as Rentero climbs on his soap box. ‘I attended a tournament in Bugojno in Yugoslavia. Ten minutes after the start of the round half of the games had ended in a draw. This was a tragedy for me. I want chess players to play, to fight, that’s why I handed out penalties for not trying hard enough. Kasparov is my favourite player, he is a fighter. Chess can be very pretty, it can be a show but only if the players fight.’

Luis Rentero in 2008, at the 'living chess' festival on the last rest day

Glowing with pleasure he tells the story that he even fined Kasparov once. The world champion had just made a draw in 32 moves when Rentero informed him that he would withhold half a million pesetas from his prize money. Kasparov was beside himself with anger: ‘It’s my friend who does this to me; I will never play in Linares again!’ Rentero didn’t budge; Kasparov paid his fine and did return the following year. Rentero obviously likes the Sofia rules and acknowledges the compliment that he was 20 years ahead of his time with a firm nod of the head. He may be getting on in years and he may still feel the impact of his car accident 10 years ago but his passion and pride for what he has created are still there.

Rentero is no longer involved with the Linares tournament but sings the praises of the members of the local government who have taken over from him. ‘It’s becoming more beautiful every year. They are doing a great job. I agree with the move to Mexico for the first half, there was no choice. Also moving to Dubai next year is good for the event, it will keep it financially viable. The people in Linares love the tournament; they may not know the rules of the game but they are proud that the most famous tournament in the world takes place in their town. They love it more than football.’

In the following days I test this bold statement in the cafés of Linares. Many people want to talk to me about the Champions League match of Real Madrid against Liverpool. Very few are able to tell me anything about the chess tournament. Some don’t even know it is actually going on. But there are exceptions. One man invites me to his home and proudly shows me the autographs of Karpov and Spassky which he collected as a child.

When I tell Don Luis that I have always been surprised about the lack of publicity for the event in the town and on the internet, his reaction is quite surprising. He slams the table and says: ‘Yes I agree and I will take measures!’ Later I find out what he means by this.

I ask him about his successful business career which gave him the financial means to organise his events. ‘I started delivering groceries to several villages by motorbike. Then I bought a large storage facility and it grew from there. I owned 32 supermarkets and 4 hotels. I sold the supermarkets to a Belgian company but still have my hotels. Hotel Anibal is the only one with a chess theme, but sometimes visitors to my other hotels bring me chess memorabilia as they know I love the game. I had a lot of people working for me and I’m proud of that, as it created employment for the area. I like having people working for me. I also like people playing chess for me. (laughs)’ Did being a bad loser in chess help him in business? ‘Yes for sure, my whole life has been a fight.’

Rentero says that he wants to go and talk to the organisers so it is time for my last question. What is your proudest memory of the tournaments you organised? ‘I received the Leonardo da Vinci prize in Russia for my accomplishments in chess. During the ceremony we talked to two astronauts in a space station. One of them was a Karpov fan and the other a Kasparov fan. When asked which Spanish cities they could name they answered: Madrid, Barcelona and …. Linares.’

After the interview I follow Rentero back to the press room. He immediately approaches one of the organisers and tells him in no uncertain terms that publicity has to improve. He points at me and then moves on to the monitors to watch the games that are still in progress. The organiser is clearly not happy with me and tells me about the banners which are hanging all over town. I reply that they were only put up the day before the first round and I tell him about the Wijk aan Zee tournament which runs a website all year long. He takes me to one of the monitors to show me the website of his tournament. A very nice site indeed but when you enter ‘Linares chess’ or ‘Linares ajedrez’ in Google the link doesn’t come up. Also the site is only in Spanish. ‘Then you will have to learn Spanish’ is the final word from the organiser. Luis Rentero may have officially handed over his tournament to the local government but his presence is still felt.

I didn’t see Rentero’s face when Radjabov and Dominguez played on till bare Kings in the 12th round, but it reminded me of another thing he said: ‘I will tell you why Linares is the greatest tournament in the world. Because in Linares the players fight!’

• NANCHINO (CINA 2009) = Carlsen

• WIJK AAN ZEE (OLANDA 2010) = Carlsen

• LINARES (SPAGNA) = 12-25 Febbraio
  

• SOFIA (BULGARIA)= 25 Maggio - 5 Giugno
  

• BAZNA (?) (ROMANIA) = 10-22Giugno
  

• FINALE MASTER = SHANGHAI ( Cina, 3-12 Settembre) & BILBAO ( Spagna, 6-14 Ottobre)

Hikaru Nakamura has quite a story to tell. Born in Osaka, Japan and arriving in the U.S. at the age of two, Nakamura has been gracing the pages of chess magazines since he began breaking many of Bobby Fischer’s records. One of the first indicators of chess talent is the age record for National Master.

There have been many talented players to come through the scholastic ranks, but many either quit playing after high school, or shortly after reaching National Master. When Nakamura entered Dickinson College, there were fears that America would lose yet another promising talent along the likes of Grandmasters Michael Wilder and Patrick Wolff.

Under the early tutelage of his stepfather FM Sunil Weeramantry and the mentorship of older brother Asuka Nakamura, young Hikaru shattered the record reaching the mark in 10 years, 79 days. In 2008, his record was later lowered to 9 years, 11 months by Nicholas Nip, a player who is no longer active. Five years later, he broke Bobby Fischer’s long-standing record by earning Grandmaster status in 15 years, 79 days.

Media comparisons to Fischer immediately heightened when he won the U.S. Championship at age 16. However, Nakamura reminded everyone, “I’m not Bobby Fischer.” He was intimating the point that Fischer was an unbalanced individual who only thought of chess. Of course, this was only half the story with Fischer, but certainly he was one who could not operate comfortably outside of the chess realm.

When you talk to Nakamura, he is comfortable talking about a wide range of topics including his beloved Vancouver Canucks hockey team. He also has a variety of interests including music, finance, sports and politics. Many of the existing stereotypes of Nakamura are based on history from his teen years and commentary from online chess servers.

Chief Organizer Erik Anderson (left) stands next to GM Hikaru Nakamura and WGM Rusudan Goletiani after both were crowned the 2004 U.S. Champions.

Nakamura’s talent was hardly questioned on the U.S. scene as he had put together an impressive résumé of wins. At the closing ceremonies of the 2003 U.S. Championship, winner Alexander Shabalov singled out a young Nakamura and stated that he had a bright future in chess. In American tournaments, Nakamura’s brash style has become a breath of fresh air in a sport that had become stagnant with the same players competing every year in the U.S. Championships and the open tournaments. His victory the next year was definitely good for chess.

Once Nakamura joined the elite class in the U.S., he carried a reputation as being an isolationist and distrustful of his colleagues. He rankled many when he made comments about collusion among the U.S. elite. “That’s actually why I still work alone. It’s very hard to trust anybody.” However, as Nakamura begin to ascend to a world-class level, he enlisted some help. After the 2009 U.S. Championship, he mentioned that he had been working with National Master Kris Littlejohn. This choice of a second puzzled many, but has paid dividends.

Viktor Mikalevski ponders Gata Kamsky’s next move while Nakamura-Najer reaches the climatic stage of the 2009 World Open. Photo by Daaim Shabazz.

In U.S. chess, there had been too many “friendships” between top players which resulted in many quick draws and dispirited play. Nakamura was dismissive of these tactics and forced the issue with his ‘play-to-win’ attitude. His determination affords him psychological capital when an opponent understands that they have to fight when they are already content on drawing. This fighting spirit came into great effect when he won his first U.S. Championship at age 16. However, in an important interview in Salon magazine, there were still had doubters.

