After winning 2-0 one more time, today against Smeets, Carlsen joined Vasily Ivanchuk in the lead in Nice. The Ukrainian on his turn defeated Aronian 1.5-0.5, while Kramnik went down 2-0 against Gelfand.

The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament takes place at the Palais de la Mediterranée in Nice, France, from March 12 to 25, 2010. The event is organized by the Association Max Euwe of chess maecenas Joop van Oosterom, which is based in Monaco. The total prize-fund is € 216,000.

The following twelve grandmasters take part: Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2813), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2790), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2782), Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2756), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2750), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2748), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan, 2740), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2737), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2725), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba, 2713) and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands, 2651).

Games round 4

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Round 4 report

Magnus Carlsen catches up with Vasily Ivanchuk after third 2-0 wipe-out
After four rounds of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, Magnus Carlsen and Vasily Ivanchuk are tied for first in the overall standings with 6 points from 8 games. The Ukrainian grandmaster defeated last year’s winner Levon Aronian 1½-½. Magnus Carlsen continued his remarkable comeback after he lost 2-0 to Ivanchuk in Round 1. The world’s number one defeated Jan Smeets 2-0, raising his number of consecutive wins to six. Manifold Amber winner Vladimir Kramnik suffered a highly atypical 2-0 defeat at the hands of Boris Gelfand. Perhaps typical for the fighting spirit of the round was the fact that 5 out the 6 rapid games were won by black.
Tomorrow, March 17, is a rest day. Play is resumed Thursday March 18 with Round 5.

Magnus Carlsen was understandably ambitious to continue his winning streak in his blindfold game against bottom-seed Jan Smeets. Despite a modest opening set-up (that started with 1.g3) he indeed got an edge, but there was no reason for Black to despair yet. Afterwards Carlsen commented that had Smeets just stayed put, instead of becoming active with 31…Rc3, he didn’t see how he could have made progress. Smeets’ action was based on a miscalculation. After 32…Rxc4 the only reply he had counted on was 33.Rd6+, but instead Carlsen dealt a killer blow with 33.Bg5. Three moves later Black resigned, raising Carlsen’s winning streak to five.
In the rapid game the Norwegian also scored his sixth consecutive win, but this time he really had to squeeze water from a stone. After the opening he was slightly worse, but he kept looking for his chances, collecting one minimal asset after the other. On move 33 there was a minuscule victory when he exchanged his knight for a bishop and with 38…g5 he made a brave winning attempt, as he let the white c-pawn on the board. Objectively speaking all his tries would have been in vain had Smeets kept his cool, but low and time and feeling the pressure the Dutchman finally succumbed. As late as move 54 he still could have made a draw with 54.Nh2 as this saves an essential tempo compared to the move he played, 54.Nf2.

The blindfold game between tournament leader Vasily Ivanchuk and defending champion Levon Aronian suddenly ended when the board was still full of pawns and pieces when on move 25 White offered a draw. In a slightly unorthodox Ruy Lopez it seemed that Black had obtained a good game, but Aronian wasn’t so sure. When he was asked why he had accepted the draw, he simply replied: ‘Because I am worse.’ And he elaborated that his pieces might look nice and active, but that White can slowly continue h3, Rd1 and c4, and on top of that he didn’t like the g5-h4 pawn-structure on the kingside either.
In the rapid game Ivanchuk maintained the (shared) lead with a fine win with the black pieces. A speculative piece sacrifice by Aronian (19.Nxe6) for three pawns and the initiative failed to impress and although the game remained complicated Ivanchuk hauled in the point with determined and precise play.

In the blindfold game between Peter Svidler and Sergey Karjakin a tense Sicilian with chances for both sides saw an untimely and unfortunate end when on move 42, White put a knight en prise. Following his resignation yesterday against Carlsen when there was still everything to play for, this was a new blow for the Russian grandmaster.
Svidler found some consolation in a well-played rapid game that finally brought him a win again. In his beloved Grünfeld Defence he believed that his 12…Rd8 was a safe road to equality, but it required accurate play. Instead of 17…g5 he could also have played 17…c4, but he felt more attracted to the push of the g-pawn. Karjakin felt optimistic about his chances when he won a pawn, but in fact this materialistic decision spelled disaster, as very soon the black pieces assembled for a strong attack. One nice line that didn’t appear on the board was 24.Bf2 (in the game 24.Bd7 was played) 24…Nxf3 25.Bg3 Qxg3! 26.hxg3 Rh6+ 27.Kg2 Rh2 mate. The end of the game was less drastic, but nevertheless there was no escaping for White.

Boris Gelfand didn’t hide his contentment after he had won his blindfold game against Vladimir Kramnik. ‘It’s always nice to win against such a great player’, he almost humbly commented. The Israeli grandmaster more or less blamed Black’s defeat on the opening system he had chosen, the Bg4-system that is mainly popular among some Azeri players. One of the ideas of the black approach is the exchange sacrifice on e3 that also happened in this game. Gelfand wasn’t convinced of its correctness and suggested Black should have looked for something else at that point. He pointed out the sad offside position of the black knight on c7 in particular and quoted Tarrasch who said that if one piece doesn’t take part in the play there’s something wrong with the entire position. Gelfand was satisfied with his plan Bd1 and Ne2 which allowed him to cement his advantage and slowly but surely win the game.
In the rapid game Kramnik was perhaps too cautious in his approach, certainly if he had clear plans to level the score, and this seriously backfired. Playing actively Gelfand freely advanced his pawns and directed his pieces to active positions. Objectively speaking, White was not yet in trouble, but Black’s position was much more pleasant and easy to play. Gradually the black pressure built up and following a blunder, 31.Rc2, Kramnik soon had to throw in the towel. An impressive achievement by Gelfand.

Ruslan Ponomariov seemed determined to blow up Vugar Gashimov’s Benoni Defence in their blindfold game and judging by the comments of the kibitzing grandmasters in the hospitality lounge he was soon on his way to realize that objective. But then the Benoni is a resilient customer and although his position looked highly suspect, Gashimov seemed to have no wish to surrender without a fight. He stayed afoot in the complications and he could have even taken over the initiative if instead of 31…Rh8+ he had gone 31…Rxf4 32.Rxf4 Qh6+. But soon he was in the driver’s seat anyway when White first missed the winning continuations 32.Kg2 and next 32.Kg1. Instead the players ended up in a rook ending with one pawn (white) against two. This they played on for many more moves until on move 68 the computer indicated a threefold repetition and the game was drawn.
The rapid game was a protracted battle in which the balance was not really disturbed for a long time. Nevertheless, Gashimov managed to upset the equilibrium in the endgame and score his second win in the tournament.