“The finish is very good but few purists will rank his play in the same league as Fischer’s — it lacks elegance,” wrote chess scribe Alan Goldsmith. Another chess writer, Bobby Ang, wondered, “When Nakamura reaches the higher echelons of the chess elite, will his style work?” Citing a benchmark of great contemporary players, Ang asked of Nakamura, “Can his brilliance overcome the tactical mastery of Alexei Shirov? Will his will-to-win be sufficient to breach the solid fortifications of Vladimir Kramnik, or Peter Leko? Is his much-touted resourcefulness of a high enough standard to battle with Rustam Kasimdzhanov? I doubt it very much.” (see link)

Nakamura’s sales pitch to Europe was more difficult, but he was beginning to pick up momentum. Tournament organizers were attracted to his brash, no-nonsense style. He has since broken through in a number of strong tournaments and is now comfortably ensconced in the top 20. Many detractors rail at the notion that Nakamura has not gotten the opportunities to face the elite level. They cite his skipping Corus “B” in 2008 for the Gibraltar Masters as a snub. Nakamura cited inadequate conditions, but made good on his trip by winning Gibraltar.

He added a few more accolades including the 2009 U.S. Championship, 960 World Championship and the Cap d’Agde Rapid Tournament (over Anatoly Karpov and Vassily Ivanchuk). There were still doubters who stated that he couldn’t win in a strong classical tournament. After playing poorly in the London Classic, Nakamura finally got his coveted invite to Corus “A” and made a strong showing with 7.5/13 (4th place). Magnus Carlsen, the winner of the tournament, identified Nakamura as a new rival.

On various chess blogs, the conversation of Nakamura ascendancy is a popular topic. Naysayers continue to claim Nakamura is not worthy of “elite” status for very specific reasons. After he refutes these reasons, another set will be created and standards increased. At this point, pundits state that Nakamura has to make top 10 to be considered seriously as a World Championship. Last year, it was top 20.

Of course, the candidacy of players such as Magnus Carlsen, Sergey Karjakin or Teimour Radjabov was recognized almost immediately. What is the difference? The theory was that the European stars were “battle-tested” and Nakamura had not faced tough competition. Many top chess journals, websites and blogs take liberties to print negative portrayals of the young American star. Even his head-to-head blitz victory over Carlsen in Norway was trivialized.

So the question…”Is Nakamura the ‘Real Deal’?” Does he have World Championship potential? When Vladimir Kramnik was asked this question, he seems to believe that Nakamura is a legitimate talent, but stopped short of giving a full endorsement. Most of the fans and journalists believe that Carlsen is the heir apparent to Viswanathan Anand or Veselin Topalov, but it is not certain if Carlsen will maintain his level. The performance of Anish Giri turned some heads and the Chinese and Indians deserve attention. If one looks at Nakamura, he has many things going for him.

GM Hikaru Nakamura at 2010 Corus in Wijk aan Zee.
Photo by Fred Lucas.

Will these factors mean that he has enough to win a World Championship? Time will tell. One thing that is true is that if Nakamura has his goal set and resources are not an issue, he will have more than an adequate shot at winning the World Championship. He is only 22 years old and he will continue to get better. The downside is does not have a sponsor and gets limited help from his federation which means that he does not have the luxury of focusing purely on chess development.

In a 2005 interview with the New York Times, Nakamura summed up his chances.

”If I am able to get up there and play for the actual title of the world championship, then once again, everyone will be excited,” Mr. Nakamura said, noting how chess gained wide appeal when Mr. Fischer toppled Boris Spassky, the Soviet world champion, in 1972. ”There have been plenty of great players since Fischer but none have been American players.” (see link)

Nakamura has the tenacity, the nerves and still has some areas of improvement in his game. Given Carlsen’s breach of 2800, there will be a new cadre of players to vie for the world crown. With the right combination of training, sponsorship and tournament invitations, Nakamura hopes to be one in that number.

This year’s Grand Slam Masters Final will be split into two parts. One will be held in Shanghai, China (just before the Olympiad) and one in Bilbao, Spain (just after). This was announced last week in Wijk aan Zee, were the board of the Grand Slam had a meeting to discuss matters. All dates for the coming year were announced.

Linares: Feb 12-25
In five days from now, the second Grand Slam tournament in 2010 will already start. Linares runs from the 12th till the 25th of February . Like last year it will be a six-player, double round-robin with rest days on February 17th and 22nd. The players are Veselin Topalov, Levon Aronian, Boris Gelfand, Vugar Gashimov, Alexander Grischuk and Francisco Vallejo.

MTel Masters: May 25-June 5
Two weeks after the Anand-Topalov match (April 23rd – May 12th), Sofia will again host the MTel Masters. This year the tournament runs May 25th – June 5th.

Bazna: June 10-22
Last year it was already terribly strong, with Radjabov, Ivanchuk, Shirov, Gelfand, Kamsky and Nisipeanu. This month the Kings Tournament in Bazna will decide whether they’ll be part of the Grand Slam; the Romanian tournament runs June 10th – 22nd this year.

Masters Final: Sep 3-12 & Oct 6-14
The biggest news from the Grand Slam board is about the Masters Final, which was organized twice in Bilbao, Spain. The first year it was a 6-player double round-robin won by Topalov, and the second year Aronian won a group of 4 with Karjakin, Grischuk and Shirov. This year the event will be split into two parts: one part in Shanghai, China (September 3rd – 12th) and one part in Bilbao, Spain (October 6th-14th). In between, the Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk takes place September 19th – October 4th.

Nanjing: Oct 17-29
The third edition of the Pearl Spring tournament in Nanjing, China will start already three days after the Final Masters ends. It runs October 17th till 29th.

Corus: January 14-30
The 73rd Corus Chess Tournament will take place January 14th till 30th in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands.

As always, the winners of the Grand Slam tournaments will qualify for the Masters Final. Since Magnus Carlsen won two consecutive Grand Slam tournaments (and might win more), the organizers we will wait until all tournaments have finished, and then look at best performances of the runner-ups.

The above information was announced last week by Corus tournament director Jeroen van den Berg, after the Grand Slam board meeting held in Wijk aan Zee. (We have entered all super-GM tournaments in capitals in our tournament calendar. Organizers of open tournaments are invited to enter their events there.)

When Vishy Anand drew his first nine games at Corus Wijk aan Zee last week, opinions were divided on whether the world champion had lost his edge or was simply taking a well-paid rest before his April title defence in Sofia against Veselin Topalov. Then Anand acted as Corus king-maker, beating Alexei Shirov and Vlad Kramnik, so that the pair finished half a point behind Magnus Carlsen.

Norway's world No1 had previously won at Pearl Spring in China and the London Classic and finished second at the Tal Memorial, His fine run continued at Wijk, and the live ratings now make him the all-time No2 to Garry Kasparov. Carlsen had final-round luck in Holland, and the impression is that Anand would still beat him in a match. But their 20-year age difference means that he is Andy Murray to Anand's Roger Federer, and a clearer dominance of his peers will come.

Overall Anand's controlled play at Wijk sent a confident message to Topalov, especially in the best game of the tournament below. His 17 Qc1 novelty induced the passive 18...Bf8 (Bd6) and, when White won a pawn by 26 Bxc7, Kramnik mixed it up when 26...Bc5! gives counterplay. The Russian missed the force of the exchange sac 28 Rxc2! with the follow-up 34 Be5! (idea Bh5) and 35 Bg4! (even better than the queen swap). Anand's one slip was 39 f4 (39 Qe3) as 40...Qe4! makes the win a lot harder. Missing this trick, Kramnik was overrun by Anand's central pawn duo.

V Anand v V Kramnik

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 Nxe5 d6 4 Nf3 Nxe4 5 d4 d5 6 Bd3 Nc6 7 O-O Be7 8 c4 Nb4 9 Be2 O-O 10 Nc3 Bf5 11 a3 Nxc3 12 bxc3 Nc6 13 Re1 Re8 14 cxd5 Qxd5 15 Bf4 Rac8 16 h3 Be4 17 Qc1 Na5 18 Qe3 Bf8 19 c4 Qd8 20 Ne5 Bf5 21 Qc3 b6 22 Rad1 Qf6 23 Qg3 Nc6 24 Ng4 Qg6 25 d5 Na5 26 Bxc7 Bc2 27 Rc1 Nb3 28 Rxc2 Qxc2 29 Nh6+ Kh8 30 Nxf7+ Kg8 31 Nh6+ Kh8 32 Nf7+ Kg8 33 Nh6+ Kh8 34 Be5 Qg6 35 Bg4 Rxc4 36 Qxb3 Rxe5 37 Rxe5 Rc1+ 38 Kh2 Bd6 39 f4 Bxe5 40 fxe5 gxh6 41 Qe3 Qb1 42 d6 Rh1+ 43 Kg3 Re1 44 Qf4 Rf1 45 Bf3 1-0

3125 1 Nd2. If a5 2 Ne4 Ka3 3 Nc3 a4 4 Nb1 mate. If Ka5/a3 2 Nc4+ Ka4 3 Ka2 a5 4 Nb2 mate.