Alexander Grischuk was clearly satisfied after his blindfold win against Leinier Dominguez and he had every reason to. In a Sicilian Najdorf that his opponent had clearly prepared (Dominguez blitzed out his first 18 moves), the Russian champion was in a creative mood and managed to create attacking chances with pointed play. Probably the key moment of the game was the point where White played 23.Qh5, a move that Black had missed and that netted White the important f7 pawn. Grischuk kept playing strong and incisive chess and after 63 moves he had earned a well-deserved point.
The rapid game also saw a Najdorf, but (not surprisingly) a different line. Dominguez’ troubles started when early on in the opening he played his knight to d5 and shortly afterwards had to withdraw it to c3 again, losing two precious tempi. Grischuk obtained a comfortable game and it was impressive to see how he gradually exploited his advantage to score his second win of the day.

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After beating Sergey Karjakin 1.5-0.5, Vasily Ivanchuk leads the combined standings of the Amber tournament with a score of 4.5/6. Magnus Carlsen again won 2-0, this time against Peter Svidler, who resigned in a probably drawn position in the blindfold game.

The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament takes place at the Palais de la Mediterranée in Nice, France, from March 12 to 25, 2010. The event is organized by the Association Max Euwe of chess maecenas Joop van Oosterom, which is based in Monaco. The total prize-fund is € 216,000.

The following twelve grandmasters take part: Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2813), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2790), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2782), Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2756), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2750), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2748), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan, 2740), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2737), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2725), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba, 2713) and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands, 2651).

Games round 3

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Round 3 report

Vasily Ivanchuk in sole lead
Magnus Carlsen back in business with two more wins
After three rounds of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, Vasily Ivanchuk is in the sole lead in the overall standings with 4½ points from 6 games. The Ukrainian grandmaster, the only GM to play in all 19 Amber tournaments, defeated Sergey Karjakin 1½-½. Defending champion Levon Aronian scored his first full points at the cost of Jan Smeets. Magnus Carlsen also won 2-0, the victim being Peter Svidler. Despite his dramatic start, the Norwegian is now only half a point behind the leading Ivanchuk. And he optimistically faces the future: ‘I am hoping for two more tomorrow.’

Vasily Ivanchuk immersed in thought at the start of his blindfold game against Sergey Karjakin. Following a 1½-½ win over his former compatriot the Ukrainian grandmaster is in the sole lead.

Alexander Grischuk and Boris Gelfand played a blindfold game that at first sight may have looked lively and entertaining for the spectators. However, they were following a theoretical line and after the game Grischuk summed up his assessment of what had happened as ‘very boring’. White had a small advantage in the ending that appeared on the board, but it never took on serious proportions and the games petered out to a draw. For Gelfand the line evoked old memories: ‘The last time I played this line was in 1988 in Vilnius. Against Goldin at the Soviet Young Masters.’ Certainly an interesting footnote to this game.
The rapid game was anything but boring. Playing adventurously Gelfand sacrificed two pawns to develop an attack against the black king and was awarded for his courage with a winning position. But just when everyone expected Grischuk to resign soon, Gelfand faltered and failed to deal the final blow. With 32.Bh7+ he let Black back into the game, where he could have decided the issue with 32.axb5 cxb5 33.Nd5 exd6 34.Bxd5+. In raging time-trouble for both, Gelfand again got a winning position, and might just as well have lost if Black had found 42…Kh6 instead of 42…Kg6, but in the end it was a draw and that was a result that definitely felt deeply unsatisfactory for Gelfand.

When Leinier Dominguez arrived at the board for his blindfold game against Ruslan Ponomariov, the Ukrainian grandmaster already sat waiting impatiently. As he laughingly told the arbiter: ‘I am nervous, let’s start!’ Once he was allowed to start the game, Ponomariov went for 4…g6 against the Ruy Lopez, a set-up that is sometimes considered slightly suspect, but mostly leads to satisfactory play for Black. Dominguez certainly obtained an edge, but with precise and active play Ponomariov comfortably equalized and once they reached a rook endgame with three pawns on each side, there were few reasons left not to draw the game.
The blindfold game presented Ponomariov with a problem that every grandmaster faces from time to time: he had to play against an opening variation that he also has played himself. A tense struggle developed in which both sides were fighting for their chances, and although those of White looked slightly more promising in the middlegame, the game ended in a draw when most pieces and pawns had left the board on move 47.

The blindfold game between Vugar Gashimov and Vladimir Kramnik saw the Russian grandmaster play another Pirc. However, this time it didn’t bring him much pleasure, as his mix of set-ups landed him in a risky position. Things looked threatening for Kramnik, especially when on move 26 Gashimov got a golden opportunity. With 26.Rxd6 he could have been a healthy pawn up, as 26…Ne8 is answered by 27.Rxh6, but instead of all this the Azeri grandmaster played 26.Nxd6 and a few moves later he agreed on a draw.
In the rapid game Kramnik emphatically wanted to be at the wheel from the word go. With gritty play he put his opponent under pressure and obtained a sizable advantage. But Gashimov had no wish to knuckle under and fought back with determination and his 37…Bg5 came as a rude awaking for Kramnik. Now suddenly the win was far off, objectively speaking no longer there, and a messy phase followed in which White kept looking for a win. And found it, because Gashimov didn’t grab his chances. The final mistake came on move 51, when the Azeri grandmaster played the right idea in the wrong order. Had he gone 51…Qf1+ 52.Kh2 Ne1, White would have had to resign himself to a draw. When he played 51…Ne1 immediately, Kramnik had 52.Qb5 and now 52…Nf3 doesn’t work because of 53.Qf8 mate.

The blindfold game between Peter Svidler and Magnus Carlsen started with a comic prologue when, once they were seated behind their laptops, the Norwegian discovered much to his dismay that he wasn’t White is this game, as he had believed, but Black. The comedy of errors was continued in the game and even after the Russian had resigned, when the spectators in the hospitality lounge switched on some engines. In the game Carlsen invited Svidler to play a full-fledged Dragon, but instead White opted for a more quiet approach. For some time there was nothing new under the sun until White played a new move, 19.Qf4 (19.Qe2 had been seen). The comedy of errors came back to life on move 20, when Svidler suddenly had second thoughts about the intended 20.Rxd7 because of 20…Qc6 21.Rxb7 Rxf4 22.Bd5 and now 22…Qf6 wins for Black. However, both players had missed 22.Rb6 with an edge for White. On move, 22 Svidler refrained from 22.Qh3 because he didn’t like 22…Nf4, but after the move he played, 22.Qe1, he was unpleasantly surprised by 22…Bxg2. Now Black developed a raging attack, but was it was deadly as Svidler acknowledged when, after 25…Nd4, he resigned? Indeed it would have been if Black had played 24…Nh4+ (instead of 24…Nf4+). But now things were different, as in the final position the engines immediately showed the amazing 26.Nd7!, attacking the rook on f8, and there is no immediate win and the position looks drawish.
At that point the players had already left for their rooms, Carlsen happily laughing off the fact that he had prepared for the wrong colour: ‘In any case it seems to be clear that in the blindfold I do better when I play the black pieces.’ Yes, but this time he needed a helping hand from his opponent. In his room he obviously also found 26.Nd7, but to his mind Black could nevertheless have kept on playing for a win with 26…Nh3+ 27.Kg2 Qc6+ 28.Bd5 Qxd7 29.Rxd4 e6.
The rapid game saw a rare sideline of the Qb3 Grünfeld, which, according to Carlsen, both players were not too familiar with. He himself seemed to suffer the least from this relative ignorance as he obtained a pleasant position. ‘And then it just got better and better’, he summed up the game. One moment he pointed out to illustrate the strength of his position was the moment when he played 22.Nd3, planning g5, pushing away the knight on d5 with e4, and then playing Nf4 threatening Nxg6 mate. To prevent such plans Svidler played 22…g5 himself, but his troubles remained and after 34 moves he had had enough and resigned.

When Sergey Karjakin, who is now playing for Russia, sat down to play his former compatriot Vasily Ivanchuk there was little doubt that a fierce clash would follow. In the blindfold game Ivanchuk gradually managed to took over the initiative and when he pushed 19…c4! it was clear that Karjakin faced a difficult defence. The final mistake White made on move 32, when playing his bishop to a3, he allowed Black to invade his position and force his surrender.
In the blindfold game Ivanchuk got promising play and tried various ways to improve the position of his pieces. But Karjakin defended tenaciously and when his opponent failed to make any headway a draw was the result after 44 moves.

Jan Smeets was happy with the outcome of the opening of his blindfold game against Levon Aronian. After all he was allowed to play the improvement he had suggested after his game against Karjakin in Round 2, 17.Be4 instead of 17.Ne4. White got an edge, but failed to exploit it. His first inaccuracy was 24.Rac1 where 24.a4 was called for, but the real mistake was 26.Bxd8?, an exchange that was prompted by his fear that Black’s knight would come to e6 and White’s bishop on f6 would end up out of play. Now Smeets suddenly found himself in an unpleasant rook endgame, which Aronian first converted in a winning pawn endgame and then into a winning queen endgame.
The rapid game was a tumultuous affair that started out with an opening that was popular at the start of the 20th century (the rather unusual 4…Nc6 followed by 5.e4). Aronian was pleased with his position but commented afterwards that he should have played 13.Qa4+ instead of 13.Bxf4, as he had underestimated 15…Qd7. Further on he had planned the imaginative 19.Kf1 until he saw 19…0-0 20.Rd6 Bc4!. Black’s troubles started with 24…Qh1, where he could have secured a level position with 24…Qxf2+ 25.Kf2 Ne4+ 26.Kg2 Nxd6 27.Bxa7. His final mistake was 25…Qh5, when he should have gone 25…Qxh6 26.Nd5 Qh4. Now his king was too vulnerable and as Smeets was also in time-trouble it didn’t come as a surprise that Aronian quickly hauled in the point.

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Magnus Carlsen today recovered completely from his bad start in Nice. The Norwegian defeated Levon Aronian, the winner in 2008 and 2009, in both the blindfold and the rapid game. Ukrainians Ivanchuk and Ponomariov lead the combined standings after two rounds.

The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament takes place at the Palais de la Mediterranée in Nice, France, from March 12 to 25, 2010. The event is organized by the Association Max Euwe of chess maecenas Joop van Oosterom, which is based in Monaco. The total prize-fund is € 216,000.

The following twelve grandmasters take part: Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2813), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2790), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2782), Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2756), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2750), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2748), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan, 2740), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2737), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2725), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba, 2713) and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands, 2651).

Games round 2

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Round 2 report

Carlsen bounces back with 2-0 win over defending champion Aronian
After two rounds of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, Vasily Ivanchuk and Ruslan Ponomariov are in the lead in the overall standings with 3 points from 4 games, followed at half a point’s distance by Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Svidler. Top-seed Magnus Carlsen recovered from his poor start with a 2-0 win over defending Amber champion Levon Aronian. The Norwegian admitted that he had been upset about his 2-0 loss on the first day (particularly the rapid game, where he believed he was in no danger of losing), but said that he certainly had not despaired: ‘With twenty rounds to go there is always time to recover.’ The first two of those twenty rounds were certainly encouraging for him.

Magnus Carlsen fared excellently in Round 2 with two wins over Levon Aronian. After the round the Norwegian was happy to comment on his blindfold game for the tournament website.

Just like last year the second round of the Amber tournament clashed with the final stage of Paris-Nice, the 8-stage cycling race that started in Paris (you had guessed that much) a week ago. For many hours the Promenade des Anglais was crowded with people waiting for the denouement of the 68th edition of this legendary race and we can tell you that quite a number of chess fans mingled among these spectators. But after, early in the afternoon, Alberto Contador had won his second Paris-Nice, three years after his first victory, they could concentrate on chess again. Right they were. After the drama in Round 1 there was every reason to look forward to the developments in Round 2.