The 8th and 9th round of the Schachbundesliga and three matches from round 7 will take place from the 5th to the 7th of February 2010. We provide you with the pairings at the playing venues Munich, Mülheim, Berlin and Remagen. Some famous Wijk aan Zee and Gibraltar participants are joining for their Baden-Baden team…

OSG Baden-Baden is the only team of the Schachbundesliga left without any loss of points. The upcoming weekend the German champion will face the two teams of Berlin and is odds-on favourite. Under the same precondition starts the only serious competitor for the title Werder Bremen. Bremen is facing the teams of München and Erfurt. Both of them are relegation candidates. Some interesting derbies are taking place in Mülheim, where the host is facing Katernberg and Wattenscheid for the “hegemony in the West”.

All line-ups of the teams in Berlin, e.g. OSG Baden-Baden, are published two days in advance. This is carried out due to the new rule, which was implemented from the beginning of this season.

Live coverage
All games of the Schachbundesliga are covered live on the Internet. At the particular date of the matches you can get access to the games via the website of the Schachbundesliga.

8th round: Saturday, 6th of February 2010, 2 pm

Playing venue Munich
Bayern München – Hamburger SK
Erfurter SK – Werder Bremen

Playing venue Mülheim
SV Mülheim Nord – SV Wattenscheid
SF Katernberg – SK Turm Emsdetten

Playing venue Berlin
SK König Tegel – SK Heidelberg-Handschuhsheim

 	SF Berlin	 	- OSG Baden-Baden
1	Jan Markos	(2565)	- Etienne Bacrot		(2709)
2	Arnd Lauber	(2517)	- Sergei Movsesian		(2711)
3	Rainer Polzin	(2491)	- Michael Adams			(2682)
4	Martin Krämer	(2482)	- Arkadij Naiditsch		(2685)
5	Ilja Schneider	(2500)	- Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu	(2664)
6	Stephan Berndt	(2442)	- Fabiano Caruana		(2662)
7	Mikail Agopov	(2452)	- Jan Gustafsson		(2622)
8	Lars Thiede	(2450)	- Philipp Schlosser		(2555)

Playing venue Remagen
SC Remagen – SC Eppingen
SG Solingen – SG Trier

9th round: Sunday, 7th of February 2010, 10 am

Playing venue Munich
Hamburger SK – Erfurter SK
Werder Bremen – Bayern München

Playing venue Mülheim
SV Wattenscheid – SF Katernberg
SK Turm Emsdetten – SV Mülheim Nord

Playing venue Berlin
OSG Baden-Baden – SK König Tegel
SK Heidelberg-Handschuhsheim – SF Berlin

Playing venue Remagen
SC Eppingen – SG Solingen
SG Trier – SC Remagen

Matches of the 7th round: Friday, 5th of February 2010

Playing venue Mülheim
SV Mülheim Nord – SF Katernberg (4pm)

Playing venue Berlin
SF Berlin – SK König Tegel (4pm)

Playing venue Remagen
SC Remagen – SG Solingen (5pm)

Teams

There’s a picture of Mikhail Tal that has always seemed to me the ultimate chess player’s pose: Tal’s looking at the board, chin on his thumb, his other arm folded under his fist, utter determination in his eyes. But what was Tal actually thinking at the time the picture was taken?

When I was just starting out as a chess player, I noticed my opponents often shifted in their chairs as they sat thinking behind the board. I sometimes imagined I could read their thoughts as they bended over the board or leaned backwards with their hands behind their head. Now he’s thinking about e4-e5, no doubt about it. Ah, now he sees the trick I’ve planned after that … oh wait he played it anyway! I never figured out a system to make it work. But new research suggests there may yet be a thing or two to be discovered.

I suppose many chess players find the notion that the way you sit behind the board can reveal clues as to what you’re thinking of, decidedly silly. Behaviour behind the board looks completely random and decided by circumstantial factors. But when you think about it, it’s not so stupid at all. After all, we’re primates communicating not only through words, but with gestures as well. It may be an urban legend that 93% of human communication is body language and only 7% is speech-related, but the fact is that body language is vastly important in communication, and gesticulating predated language by millions of years in human evolution, as can still be seen clearly with monkeys and apes.

According to many popular science books, body language is even the best way to learn about human psychology: there are several well-known body-signals such as crossing one’s arms across the chest (putting a barrier between the speaker and listener), making eye contact (seeking positive confirmation or showing interest) or averting one’s eyes (a sign of, among other things, disbelieve, shame or fear).

This week, The New York Times featured an article about how the body takes abstract thoughts literally in surprising ways:

Researchers at the University of Aberdeen found that when people were asked to engage in a bit of mental time travel, and to recall past events or imagine future ones, participants’ bodies subliminally acted out the metaphors embedded in how we commonly conceptualized the flow of time. As they thought about years gone by, participants leaned slightly backward, while in fantasizing about the future, they listed to the fore.

In the studies described in the article, people found heavy books more important than lighter ones, and they could improve their mathematical skills by making specific gestures and rotating their hands:

Among students who have difficulty with equations like 4 + 5 + 3 = __ + 3, for example, performance improves markedly if they are taught the right gestures: grouping together the unique left-side numbers with a two-fingered V, and then pointing the index finger at the blank space on the right. To learn how to rotate an object mentally, first try a pantomime. ‘If you encourage kinds to do the rotation movement with their hands, that helps them subsequently do it in their heads’, says Susan Goldin-Meadow of the University of Chicago.

What about chess? After all, mathematics, music and chess are linked in special ways – Glenn Gould showed us how music can move the body in unconscious ways – so, while not exactly arithmetics, I suppose calculating variations in chess is still somewhat similar to calculating sums. This opens up all sorts of fascinating possibilities.

Anish Giri in his game against David Howell at the 2010 Corus Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee

Do you see your opponent moving his fingers in a specific way? Perhaps he’s calculating a long forced line! See him moving his head or moving his hands underneath the table? He may be thinking about some long term positional stuff like gaining space or how to improve his piece coordination! On an even more abstract level, an opponent leaning forward means he’s thinking about his next move while an opponent leaning backwards indicates he’s evaluating your last move.

Tal’s body language in the picture is less easy to read. At first, the pointed thumb would suggest calculating stuff, but then the thumb is not moving whereas we know Tal was constantly calculating sacrifices in his head! In other words, his pose was a way of confusing his opponents – and I suddenly understand how he could become world champion! Perhaps the secret all strong chess players share is not that they know chess better than the rest of us, but that they can, in a manner of speaking, read our thoughts and anticipate on it?

Wouldn’t that be a huge consolation to us patzers? It’s not our fault – our bodies give us away! In the same fashion, some people use popular psychology to excuse their behaviour – hey, I’m from Mars and you’re from Venus, so we really shouldn’t even try to understand each other. Well, we chess players know better, of course. Still, next time you’re playing a game, think about how you and your opponent are sitting behind the board for a minute.

Do you see any relation with the position on the board or the stuff you’re thinking about? Then perhaps it’s time to become a little more self-conscious. Stop thinking about the position, put your thumb under your chin, look straight in your opponent’s eyes and brilliant sacrifices will enter your head before you know it.