The final stage of the cycling course Paris-Nice finished today, about two hundred metres from the venue and about two minutes after the second round started | Photo Nadja Wittmann

Alberto Contador after winning the final stage of Paris-Nice | Photo Nadja Wittmann

Magnus Carlsen was obviously eager to fight back after yesterday’s dramatic 2-0 loss, but with Levon Aronian as opponent this was easier said than done. Moreover the Norwegian had the black pieces in the blindfold game and one would think that his first concern should be not to lose again. Already before the tournament Carlsen had prepared the King’s Indian and his ambition to steer for a highly complicated struggle worked out beyond expectation. To begin with he got the chance to implement an idea he had seen in a game Eljanov-Radjabov; a quick counter-push on the queenside to undermine White’s centre followed by a piece sacrifice (20…Nxd5) to break up that same centre. The tactical complications that ensued demanded a lot from both players and it was soon clear that Carlsen felt more at ease. Aronian missed the push 22…e4, a seemingly contradictory move that seems to contribute little to Black’s wish to open up lines and files, but which in fact is the right move to keep his initiative going. White could still have put up some resistance with 25.Bg5 (instead of 25.Nxf2), but Aronian had also missed 25…Qh4, which in case of 26.Be1 is followed by the deadly 26…Be5. Three moves later Aronian threw the towel. Carlsen found it easy to smile again when a couple of minutes later he spoke to the press.
Aronian’s worries were compounded when he also lost the rapid game. And perhaps this loss hurt even more as it was completely unnecessary. From a Four Knights’ Defence the players ended up in a totally drawish rook endgame. Probably the main factor that kept the game going was that neither of the players were willing to offer a draw. And as they plodded on Aronian got himself into trouble. A first moment where he was inaccurate was when he played 42…Ra2, when he could have thwarted all White’s further tries with 42…g5. He further pleased Carlsen with 50…h5 when he should have played 50…Kh7. Now his position became very unpleasant, and when he missed a last chance to stir up complications with 59…d5 he was inexorably counted out.

Blindfold: Carlsen beats Aronian with Black in a spectacular King's Indian

Jan Smeets had no trouble acknowledging that he had been completely lost in his blindfold game against Sergey Karjakin, as he was happy enough with the half point that he had saved miraculously. In a Ruy Lopez with 3…Nge7 and 4…g6, White drifted into trouble when he played his knight to e4 on move 17 (better 17.Be4) and followed this up with 20.Nf6+. Things quickly went from bad to worse and with 35…Kf8 Black could have forced his resignation. But even the pawn ending that Karjakin allowed his opponent, was lost for Black if only he had found 46…h5. Now the Dutch grandmaster could save the draw, even if, as usually, he was very short of time for the greater part of the game.
The blindfold game was another eventful affair and again the surprising outcome was a draw. In a Ruy Lopez Smeets lost his c-pawn after a heavy manoeuvring phase. Things looked bleak, but it wasn’t too easy for White to make further progress and when Karjakin made the move Smeets had been waiting and hoping for (58.h4), the vulnerability of his king suddenly became a source of sorrow. In fact, White would have been totally lost had Smeets played 59…Qg1. But being short of time (just like Karjakin) he failed to see this opportunity and the game ended in a repetition of moves. Ironically, Smeets could still play Qg1 in the final position, but he didn’t complain that the threefold repetition had ‘only’ brought him a draw.

Dutchman Jan Smeets managed to draw twice with Sergey Karjakin

The blindfold game between Vasily Ivanchuk and Peter Svidler not surprisingly saw a Grünfeld Defence, an opening in which the Russian is one of today’s greatest specialists. Afterwards he called the opening phase of ‘mild theoretical importance’, as Ivanchuk deviated on move 11 from an earlier game Gelfand-Svidler. In that game White played 11.Be2, Ivanchuk preferred to first play 11.Nf3. Almost forced the players ended up in an ending that Svidler had (of course) looked at before and although Black’s play is not entirely carefree he felt that it should be a draw objectively speaking. As a possible improvement for White he indicated 21.Bc6, the way it went now the point was quickly shared.
In the blindfold game Svidler felt he had missed a good chance when he played 13.Qd2 instead of 13.Qc1. ‘The idea is essentially the same, but it would have saved me a tempo in almost any variation’, as he explained afterwards. He even got into slight problems when Black played 22…Qe7, effectively stopping Ng5, the move White had hoped to make. In the final phase of the game the Russian had to be careful not to lose any material, but when he managed this task the game was drawn.

Boris Gelfand recovered from his poor performance in the first round with a win in the blindfold game against Vugar Gashimov. Nevertheless he called it ‘a stupid game’, as he had spoiled an excellent opening position to end up in a problematic situation. The last trick he wanted to try in order to extricate himself from this situation was 20.Nxd5. Now he was lucky as Gashimov could have played 22…Qb4 and White might as well resign. After 22…Qc7, White’s problems were not over yet, but when Black blundered with 23…Qxc4?, he suddenly was presented with a winning position. For the rest of the game Gelfand kept his eyes on the ball and converted his advantage without further problems.
The blindfold game started slowly. White got a slight edge but nothing for Black to get worried about. The game turned around when Gelfand opened the position and Gashimov snatched a pawn, that his opponent called ‘poisoned’. Soon White was totally lost, but the game was far from over yet. Gelfand spoiled his advantage and in the end he had to win an opposite-coloured bishop ending in a study-like manner (although the Israeli grandmaster was the first to say that he was not sure if this win was waterproof). Gelfand was certainly pleased with his two wins, but he didn’t forget how he obtained them: ‘Two points with bad play’.

The blindfold game between Vladimir Kramnik and Leinier Dominguez was a fascinating fight. Obviously Kramnik emphatically played for a win, but Dominguez fought back in his customary razor-sharp style. The game was decided when in a highly complicated position the Cuban grandmaster continued 36…Kh7 where his only chance was 36…Bf8. With the text-move he invited a forced mate and a couple of moves before this mate would become reality, Dominguez resigned.
In the blindfold game Kramnik played the Pirc Defence, the opening with which he surprised (and beat) Smeets in the recent Corus tournament. Again it looked as if this rather offbeat opening would give him easy and pleasant play, particularly after he bagged a point. But White had compensation for his material deficit and although Kramnik remained better for the rest of the game, Dominguez hung in tenaciously and was rewarded with a draw after 88 moves.

Deep concentration: Leinier Dominguez and Vladimir Kramnik

The blindfold game between Ruslan Ponomariov and Alexander Grischuk saw a Catalan Opening, similar to a game Ponomariov had played with colours reversed against Gelfand in the final of the recent World Cup. Instead of 10…Bb7, as Ponomariov had played, Grischuk went 10…Ba6. White obtained the bishop pair, but with a symmetrical pawn-structure it was difficult to exploit that slight advantage. Both players invested a lot of time as there were always tactics to be considered with opposing rooks on the c-file, but when Grischuk offered the opportunity to repeat moves and agree to a draw, Ponomariov saw no good reason to play on.
At the end of the rapid game Ponomariov walked into the hospitality lounge and wondered what people had thought of his rapid game. He himself wasn’t too happy as he had hoped to play something active, but somehow his Grünfeld ended up in a static position in which he had to suffer for a draw. When on move 32 the queens left the board, Grischuk offered that draw and Ponomariov didn’t have to think long before he accepted.

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“The 40-year old Ukrainian has a reputation of being an unpredictable genius, capable of producing absolutely brlliant games, as well as amateur-like losses from time to time,” Magnus Carlsen wrote on his blog yesterday. Today, at the Amber tournament in Nice, he met with a Chuky in excellent shape, and lost 2-0.

The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament takes place at the Palais de la Mediterranée in Nice, France, from March 12 to 25, 2010. The event is organized by the Association Max Euwe of chess maecenas Joop van Oosterom, which is based in Monaco. The total prize-fund is € 216,000.

The following twelve grandmasters take part: Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2813), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2790), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2782), Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2756), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2750), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2748), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan, 2740), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2737), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2725), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba, 2713) and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands, 2651).

Games round 1

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Round 1 report

First day sensation: top-seed Carlsen loses 2-0 to ‘Mr Amber’
Last night the opening ceremony of the 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament took place at the Chateau de Cremat, a stylish wine chateau perched on a hill overlooking Nice at a half and hour’s drive from the Palais de la Mediterranée, the five-star luxury hotel on the Promenade des Anglais where the grandmasters are staying and playing. The evening started with a degustation of various wines of the house and then the guests of the Van Oosterom family and the players sat down for a delicious dinner. In the opening speech there was special attention for the totally unique place that the Amber tournament occupies in chess history. There have been chess benefactors who sponsored one tournament, two or even three. But no one ever came even close to the astounding 19th edition that the Amber tournament reaches this year.

There were also references to Steely Dan’s Hey Nineteen, Joe Jackson’s Nineteen Forever and Chanel 19 (by some strange coincidence Coco Chanel was presented the famous Chanel logo – two C’s elegantly locked together – by the owner of the Chateau de Cremat about a century ago!) and of course the twelve grandmasters were welcomed, with a special mention for Vasily Ivanchuk, ‘Mr Amber’, who participated in all 19 tournaments. Once the drawing of lots had taken place, we could start to think about the pairings for the first round and the overall chances of the participants. Who is the top-favourite for first place? Vladimir Kramnik, who won a record of six Amber tournaments? Levon Aronian, who won the last two editions? Or Magnus Carlsen, the world’s number one, who very appropriately celebrated his 19th birthday a couple of months ago? In any case the opening round didn’t go as they may have hoped. Not at all.

Today at 14.30 the first round started of a blindfold and rapid spectacle that will keep us entertained for the coming fortnight (the 11th and last round is on March 25). As always the players started with two blindfold sessions (in each of which six GMs played) followed by two rapid sessions and immediately there were some intriguing pairings.

When Ruslan Ponomariov saw at the drawing of lots that he had to play Boris Gelfand in the first round, he wondered aloud if he had to play Gelfand for the rest of his life. What he meant to say was that this was his first official competition since the dramatic final Gelfand and he played in the World Cup last December, a lengthy final that was only decided in the blitz games. Ponomariov’s second remark was that he wanted to have his revenge for that lost final. The only problem was that the first game was a blindfold game and his experience in that discipline was almost zero. In fact he had asked to play a training game on the day of his arrival in Nice. To avoid any complications he decided to play fast and to remain fully concentrated, not even considering the option of going to the toilet if needed. The approach worked well, as with the help of Gelfand his opening was a great success and after 15.Ng5 he felt that he was spoiled for choice when looking for a way to exploit his advantage. The game was practically decided when Ponomariov captured Black’s h-pawn. The rest was simple and he converted without any problems. After the game he was greatly relieved that this game for which he had been so nervous had gone so well. ‘Perhaps it turns out that I am not so bad at blindfold chess.’ He also shared his impression of playing chess on a screen that only shows an empty chess board: ‘It’s just like a computer game!’
Ponomariov completed his ‘revenge’ (to avoid any misunderstanding, he was the first to point out that, of course, these two games cannot be compared to the World Cup final) in the rapid game. Spoiling for a fight he came up with an interesting plan in the Grünfeld, sacrificing an exchange for promising play. He indeed got wonderful compensation when Gelfand played 14.f3? where he should have tried 14.Qe3. Suddenly it was a delight to sit behind the black pieces and Ponomariov fully enjoyed the next phase. White still managed to get into an ending with opposite-coloured bishops, but the two extra black pawns quickly carried the day.

Russian champion Alexander Grischuk had his work cut out for him when he immediately had to play Vladimir Kramnik. There could be no misunderstanding about Kramnik’s intentions as he played almost all his moves instantly. ‘He wanted to trick me’, smiled Grischuk after the game. Playing with white he had to leave the initiative to Black, but to his mind Kramnik went too far in his winning attempt. But even if Black ended up in a difficult position, the situation was still far from lost and things only got hopeless when he reverted to the desperate 38…Nxg4, where it seemed that Black could have stayed in the game with 38…Nf3. Now things were easy for Grischuk and the handful of seconds he still had on the clock proved enough to win an important scalp.
Kramnik struck back in the rapid game. After a strongly played opening he obtained a clear advantage and looking back he concluded that Black’s position was difficult after 34.Rd4. But Kramnik praised his opponent for his inventive defence in the next phase and expressed his doubts whether the position was really winning for White (‘That has to be checked with the computer’). However, Grischuk was once again low on time and after 40…Nc3 (he should have played 40…Nb6) Black certainly was lost. The rest wasn’t difficult anymore and Kramnik wrapped up fairly effortlessly.

The encounter between debutants Dominguez and Gashimov took a relatively quiet course, although the grandmaster from Azerbaijan offered to play a sharp Benoni, an invitation that was quietly turned down with Rodriguez. They ended up in a rook endgame that was slightly better for Black, but it was his lavish use of time that did Dominguez in. With more than ten minutes less on the clock he committed a few inaccuracies and when Gashimov stormed down the board with two passed pawns it was clear that the fight was over. After the game Gashimov was congratulated on his blindfold debut and confessed that he had not especially prepared for this unusual type of chess. ‘I played one training game two days ago against Ruslan (Ponomariov), this was my second game.’
The rapid game was a variation of the Italian Game ‘in which many games have been played’, as the database experts call it these days. The key question was if the knight that Gashimov managed to post on e7, was an asset or a weakness. Frantically he calculated variations, considering sacrifices here and there, but there was nothing that worked. In the meantime, Dominguez just stayed put and maintained his position. After some further manoeuvring it was clear that this balance was not going to be upset and a draw was agreed.