Linares, el torneo más prestigioso del mundo y el elegido para retirarse de las competiciones oficiales por Gary Kasparov, considerado uno de los mejores jugadores de todos los tiempos junto con el mítico Bobby Fischer, vuelve a su cita anual del 12 al 25 de febrero con una nómina que apuesta por la combatividad, el ajedrez de ataque y el espectáculo.

Uno de los referentes de todas estas virtudes es el búlgaro Veseline Topalov, excampeón del mundo y número dos en las listas que trimestralmente publica la Federación Internacional (FIDE). Alabado por su denodado espíritu de lucha, Topalov, que se enfrentará por el título mundial al indio Viswanathan Anand en Sofía (Bulgaria) el próximo mes de abril, con una bolsa en premios de tres millones de euros, ha elegido jugar el torneo andaluz en vez del Corus de Wijk aan Zee (Holanda), primera prueba del Grand Slam, que concluyó el domingo.

Final Round 13 Carlsen saved a tricky position against Fabiano Caruana and secured first place alone as his rivals Alexei Shirov and Vladimir Kramnik both drew.

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Magnus Carlsen has won Corus 2010. In the last round, he drew Fabio Caruana. Anish Giri has won the B group and Li Chao takes C. We’ll bring you the Corus Chess Tournament live, with regular updates.

The Corus Chess Tournament takes place January 16-31 in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands. Next to hundreds of amateurs, three Grandmaster Groups (A, B and C) with 14 players each play a closed round-robin. The rate of play is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, and 30 seconds increment starting from move 1.

Corus Chess Daily News

Corus Chess Newsflashes

Games round 13

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Round 13

13:20 CET
The board is on fire in Short-Smeets, despite the fact that it started as a Petroff. (This tournament once more confirmed that it’s not just the opening that’s boring, but more what the players are doing with it!) It’s easy enough to follow the start: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 Nxe4 4.dxe5 Bc5 5.Bc4 Nxf2 6.Bxf7+ (wow!) which was in fact mentioned in one of the our ChessVibes Openings issues. Our main line was 6…Kf8; in the game 6…Kxf7 7.Qd5+ Kg6 8.Bg5 got Smeets thinking.

Carlsen takes up Caruana’s Ruy Lopez carefully, in Steinitz style while Kramnik and Karjakin are in a theoretical Queen’s Indian. Negi can still spoil Giri’s tournament, but in another Petroff the 15-year-old tournament leader looks OK after the opening.

13:44 CET
Smeets has only just made a move after 8.Bg5! Meanwhile, Shirov must be happy with the Najdorf hybrid (mixing a Bg5 and Bc4 setup) that he has on the board: it looks perfect for playing for a win today. Nakamura will be pressing Tiviakov a bit with the pair of bishops, but Black’s position looks quite solid.

15:10 CET
Things are heating up in the A group! Kramnik decided to make a draw against Karjakin, securing a good tournament, and Ivanchuk and Leko have called it a day already as well. But what about the other games? Of course all attention in the press room is focused on Short-Smeets, a true Romantic classic! After 10.Nd2, the computer supposedly prefers 10…d6 11.Ndf3+ Kg4! 12.h3+ Kg3! with completely unclear consequences. Several prominent players have already said they’re rooting for Short, not so much because they like the Englishman personally but because they like the way he’s playing the game, reminding them of Morphy and Anderssen and taking us all back to the 19th century. Time trouble will probably decide the game, however.

Shirov and Carlsen, both playing White, are still trying to win, although objectively, Dominguez doesn’t seem to have much to complain about. Carlsen-Caruana is a mess, only time will tell who’s better here. In the meantime, Anish Giri has made a draw to make sure he’s promoting to the A Group next year: a formidable achievement from the young Dutchman!

16:05 CET
With the time control coming up, the tournament can be decided any minute now. Carlsen seems to have an inferior position against Caruana, and Shirov’s attacking chances seem very realistic all of a sudden, so who knows what kind of upsets we’ll see this afternoon.

Meanwhile, Loek van Wely drew his game with Anand even though the experts claimed he was lost at some point, so this is definitely a small Dutch success. The same can be said for Jan Smeets, who managed a draw as well. His opponent Short apparently couldn’t find the win (and neither could the computer) so he decided to repeat moves with his clock ticking away. A disappointing end of a very promising game but perhaps this round will go down in history anyway if Shirov would miraculously manage to win the tournament after all! We’re sure many chess fans are rooting for him very hard right now…

16:45 CET
Well, the tournament will definitely end in dramatic fashion after Shirov accepted a draw in a completely winning position! We have exclusive video footage of the last minutes of the game and we’ll bring it to you as soon as possible, but for now we should mention Shirov’s last seconds were ticking when he accepted the draw, obviously not having seen the move 31.b4!!

Immediately after the game, Karjakin came up to him to tell him about it, but Shirov still couldn’t believe it. However, it may just be his lucky day after all, since Carlsen’s position against Caruana looks very, very bad, probably losing. This would mean Kramnik, Shirov and Carlsen will share first prize. Who would have thought?

On a more quiet note, Chao added another win to his successful tournament; the Chinese beat Peng. Robin van Kampen is best Dutchman in this group. In B, Erwin L’Ami lost his first game of the tournament against Naiditsch.

17:26 CET
It’s official: Magnus Carlsen drew his game with Caruana and has won the 72nd Corus Chess Tournament with 8,5/13. Alexei Shirov and Vladimir Kramnik share 2nd place with 8 points. In a tight knight ending, Carlsen defended successfully and now has added the most prestigious chess tournament to his victory list. Carlsen and Giri will be doing the press conference and we’ll have coverage of that later on, of course.

17:55 CET
Carlsen says the knight ending against Caruana should be a draw, although both players thought that Black had great winning chances during the game. According to Carsen, his best game of the tournament was against Karjakin. He also said Shirov reacted ‘remarkably calm’ to the fact he failed to grab 1st place by playing 31.b4, and that Anish Giri played ‘great chess’ in this tournament , especially in his game against Nisipeanu.

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C

Corus 2010 | Round 12 Standings Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Round 12 Standings Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Round 12 Standings Grandmaster Group C

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC: Group A | Group B | Group C

Chess players, perhaps insisting on their world-wide status as ’smart people’, have always seemed to me more formalistic and pedantic than your average customer at the grocery’s. But sometimes being ‘wrong’ is much more fun.

How do you spell ‘Korchnoi’? The questions rears its ugly head from time to time on chess forums and blogs. At first, it seems a very straightforward matter: you just transcribe the letters from the cyrillic alphabet into latin letters and there you are. But of course the problems only start there, because the Russian sounds are written down differently in different languages. For instance, the ‘ch’ in Korchnoi is written ‘tsch’ in German and ‘tch’ in French. In English, it’s either ‘tch’ or ‘ch’ (depending on, if nothing else, taste) and in Dutch, it’s ‘tsj’. And this is just the ‘ch’ sound: similiar discussions can be held about the final ‘i’.

On top of that, Korchnoi hasn’t been a Russian citizen for quite some time now, so there’s actually no need to spell his name with cyrillic letters at all anymore. Perhaps we should always spell it the ‘Swiss’ way? But Switzerland itself has many official languages, so which one should we choose? Or should we write it the way Korchnoi himself prefers to do it? These are all tricky questions, but with the rise of internet, the English version seems to have gained preference in most cases where the cyrillic alphabet is involved.

Even so, problems remain. Even if we could agree on how to spell foreign names, we’re often unsure how to pronounce them. Korchnoi, again, is an interesting case in point. A Russian would probably pronounce his name as sounding, to us, something like ‘Kahrchnoi’, with the emphasis on the last syllabe and the kah in the first pronounced a bit like the English word ‘car’. The ‘o’ in Korchnoi’s name, not being pronounced with emphasis in Russian, sounds much more like what Western-Europeans would call ‘a’. (This in turn raises the question why we don’t write ‘Karchnoi’, too. The answer is, I’m afraid, quite unfair: convention.). Thus, a true formalist should probably insist on pronouncing ‘Kahrchnoi’. The reason, I suppose, for why almost nobody does this (except, of course, Russians) is that it sounds so obviously pedantic. And, of course, even if people could approximate the Russian sounds with any certainty, the fact would still remain that most Russians would immediately hear, from their intonation and other clues, that the speaker is in fact not Russian at all.

Sure enough, problems occur in the other direction as well. A famous example is that Russians don’t know how to pronounce nor spell the name of the Dutch World Champion ‘Euwe’. Usually, having no good way to represent the typically Dutch diphtong sound ‘eu’ in their own system, they write it like ‘Eyve’ – and I can’t even begin to imagine how that sounds. Nor should it matter. It’s impossible to do it right, so why bother? (Of course, there are several scientific methods of dealing with spelling and phonetics, but it’s unlikely this will catch on with the general public.)

Still, as said, with chess players you never know. The most recent issue in what Language Log linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum has called prescriptivist poppycock, is the question of how to pronounce ‘Wijk aan Zee’, the name of the Dutch village where the current Corus chess tournament is being held. Over on ChessBase, they’ve already written quite a bit about it. Is ‘wijk’ pronounced like the English ‘wake’ or ‘wike’ (like bike)? Well, as any Dutch native speaker will tell you: neither!

(Their explanation that ‘wijk’ is derived from the Dutch word for ‘area’, by the way, is incorrect as well. There is indeed a word ‘wijk’ meaning ‘area’, but ‘wijk’ in ‘Wijk aan Zee’ – and, for that matter, several other coastal towns such as Beverwijk – is derived from another word: the old Dutch word ‘wîk’, meaning a name for water or a bend in a river or coastline. Dutch speakers will recognize the root of the verb ‘wijken’, ‘de wijk nemen’.)

Both wake and wike, then, are at best approximations (and rather poor ones at that), for the fact is that the English sound system just doesn’t have a good way of interpreting the Dutch sound for ‘ij’, exactly like the Russians don’t have a way of interpreting ‘eu’ in Euwe. Any attempt to do so will inevitably lead to problems. Wijk is wijk and English speakers will just have to deal with it – or learn Dutch the hard way. In fact, I always find it rather sympathetic when foreigners don’t always know how to pronounce words: I think it’s cute when people pronounce foreign words in their own way – I once met a girl from Granada, Spain, who had such an irresistible way of pronouncing words in English that I couldn’t help falling in love with her. I loved how she was ‘ wrong’ all the time!

I think people who don’t bother with trifles such as spelling and pronounciation are much nicer than those who strain themselves beyond end just to make an impression and please native speakers. (Offering me a coffee works much better to please me!) I guess chess players don’t like to be cute. They’d rather be smart.

Caruana sfiora l'impresa con Carlsen!

• A il N° 1 del ranking mondiale soffre per portare il mezzo punto a casa 
• Kramnik e Shirov non ne approfittano e Magnus si aggiudica il torneo
• B Vince Anish Giri
  
• C Vocaturo chiude in bellezza travolgendo la Swaminathan e arrivando 3°
  

Si svolge oggi l'ultimo turno della 72^ edizione di Corus Wijk aan Zee. Carlsen, che ha già vinto il gruppo A nel 2008 (ex-aequo con Aronian), è ad un passo dalla vittoria ma dovrà superare l'ostacolo Caruana. Kramnik e Shirov inseguono a mezzo punto, e dovranno affrontare rispettivamente Karjakin e Dominguez. Ridotte ad un lumicino le speranze di vittoria di Anand, distanziato di un punto e impegnato con van Wely. Il campione del mondo in carica, dopo un inizio di torneo anonimo (9 patte consecutive), ha  voluto ristabilire le gerarchie superando negli ultimi turni Shirov e Kramnik, che sino a quel momento erano in testa alla classifica.

GM Carlsen, Magnus (NOR, 2810) - GM Caruana, Fabiano (ITA, 2675) [Megalovic]
Corus Chess 2010, Gruppo A, XIII turno.   Wijk aan Zee 31.10.2010

1. e4 e5 2. Cf3 Cc6 3. Ab5 a6 4. Aa4 Cf6 5. d3 Carlsen evita la linea principale della spagnola  (0-0) per provare a sorprendere Fabiano 5..d6 6. c3 g6 7. Cbd2 Ag7 8. Cf1 0-0 9.Ag5 d5!? in questa linea poco usuale della spagnola si gioca più spesso h6 (Golod e Khalifman). La mossa del testo la troviamo nella Gvetadze (2411) - Shen (2440) 0-1 campionato mondiale a squadre femminile, Ekaterinburg 2007 10.De2 Novità dopo la prima lunga (15')  riflessione del norvegese. La Gvetadze catturò in d5 10..Dd6 11.Axf6 Axf6 12.Ce3 Ce7! ottima mossa che difende il pd5 e da strada al pc7 che potrà così dedicarsi alla lotta per il centro 13.Ab3 c6 14.h4 Carlsen rompe gli indugi e si muove sul lato di re. Adesso Fabiano potrà reagire spingendo i pedoni sul lato di donna (a5 b5) o intensificando la lotta al centro (Ae6). La spinta d4 è meno attraente perché chiude la posizione e da più forza alla coppia dei Cavalli di Carlsen (Caruana ha mantenuto la coppia degli Alfieri) 14..Ae6 15.Cg5 momento psicologicamente critico. La mossa più logica sembra Ad7 per conservare la coppia degli alfieri, ma ci vuole sensibilità  per rigiocare un pezzo appena mosso mentre i pezzi avversari si avvicinano al tuo re 15...Ad7 sensibilità che ovviamente non manca a Caruana 16.Td1 momento posizionalmente critico. La posizione si va delinenado (Carlsen non potrà arroccare lungo) ma è notevolmente complessa, di quelle che mettono in difficoltà l'amigo inhumano. Fabiano deve però evitare di ridursi con poco tempo sull'orologio (adesso ha 30' in meno di Carlsen) per non doversi poi trovare ad affrontare momenti tatticamente complessi in zeitnot. Adesso sembra indicata una normale mossa di sviluppo come Tad8 16..Tad8 17. Df3 mossa molto aggressiva alla Carlsen, che in caso di h6 lascia il ph4 in presa 17..h6 18.Cc4!? dxc4 19.dxc4 Cd5! splendida mossa che da un'ottima casa (e7) alla donna di Caruana, e il Cg5 di Carlsen è ancora in presa.  Attenti a metterla sulla rissa con Fabiano 20.Ch3 il pedone h4 è in presa, ma ci vuole tanto tanto coraggio per prendelo 20.. h5 Caruana mira più in alto minacciando Ag4 21.Dg3 ora la donna difende il pedone h4, ma in g3 è un po' scomoda 21..Ag4 minacciando De7 in caso di f6? 22.Td2 Axh4!? forzando il cambio delle donne ed entrando in un quasi-finale  con  una struttura pedonale e una disposizione dei propri pezzi migliore 23.Dxh4 Dgf3 Dxf6 Cxf6 25.Cg5 c5! fissando il pc4 su case bianche 26.f3 Ac8 27. Aa4 Rg7 l'intenzione di Fabiano dovrebbe essere quella di cambiare il Cavallo con l'Alfiere (dopo Cg8 e f6, forzando il Cg5 ad andare in h3) 28.Txd8 Txd8 giocata per riservarsi la possibilità di andare con il Re sulla seconda traversa e spostare la torre sul lato di Donna , unico luogo della scacchiera dove il norvegese può tentare di costruirsi un controgioco che bilanci la maggioranza di Caruana sul lato di Re 29.b4?! sembra prematura, visto che permette Td3 29..Td3! 30.bxc5 Txc3 31.Rd2 Txc4 32.Ab3 Txc5 33.Cxf7 Carlsen ha preferito sacrificare un pedone pur di stravolgere il tema posizionale del finale e puntando a rifarsi sul pe5 di Fabiano. Riuscirà nel suo intento? nel frattempo Caruana ha 4' più incremento per arrivare al controllo della 40esima 33...a5 34.Tc1  Txc1 35.Rxc1 adesso l'amigo inhumano propone una linea che porta ad un finale di pedoni e Cavalli favorevole al nero, ma molto molto difficile da vedere in zeitnot  35..a4 36.Ac4 b5! 37.Cd6 bxc4 38.Cxc8 h4 l'ha giocata!! 39.Cb6 Ch5 40.Cxc4 recuperando il pedone ma ... 40.Rf6! la migliore e trovata in tremendo zeitnot. Non c'e' fretta di posizionare il Cavallo in f4 e si difende prima il pe5.  I giocatori hanno raggiunto il controllo della quarantesima e Fabiano è l'unico che può giocare per  vincere questo finale, visto che il pg2 dovrebbe cadere forzatamente 41.Rd2 Cf4 sembra incredibile, ma Ce3 non va per Rg4 seguita da Cxg2!  e il cavallo non si può catturare, pena la promozione del pedone h 42.Re3 Cxg2+ 43.Rf2 a3 45.Cc4 Cd3+ 46. Rg2 Rg5 ritenendo di non poter giocare per vincere dopo la variante Cb4 47.Cxa3 Cxa2, Caruana decide di restituire il pedone provando un'altra strada che probabilmente prevede Rf4!? 47.Ca3 Rf4!? 48.Cc2 Cb2 il finale sembra comunque patto 49. Cb4 h3+ 50. Rxh3 Rxf3 51. Rh4! Rf4 52. Cd5+ Rxe4 53. Ce7 Rf3 54. Cxg6 e4 55. Ce5+ Rf4 56. Cg4 Ca4 1/2 una partita splendida da parte di Caruana e c'e' voluto il miglior Carlsen per portare a casa il mezzo punto!