Magnus Carlsen openend his blindfold game against Vasily Ivanchuk with 1.a3, aiming for an open battle, unburdened by theory and steering clear of any possible preparation of his opponent. The plan wasn’t a success, even if he managed to win a pawn, but Black got such good compensation that the Norwegian top-seed must have regretted his unorthodox approach. He kept looking for his chances, but Ivanchuk remained fully concentrated and his advantage was such that at some point the white position should collapse. An oversight on move 31 sped up the end of the game and floored another top-favourite.
In the rapid game Carlsen tried to fight back with the Poisoned Pawn of the Najdorf Defence. Afterwards Ivanchuk felt that he again had had sufficient compensation for the sacrificed pawn, but was reluctant to give a concrete assessment of the game as it had been so ‘very complicated’. One move he criticized was 25…Kf7, which allowed him to increase the pressure. They ended up in a rook endgame of three pawns versus two, which Black failed to defend, leading to a sensational 2-0 defeat of the top-seed.

‘It’s been a while, clearly’, Peter Svidler commented after he had beaten Jan Smeets in his first Amber blindfold game in three years. Svidler had an edge from the opening, but Smeets should have been able to hold a draw. Things got funny when Svidler, played his 39th move thinking Black’s bishop was on e6 (it was on d7). That it was not, he found out when Black played 39…Ne6+ and picked up the pawn on g5. This was not a problem in itself as now White can go 40.Nd5+ and pick up the b6 pawn, but not knowing where the black bishop was, Svidler now reasoned that it was on c6, which ‘prevented’ this knight jump. Smeets on his part got confused by White’s 44.Bxg6 and panicked with 45…Be6 when 45…Kg5 was still a draw. Well, in fact he would have even won, as (still thinking the black bishop was on c6) Svidler had planned to answer 45…Kg5 with 46.Be4 Kxh6 47.Bc6, thinking he would capture a bishop but in fact giving one away. After this comedy of errors had ended, Smeets was left with a lost position and had to resign soon.
The rapid game ended in a draw. In a classical Ruy Lopez Black got good play and when he started piling up on White’s a pawn, Smeets decided that instead of defending a pawn that will drop off anyway at some point, he better hand it over immediately for some activity. This turned out to be an excellent exchange and at a certain point his compensation even seemed to turn into more. But his advantage got never concrete and both players could live with the draw that materialized.

Sergey Karjakin obtained a winning position in the blindfold game when in a sharp opening tussle Levon Aronian committed a serious error. Instead of 19…Bg5?, the Armenian grandmaster should have played 19…Bh4 or 19…Rb4. Things looked bleak for Aronian, but then he didn’t win himself a reputation for ‘slow-motion’ swindling for nothing last year. And this time, too, he almost escaped when Karjakin allowed a repetition of moves. But Aronian was going for the whole hog and thinking he was winning he didn’t repeat moves, but played 36…Nxc3, which turned out to be a losing move.
In the rapid game Levon Aronian showed a different face and put his opponent under pressure right from the opening. Perhaps this permanent pressure also explained the mistake Karjakin made at the end of the game. Instead of hanging on in a dubious ending he blundered and even got mated.

Report & photos © official website, more here

Videos

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN: Blindfold | Rapid, via TWIC

• Beginner's Repertoire at Chessgames.com
  The link presents a game collection from Chessgames.com with great classic games showing you how to crush people with the Moeller and other Giuoco lines.  It's essentially a complete repertoire in games -- just click your way through them and you get the basic theoretical ideas and tactics.
• "Don't Shoot the Piano Player!" by Leviathan at Chessgames.com
  Another great games collection that serves as an excellent introduction to Giuoco Piano themes and ideas.
• Exeter Chess Club's The Italian Game for Beginners by Dr. Dave (e-book in PDF)
  Tricks, traps and tactical ideas in the Italian lines, including the Evans, Moeller Attack, and others.  This little e-book makes a great beginner's introduction to Giuoco Piano themes.
• Swansong of the Giuoco Piano, Part 1 (Kibitzer #64 at ChessCafe) by Tim Harding
• The Giuoco Piano, Part 2: The Case for the Defence (Kibitzer #65 at ChessCafe) by Tim Harding
• The Giuoco Piano on Trial, Part 3: The Summing Up (Kibitzer #69 at ChessCafe) by Tim Harding
• The Giuoco Piano on Trial: White Wins the Case (Kibitzer #70 at ChessCafe) by Tim Harding
• The Giuoco Piano Revisited (Kibitzer #118 at ChessCafe) by Tim Harding
  This five part series of articles on the Giuoco Piano lines with c3 and d4 for White -- mostly focused on the Moeller Attack and Rossolimo's Bd2 line with only some discussion of others -- gives a great overview to the Giuoco Piano theory and is remarkably pro-White in the final analysis.  In the last article, Harding returns to the Giuoco by way of reviewing Pinski's book, focusing on the critical lines vs the Moeller Attack and the Rossolimo Variation.

• The Lolli Attack by Michael Goeller 
• The Lolli Attack at Chess Teaching and Lessons 
• Back to Basics (Opening Lanes #121 at ChessCafe, January 2009) by Gary Lane
  Covers the Lolli and Fried Liver attacks.
• Giuoco Piano, Two Knights, Fried Liver (C57) by Richard Westbrook (Farragut Chess Club 2006) -- see also Paul Morphy Fried Liver Attack.
  A useful article on how to win the Fried Liver Attack.
• Fried Liver Attack, Pratt-Wolford 1976 by John Pratt
  A useful introduction to the Fried Liver for beginners.
• The Fegatello Attack (Unorthodox Openings Newsletter #2) by Paul Valle
  Available in the archive or download the issue of UON.  Offers some deep analysis showing how Black might survive the traditional Fried Liver with 6.Nxf7.
• The Fried Liver Attack, Part One by Boris Alterman (June 1, 2008)
• The Fried Liver Attack, Part Two by Boris Alterman (June 6, 2008)
• The Fried Liver Attack, Part Three by Boris Alterman (June 13, 2008)
• The Fried Liver Attack, Part Four by Boris Alterman (June 16, 2008)
• The Fried Liver Attack, Part Five by Boris Alterman (June 19, 2008)
• The Fried Liver Attack, Part Six by Boris Alterman (June 29, 2008)
  A useful presentation for amateur players focused mostly on the 6.Nxf7 lines, culminating in the annotated game Morphy - NN, New Orleans simul 1858 which features the Lolli Attack.

• The Fritz and Ulvestad Variations by Steven Craig Miller for the Renaissance Knights Club
  A very useful quick-start guide on these critical lines.
• Open Games Revisited: The Two Knights (November 2005, Kibitzer #114) by Tim Harding
  Covers both the Fritz/Ulvestadt and main lines after Ng5.
  