Carlsen, al primo trionfo in solitario nel Corus A

12° turno: Anand si appresta ad infliggere una dura lezione alla russa di Kramnik

REGOLAMENTO

Tempo di riflessione: 100' x 40 mosse + 50' x 20 mosse + 15' per terminare la partita, con 30" di incremento per mossa dalla prima mossa.

Calendario: sono previsti 13 turni. Si gioca tutti i giorni alle ore 13.30, ad esclusione dell'ultimo turno, anticipato alle ore 12.30. Sono previsti tre giorni di riposo: 20, 25 e 28.

In caso di arrivo a pari punti, il Corus non prevede alcun criterio di spareggio tecnico ma assegna la vittoria ex-aequo

Foto nell'articolo tratte da Chessbase.com

Carlsen-Caruana commentata in diretta dal MI Perunovic

• Loek van Wely NED (2641) - Viswanathan Anand IND (2790)
• Nigel Short ENG (2696) - Jan Smeets NED (2657)
• Hikaru Nakamura USA (2708) - Sergey Tiviakov NED (2662)
• Magnus Carlsen NOR (2810) - Fabiano Caruana ITA (2675)
• Vassily Ivanchuk UKR (2749) - Peter Leko HUN (2739)
• Alexei Shirov ESP (2723) - Leinier Dominguez CUB (2712)
• Vladimir Kramnik RUS (2788) - Sergey Karjakin RUS (2720)

2007-2010 © Chess & Strategy - tous droits réservés

Round 12 of the Corus Chess Tournament live, with regular updates.

The Corus Chess Tournament takes place January 16-31 in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands. Next to hundreds of amateurs, three Grandmaster Groups (A, B and C) with 14 players each play a closed round-robin. The rate of play is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, and 30 seconds increment starting from move 1.

Corus Chess Daily News

Corus Chess Newsflashes

Games round 12

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Round 12

15:09 CET
We have a winner already! The leader of the C grop, Li Chao, offered a draw to Stefan Kuipers after 9 moves in a Petroff, and the young Dutchman, who already scored an IM norm yesterday, had no reason to decline. The Chinese grandmaster has thus qualified for the B group next year as he’s on 9 points out of 12 games, and Robson, Vocaturo and Van Kampen have 7 points while still playing.

Leko and Carlsen (whose sister Ingrid, by the way, is currently playing in the amateur tournament in Gibraltar) repeated their game of the 2009 Tal Memorial until 12.0-0-0; today the Norwegian castled first before playing …Nc6. After one and a half hours of play they’ve reaced a rook ending that looks very drawish.

Yet again Van Wely, who remains faithful to his Najdorf, seems to have fallen into some nasty 6.Bg5 preparation, this time by compatriot Jan Smeets. Against Dominguez, Ivanchuk copied Kramnik’s set-up during the World Blitz in Moscow last year: the Scandinavian with …g6. Kramnik himself uses the Petroff against Anand; not much has happened there yet.

Shirov is in another theoretical Archangelsk Ruy Lopez against Karjakin; the two reached an ending in no time where White’s extra pawn doesn’t seem to be very relevant. Caruana-Nakamura is a Rauzer Sicilian that has some French tendencies while Short went for the rare 4…Nf6 Caro-Kann against Tiviakov.

16:17 CET
Two, not very surprsing draws: Leko-Carlsen – the rook ending was a draw indeed, and Karjakin-Shirov, which also remained equal. Also on the other boards it’s rather quiet so far, except for Smeets-Van Wely where White’s atack has already decided the game on move 23. “I like my Najdorf, but I don’t like my results. Apparently I mixed up something in the opening again,” Van Wely said after the game. We’ll have him and Jan in tonight’s Corus News video.

O, and strictly speaking we’ve been cheering too early for Li Chao, who can still be caught of course if he loses tomorrow. Sorry about that.

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C

Corus 2010 | Round 11 Standings Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Round 11 Standings Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Round 11 Standings Grandmaster Group C

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC: Group A | Group B | Group C

It took him longer than expected, but world number 1 Magnus Carlsen finally reached the top of the standings in Wijk aan Zee, with two rounds to go. His opponent Leinier Dominguez didn’t play that badly, but blundered in timetrouble, as Carlsen explains. Enjoy!

  

• Carlsen da solo in testa!
• Shirov agguanta Kramnik al secondo posto
  
• A: Caruana - Nakamura
• C: Bok - Vocaturo
  

Classifica dopo dodci turni (provvisoria)

Accoppiamenti del tredicesimo ed ultimo turno

Corus C incontri del dodicesimo turno

Classifica dopo undici turni

Accoppiamenti del tredicesimo ed ultimo turno

Tempo di riflessione: 100' x 40 mosse + 50' x 20 mosse + 15' per terminare la partita, con 30" di incremento per mossa dalla prima mossa.

Calendario: sono previsti 13 turni. Si gioca tutti i giorni alle ore 13.30, ad esclusione dell'ultimo turno, anticipato alle ore 12.30. Sono previsti tre giorni di riposo: 20, 25 e 28.

• Viswanathan Anand IND (2790) - Vladimir Kramnik RUS (2788)
• Sergey Karjakin RUS (2720) - Alexei Shirov ESP (2723)
• Leinier Dominguez CUB (2712) - Vassily Ivanchuk UKR (2749)
• Peter Leko HUN (2739) - Magnus Carlsen NOR (2810)
• Fabiano Caruana ITA (2675) - Hikaru Nakamura USA (2708)
• Sergey Tiviakov NED (2662) - Nigel Short ENG (2696)
• Jan Smeets NED (2657) - Loek van Wely NED (2641)

2007-2009 © Chess & Strategy - tous droits réservés

Corus Wijk aan Zee, the most popular event on the chess calendar, ends tomorrow with ex-champion Vlad Kramnik and the world No1 Magnus Carlsen competing for the lead in the closing rounds. Kramnik won their individual game impressively, but the 19-year-old Norwegian has the easier finish. Carlsen is not yet dominating his peers in the style of Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov at their peaks, but he is already the man to beat.

The reigning world champion Vishy Anand has played an uncharacteristically low-key tournament, drawing his first nine games. Nigel Short, in his strongest event for years, has struggled in some games but missed a clear win against Kramnik.

David Howell, 19, was seeded low in the B group, but the young British champion is in mid-table and scored one of the best attacks at Wijk.

Below, White's opening system is less effective than 2 Nf3 and 3 Bb5 so Shirov soon has the initiative. White takes a hot pawn by 23 Qxh7? (23 Qh6!) missing 23...Kd7! and 24...Bxg2+! with a crushing attack (25 Rxg2 Rxg2 25 Kxg2 Rg8+ 27 Kf3 e4+! leads to mate).

S Tiviakov v A Shirov

1 e4 c5 2 Nc3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Nd4 4 Bc4 e6 5 Nge2 Nf6 6 O-O a6 7 d3 b5 8 Bb3 Nxb3 9 axb3 Bb7 10 f4 d5 11 e5 d4 12 exf6 dxc3 13 fxg7 Bxg7 14 bxc3 Rg8 15 Rf2 Bxc3 16 Nxc3 Qd4 17 Kf1 Qxc3 18 Ra2 Qd4 19 Qh5 c4 20 bxc4 bxc4 21 Ra4 Bd5 22 f5 e5 23 Qxh7? Kd7! 24 Qh6 Bxg2+! 25 Ke1 Bd5 26 Ba3 Rg1+ 27 Ke2 Qg4+ 28 Ke3 Re1+ 29 Kd2 Qd1+ 30 Kc3 Qa1+ 31 Kb4 Rb1+ 0-1

Howell's improved results with the white pieces have coincided with his increasing readiness to ditch the insipid 1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 Bishop's Opening in favour of the sharp Scotch 3 d4. When Finland's No1 lost time with his knight (13...Nf6) Howell blitzed the black king with an incisive attack. Black's 20...Na5? (Qh4) allowed 21 f6! with the point Nxc4 22 Qh5! Nxe3 23 Qg5 winning.

D Howell v T Nyback

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 exd4 4 Nxd4 Bc5 5 Be3 Qf6 6 c3 Nge7 7 Bc4 Ne5 8 Be2 Qg6 9 O-O d6 10 Kh1 O-O 11 Nd2 Ng4 12 Bf4 Nc6 13 f3 Nge5? 14 Be3 Bb6 15 f4 Nxd4 16 cxd4 Nc6 17 f5 Qf6 18 e5! dxe5 19 Ne4 Qd8 20 Bc4 Na5? 21 f6! Bxd4 22 fxg7 Kxg7 23 Bg5! 1-0

3124 (a)1 f8N! g6 2 Kh6 g5 3 Ng6 mate. (b) It's an illegal position! Black has no possible last move.

Magnus Carlsen defeated Leinier Dominguez in round 11 of the Corus Chess Tournament to join Vladimir Kramnik in the lead. The Russian drew with Black against Alexei Shirov. In the only other decisive game of the day, Loek van Wely beat Sergei Tiviakov after 88 moves.

The Corus Chess Tournament takes place January 16-31 in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands. Next to hundreds of amateurs, three Grandmaster Groups (A, B and C) with 14 players each play a closed round-robin. The rate of play is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, and 30 seconds increment starting from move 1.

Corus Chess Daily News

Corus Chess Newsflashes

Games round 11

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Round 11

15:13 CET
The top game of this 11th round is Shirov-Kramnik, and before anything else I’d like to mention that Ian Rogers is doing live commentary at the tournament website. In fact he’ll be doing the same tomorrow and Sunday, as a prelude to plans of the organizers for 2011 to bring live commentary throughout the event.

Shirov is trying an exchange sacrifice similar to what often happens in the Marshall Gambit (or rather Attack) of the Ruy Lopez. The concept had been mentioned before by Anand, who didn’t think much of it, but apparently Shirov has his own ideas. Meanwhile the two have reached an ending that looks about equal.

Smeets and Anand have already draw – they started repeating at move 13 already. Unfortunate, especially since the two had the nowadays rare Keres Attack of the Scheveningen on the board. Carlsen and Dominguez have entered a very complicated Grünfeld (Russian System), and the Dutch encounter between Van Wely and Tiviakov is a relatively quiet Queen’s Indian.

In B, So-Giri is already extremely sharp and interesting. All in all, this year’s Corus tournament has been great and continues to be. Later more!

16:18
Jan (Smeets) was totally unprepared for Vishy’s Scheveningen, and didn’t have the critical lines ready. For instance he could have tried 11.Bg2, but “the truth is I didn’t mind to split the point against him”, he told me.

According to Nakamura, who already drew with Leko, the accurate 12…Qd7! basically “kills everything”, after which it was dead equal.

With three pawn islands versue two, Shirov seems to be slightly worse in the ending now. Kramnik also looks more confident in fact. Short has managed to get another IQP position on the board but Caruana looks alright. Carlsen is better according to some experts in the press room, but it’s certainly not easy. Ivanchuk won a pawn but his king isn’t as safe as Karjakin’s.

Giri sacrificed a piece against So and is now moving all his pieces to his opponent’s king. Anything can happen there. In C, Li Chao totally crushed Muzychuk and is pretty sure of qualifing for B now.

23:44 CET
Indeed White’s advantage wasn’t much and so Short and Caruana drew an equal endgame. Carlsen defeated Dominguez and just did the press conference, which we’ll put up as soon as possible.

After a tumultuous time trouble phase, former compatriots Ivanchuk and Karjakin also drew. It seems that 36.Nxa5 allows too much counterplay, but it’s not easy to think of something else. In the game 40.Qe2 b6 followed by 41…Qxb3 also looks drawish. Kramnik has just sacrificed his knight for Shirov’s passed pawns and will probably draw the endgame, according to the experts, including Magnus Carlsen. Van Wely has a nice advantage against Sergei Tiviakov and will certainly keep on pressing for a long time.

Anish Giri had an angel on his shoulder today; his attack didn’t work out and he was basically lost against So from move 30 onwards. 35.Qe2! Nf2 36.Rf1! Nxh3+ 37.Kh2 would still have won for White, but instead the pinoy GM fell for a mating trick. Giri was the first to admit that he had been very lucky. He increased his lead to a point as all other games in B ended in a draw.

Shirov and Kramnik drew a very interesting game where the Russian found a series of only moves to hold the balance.

Loek van Wely eventually won against Sergei Tiviakov. His ending with bishop and two passed pawns against rook (and two fixed pawns on the queenside) looked like a draw, but KingLoek managed to find a winning set-up in the end.

Tomorrow Kramnik plays Anand with Black, and in the last round the Russian has the white pieces against Karjakin. Carlsen has Black against Leko tomorrow and then White against Caruana on Sunday.

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C

Corus 2010 | Round 11 Standings Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Round 11 Standings Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Round 11 Standings Grandmaster Group C

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC: Group A | Group B | Group C

• Jan Smeets NED (2657) - Viswanathan Anand IND (2790)
• Loek van Wely NED (2641) - Sergey Tiviakov NED (2662)
• Nigel Short ENG (2696) - Fabiano Caruana ITA (2675)
• Hikaru Nakamura USA (2708) - Peter Leko HUN (2739)
• Magnus Carlsen NOR (2810) - Leinier Dominguez CUB (2712)
• Vassily Ivanchuk UKR (2749) - Sergey Karjakin RUS (2720)
• Alexei Shirov ESP (2723) - Vladimir Kramnik RUS (2788)

2007-2009 © Chess & Strategy - tous droits réservés

It wasn’t the most convincing victory of his career, but still Vishy Anand was reasonably happy with it, after nine consecutive draws in Wijk aan Zee. The World Champion explains his victory against tournament leader Alexei Shirov. Enjoy!

Alexei Shirov lost his pole position in a dramatic game against Viswanathan Anand today. The Spaniard reached a winning position against the World Champ, but as both players missed an important tactic, the game went on and Anand eventually won. Carlsen defeated Karjakin with Black in a French and Kramnik and Ivanchuk drew.

The Corus Chess Tournament takes place January 16-31 in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands. Next to hundreds of amateurs, three Grandmaster Groups (A, B and C) with 14 players each play a closed round-robin. The rate of play is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, and 30 seconds increment starting from move 1.