• Charbonneau - Schneider, USCL 2009 without notes -- I hope to find some material on the web analyzing this game.
• Death of the Main-Line Ulvestad by Mark Ginsburg
  A very pro-White analysis refuting the Ulvestad.  See also his comments on Zierk - Friedel, embedded.
• Vallejo-Pons vs Naiditsch, European Teams 2007
• New Investigations in the Two Knights Defense (September 2008, Kibitzer #148) by Tim Harding
• Friedel's Fritz-Ulvestad Wins Again by Michael Goeller 
• GM Josh Friedel Plays the Ulvestad by Michael Goeller
• Two Knights Defense, Fritz-Ulvestad Variation by Michael Goeller
• Two Knights, Ulvestad by Katar at Chessvideos  
• Two Knights Fritz Notes by Pete Tamburro (forum only requires free registration to access).

Naiditsch, Vallejo, Jobava, Pelletier, Timofeev, Martinovic, Skoberne, Krasenkow, Inarkiev, Nisipeanu, Efimenko, Maiorov and Nepomniachtchi are the names of the thirteen players who are still on 100% in Rijeka. Three rounds at the European Individual Championship have been played.

The 11th European Individual Men and Women’s Chess Championship is held from 5th to 19th of March 2010 in Rijeka, in new Zamet Centre sports hall. The event is organized by chess club “Rijeka”, in agreement with the Croatian Chess Federation under the auspices of the City of Rijeka and the European Chess Union. It is open to all players representing the chess federations which comprise the European Chess Union (FIDE zones 1.1 to 1.9) regardless of their title or rating. There is also no limit of participants per federation.

The championship is based on Swiss system in accordance with the ECU Tournament Rules and FIDE Rules of Chess. The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. As always, the European Championship is a qualification event for the next World Cup. According to FIDE regulations and the decision of the ECU Board, 22 players will qualify.

Rounds 1-3

Top seed Zoltan Almasi started with a draw with Black against Italian GM Lexy Ortega. In this first round, played on Saturday, Russian top GMs Alexander Motylev and Evgeny Tomashevsky, the reigning European Champion, also started with draws. The biggest upsets were IM Artem Smirnov beating GM Evgeniy Najer, IM Pavel Potapov beating Viktor Laznicka, FM Burak Firat beating GM Konstantin Sakaev and FM Danny Raznikov beating GM Zaven Andriasian. On one of the lowest boards, Dutch GM Friso Nijboer was held to a draw by Denis Kadric (2171).

The second round saw two draws on the top boards, in Stefansson-Bacrot and Movsesian-Ragger. Moldav top GM Viktor Bologan lost to Bulgarian GM Valentin Iotov and GM Avetik Grigoryan defeated GM Kiril Georgiev. Ivan Cheparinov, long-time team member of Veselin Topalov, lost to Spanish GM Josep Manuel Lopez Martinez, but another Bulgarian of the same generation did better: IM Momchil Nikolov defeated GM Boris Savchenko. FM Hamitevici Vladimir managed to beat GM Mateusz Bartel in this round.

Round 3 was played on International Women’s Day, and all the women playing in the tournament received a rose “as a small sign of appreciation to all women players and all the ladies participating in the organization of this big sporting event”.

Dutch ladies Lisa Schut, Anne Haast and Arlette van Weersel, with roses at the chess boards

In the women’s section there are four leaders with a perfect score after three rounds: Tatiana Kosintseva (RUS), who is the only survivor from the ten best rated players, Monica Socko (POL), Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant (SCO) and Irina Chelushkina (SRB).

Back to the men. After three rounds there are still 13 players with a 100% score. Among them are the two young international masters Sasa Martinovic (CRO) and Jure Skoberne (SLO) who in round 3 defeated GMs Vorobiov and Howell respectively. David Navara, these days boasting a 2708 rating, lost to Yannick Pelletier yesterday. Cheparinov went down again, this time against IM Artem Smirnov. IM Pavel Povatov and FM Burak Firat had more successes: the former defeated GM Tomi Nyback, the latter beat GM Gregorz Gajewski.

Today’s round will see some interesting encounters: Vallejo Pons-Timofeev, Krasenkow-Jobava, Naiditsch-Efimenko, Pelletier-Inarkiev, Skoberne-Nisipeanu, Nepomniashtchi-Maiorov and Adams-Martinovic. In the women’s section there are two clashes at the top: Arakhamia-T.Kosintseva and Socko-Chelushkina.

A nice curiosity about the European Individual Men and Women’s Chess Championship in Rijeka

For the first time, there will be a ‘priest’ to represent – unofficially – the State of Vaticano. Unofficially because Vaticano is not (yet) affiliated to FIDE.

The name of the priest who will partecipate to the European Championship is Don Valerio Piro, from Neapolis; he got the formal authorization from Cardinal Sepe (note that Cardinal is more than Bishop; the Cardinal reports directly to the Pope).

Don Valerio is candidate-master for the Italian Chess Federation. Officially he is registered as Italy, but he will play with the flag of Vaticano. This is the first partecipation of a representative of the little State that is not afffiliated to FIDE. But only for the moment, as there are many priest that are good chessplayer.

Historically, the first (important) was Ruy Lopez – the inventor of the famous opening. The last one is William Lombardy, assistant of Bobby Fischer.

There is the idea to organize a championship for ‘ecclesiastics’ (priests, friars, monks, nuns), then there will be the possibility to create a Chess Federation of the state of Vaticano. So may be that it will be possible to see a team fom Vaticano also in the Olympiads.

The news had a good interest in the Italian newspapers and press agency. Please find enclosed the links (sorry, but the articles are in Italian!). Please note that the most important ‘catholic’ newspaper, Avvenire, dedicated a complete page to the news.

• http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/regioni/campania/2010/02/28/visualizza_new.html_1709041681.html
• http://napoli.repubblica.it/dettaglio/scacchi-parroco-di-boscotrecase-primo-sacerdote-agli-europei/1875352
• http://www.ilvesuvio.it/index.php?page=0&news=8711
• http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Regioni/Campania/Prete-ai-Campionati-europei-di-scacchi-Al-mio-rientro-lezioni-in-parrocchia_70956501.html
• http://www.libero-news.it/regioneespanso.jsp?id=360194

Thanks and best regards!
Adolivio Capece

Selection of games rounds 1-3

Game viewer by ChessTempo

The venue is the Zamet Centre (16,830 m2), which hosts various facilities: a sports hall with max 2,380 seats, local community offices, a library, 13 retail and service spaces and a garage with 250 parking spaces.