Corus Chess Daily News

Corus Chess Newsflashes

Games round 10

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Round 10

13:12 CET
Another great round is ahead of us, with Anand-Shirov , Kramnik-Ivanchuk and Karjakin-Carlsen in A, Giri-Naiditsch in B and Swinkels-Li Chao as today’s main attractions.

14:21 CET
Ivanchuk played the Vienna against Kramnik’s 1.d4 and the two have already reached quiet unfamiliar territory after eleven moves. Kramnik’s Qe2 & Rad1 concept seems to be new, and Ivanchuk is thinking now.

Against Karjakin, Carlsen went for the French. A surprising choice since according to the database the Norwegian played this defence only once before, when he was 11 and rated 2214! Karjakin decided to play it safe and castled kingside.

Anand doesn’t want to risk too much either against Shirov and closed the queenside with 10.a5 in another Archangelsk Ruy Lopez. Dominguez and Nakamura are still in a well-known Accelarated Dragon position while Caruana and Van Wely are also looking at a familiar middlegame position – there it’s a Sicilian Scheveningen.

Smeets got Tiviakov thinking after11…Nxc5, which is still known however, e.g. from J.Polgar-Skembris, Moscow OL 1994. Nigel Short tried the Alekhine against Leko; an opening played by ‘people with a difficult childhood and by Short’, as I heard in the press room, but that’s how we used to describe the opening two decades ago. In the 90s Ivanchuk sometimes tried it, and these days it’s slightly more popular. Recently Carlsen defeated Topalov with Black using 1…Nf6.

15:28 CET
Nakamura came up with an interesting pawn sacrifice on move 14 and instead of trading on c1, 18…Bxd5 followed by 19..Ne4 was possible as well. It seems that Shirov still hasn’t equalized completely against Anand, who will probably try to get something going against the black king. Kramnik seems to be thinking in that direction too, but Ivanchuk’s manoeuvering looks solid enough. Not much excitement on the other boards so far.

In the B group, Giri and Naiditsch already drew in a Semi-Tarrasch. The game of the round is l’Ami-Nisipeanu; a King’s Indian in which the always creative Romanian GM sacrificed a piece for two pawns and an attack. In C, Swaminathan-Grandelius is very sharp and Li Chao looks already more than fine with Black against Swinkels.

03:52 CET
The talk of the town was not about chess this time, but about the sudden failure of the internet connection in the venue, including the press room. The boards were not transmitted correctly to the press room, and some TV screens in the playing hall also showed wrong positions. Besides, the tournament website was down for a long time as well (at the time of writing it still is, but that’s simply because the ISP cannot be contacted before 9 AM). And so nobody exactly knew what was going on, sometimes players would suddenly finish their games and journos would ask what had happened, this time wondering not only about the course of the game, but also about the result.

Shirov suffered a terrible loss against Anand – terrible, because for one moment he could have won. As Anand showed at the press conference (without having looked at a computer), 39.Ne6? could have been met by 39…Ng3! – a tactic he had seen before in a slightly different version, but one which both players missed in that exact position.

Carlsen defeated Karjakin with surprising ease but left the playing hall quickly anyway, like his opponent, so the exact details of this game will have to be checked by the computer. Although he thought for about an hour in the opening phase while the position was still known, Tiviakov did beat Smeets, who basically tricked himself.

In B, Giri kept his slim lead because both l’Ami and Ni Hua drew, while in C Li Chao is very close to tournament victory after beating one of his rivals, Robin Swinkels. The young Chinese GM leads by 1.5 point.

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C

Corus 2010 | Round 10 Standings Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Round 10 Standings Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Round 10 Standings Grandmaster Group C

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC: Group A | Group B | Group C

?Puoi vincere un abbonamento annuale!

La famosa Casa editrice New in chess ha bandito un concorso per?premiare la migliore novità teorica giocata nel 2009, tra quelle pubblicate sul New in chess Yearbook. Sono state selezionate 4 partite che possono essere votate entro fine gennaio. L'autore della novità teorica più votata riceverà 350 euro, mentre tra tutti coloro che avrannò indicato la novità vincitrice verrà sorteggiato un abbonamento annuale al New in chess Yearbook. Tentar non nuoce...

Vediamo le novità in gara.

La prima riguarda la partita So-Gupta, Wijk aan Zee 2009. In un Attacco Marshall della Partita Spagnola il giovane GM indiano?ha sacrificato un pezzo con 18..f5, ottenendo in cambio un forte attacco.

Abhijeet Gupta gioca 18..f5!

La seconda è tratta dalla Kramnik-Naiditsch, Dortmund 2009, dove in una Variante?di Vienna della Nimzo-indiana l'ex Campione del mondo ha giocato la raffinata 17.Dh6.

Vladimir Kramnik gioca 17.Dh6!

La terza riguarda la Avrukh-Hector, Helsingor 2009, una Slava variante Krause nella quale la teoria assegnava un leggero vantaggio al bianco, ma il nero ha giocato 13..Cc5, che sacrifica un pedone e sembra ottenere una ottima?posizione.

Jonny Hector gioca 13..Cc5!

L'ultima novità è tratta dalla Van Wely-Stellwagen, Amsterdam 2009, un attacco Bayonet nel quale la novità 24..Df3 sembra far pendere il piatto della bilancia a favore del nero.

Daniel Stellwagen gioca 24..Df3!

Per vedere le partite complete e partecipare al Concorso, cliccate QUI

Kramnik da solo in vetta!

• prima vittoria per Anand contro Shirov
• Carlsen supera Karjakin e raggiunge lo spagnolo al 2° posto
• A Caruana - Van Wely 1/2
• C Kuipers - Vocaturo 1-0
  

Dal 16 al 31 gennaio si svolge la 72^ edizione di Corus Wijk aan Zee. Scacchierando allestirà, per ogni turno, un articolo di rimando al sito ufficiale nel quale i lettori potranno seguire e commentare l'andamento degli incontri. Domani è previsto l'ultimo giorno di riposo.

Corus A incontri del decimo turno

Classifica dopo dieci turni

Accoppiamenti dell'undicesimo turno

Corus C incontri del decimo turno

Classifica dopo dieci turni

Accoppiamenti dell'undicesimo turno 

Tempo di riflessione: 100' x 40 mosse + 50' x 20 mosse + 15' per terminare la partita, con 30" di incremento per mossa dalla prima mossa.

Calendario: sono previsti 13 turni. Si gioca tutti i giorni alle ore 13.30, ad esclusione dell'ultimo turno, anticipato alle ore 12.30. Sono previsti tre giorni di riposo: 20, 25 e 28.

• Viswanathan Anand IND (2790) 1-0 Alexei Shirov ESP (2723)
• Vladimir Kramnik RUS (2788) 1/2 Vassily Ivanchuk UKR (2749)
• Sergey Karjakin RUS (2720) 0-1 Magnus Carlsen NOR (2810)
• Leinier Dominguez CUB (2712) 1/2 Hikaru Nakamura USA (2708)
• Peter Leko HUN (2739) 1/2 Nigel Short ENG (2696)
• Fabiano Caruana ITA (2675) 1/2 Loek van Wely NED (2641)
• Sergey Tiviakov NED (2662) 1-0 Jan Smeets NED (2657)

2007-2009 © Chess & Strategy - tous droits réservés

• Viswanathan Anand IND (2790) 1-0 Alexei Shirov ESP (2723)
• Vladimir Kramnik RUS (2788) 1/2 Vassily Ivanchuk UKR (2749)
• Sergey Karjakin RUS (2720) 0-1 Magnus Carlsen NOR (2810)
• Leinier Dominguez CUB (2712) 1/2 Hikaru Nakamura USA (2708)
• Peter Leko HUN (2739) 1/2 Nigel Short ENG (2696)
• Fabiano Caruana ITA (2675) 1/2 Loek van Wely NED (2641)
• Sergey Tiviakov NED (2662) 1-0 Jan Smeets NED (2657)

2007-2009 © Chess & Strategy - tous droits réservés