These days the sports hall is occupied with tables, seats and chess sets...

...and hundreds of chess players

Croatian chess fans watching the games from the side

Vallejo Pons, from Linares to Rijeka, with Michael Adams next to him

Local hero GM Marin Bosiocic (r.), here against GM Ernesto Inarkiev, has many fans

Top seed GM Antoaneta Stefanova (l.), here against WGM Sopiko Guramishvili

Second seeded is IM Nadezhda Kosintseva, but another favourite...

...is her sister Tatiana, two times European Champion already

Photos courtesy of the official website, more here

Links

• Official website
• All details and statistics
• Games in PGN: Men | Women via TWIC

In what was probably the strongest Bundesliga match ever, OSC Baden-Baden Saturday lost for the first time in more than three years, against their biggest rival Werder Bremen. The two teams are leading the standings, together with SG Solingen, with 20 points out of 11 matches. Games, photos and a video.

In the 10th round of the Schachbundesliga, Werder Bremen won 5-3 against Baden-Baden. It was the first loss in more than three years for the German champion. The match took place last Saturday at the Kongresshaus of the Stadthalle in Heidelberg, and match winners were Alexander Areshchenko and Michael Roiz who defeated Michael Adams and Arkadij Naiditsch respectively. All other matches ended in a draw.

ICC Chess.FM’s Macauley Peterson was in Heidelberg too this weekend and made the following video on the victory for the ‘Green Shirts’.

On Sunday Baden-Baden recovered and easily defeated Hamburger SK with 1.5-6.5. On board 1 Anand beat Kempinski with a nice combination. Shirov, Movsesian, Naiditsch and Heine Nielsen also scored full points. Werder Bremen did even better by crushing host club Heidelberg-Handschuhsheim 7.5-0.5. Winning 2.5-5.5 against SK Turm Emsdetten, SG Solingen managed to reach a shared first place together with Baden-Baden and Werder Bremen.

Selection of games played last weekend

Game viewer by ChessTempo

The venue, with Baden-Baden against Werder 'Green Shirts' Bremen

The World Champion, scoring 1.5/2 this weekend...

...including an easy draw with Black against Vugar Gashimov using fine, Archangelsk Ruy Lopez preparation

Peter Svidler, another Baden-Baden top gun...

...but it was Bremen's Michael Roiz, together with...

...Alexander Areshchenko who decided the important match

Photos by Christian Bossert & Georgios Souleidis

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGNvia TWIC

With three more draws in round 7, the drawing percentage Saturday rose to 77% in Linares. Veselin Topalov kept his 1.5 point lead, with three more rounds to go.

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 7 report by Rick Goetzee

Five centuries ago
Before telling you about the happenings in today’s 7th round, we’re going back 500 years. Because that’s when the chess tradition in Linares was anticipated. Juan Huarte de San Juan (1530-1592) is the patron of Spanish psychology. He was a writer, philosopher and professor at the university of Baeza. One of his publications was Examen de ingenios in which he defined profiles of people who excelled at different professions. One of the profiles was that of a chess player, as Huarte was very fond of the game.

The Huarte de San Juan street in Linares

According to Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Huarte described personal and psychological attributes which match Kasparov’s characteristics more than 400 years later. As he was a high-profile and controversial figure the Spanish inquisition brought him to court and he was convicted. Then he promised that he would give the heritage of all of his work to the church and not to his nine children. This saved his life. His wish was to be buried in the Santa Maria church in the heart of Linares. With a twinkle in his eye Ljubo said: “It’s clear that the spirit of Huarte is still present in Linares and that’s why we have this great chess tradition.”

The Santa Maria church in the heart of Linares

I also had a word with one of the organisers, Señor Paco Albalate. After reading all the comments from people expressing their disappointment with this year’s tournament, I had to ask him a few questions.

Q: Last year the announcement was made that Dubai would organise the first half this year. What happened?
A: They made a lot of promises, also about prize money. But in the end nothing materialised and we don’t really know why. But we are working with a number of candidates for next year’s tournament. Also, next year a number of changes will be introduced but it’s too early to give any details about that.
Q: With the economic recession how difficult was it to put the tournament together this year?
A: Very easy. We cut the budget by 30%. We cut the prize money, brought the number of players down and we cut hotel costs. And what helped was that the players generously accepted the changed conditions.
Q: What about the rule of not allowing draw offers before move 40?
A: Yes we introduced a version of the Sofia rules. We wrote to all players beforehand because it was important for us that they understood why we were doing this instead of just enforcing the rule.
Q: How does it feel that people are saying that Linares is no longer the Wimbledon or the Tour de France of chess?
A: It’s clear that there are tournaments that are stronger. It’s clear that Corus is a very important tournament with a different format than we have here. It’s true that the Tal Memorial is a great tournament. But we have organised a first class tournament for 27 years. This year it may be a bit less than we are used to, but in 2011, if our projects work out, we will surprise the chess world.

There were three more draws in Linares today. Grischuk took nine minutes for his response to Gelfand’s 1.c4; eventually the Russian decided to go for 1…Nf6. The players ended up in a complicated rook ending which was drawn after 60 moves.

Alexander Grischuk pondering over his first move

Gashimov-Topalov was a Nf6/Bc5 Ruy Lopez in which Gashimov sacrificed a pawn. The game went along like Kamsky-Topalov 2009 till move 7 when Kamsky played 7.d4 followed by 7…Qe7 8.dxc5 Nxc5 9.Nc3. Svidler-Ivanchuk 2009 was followed a while longer which deviated with 10.Qxg7 Bxd4 11.Qg3 a6. At the right moment Topalov gave back the pawn and had the better chances, but a draw was agreed on move 42.

Aronian-Vallejo was the most interesting game of the round. In a Slav defence Vallejo came up with the mysterious 7…Qc7 and then 11…Qb6. It looked like a loss of tempo but eventually he reached a promising position with two rooks against the queen. Then the Spaniard won a pawn and then another, but suddenly the screen showed ½-½. What had happened? Nobody knew. Ljubo: “He is two pawns up and has good winning chances. He must have been very tired.”

Games round 7 with brief annotations

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The chess hotel: Anibal

Photos © Rick Goetzee

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

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Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

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

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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

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

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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

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

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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

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

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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

Round 9 of the Corus Chess Tournament with regular updates. Ivanchuk and Shirov already drew in an Archangelsk Ruy Lopez.

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 8

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Round 9

Before the round I went for a stroll over the beach and took a few pictures.

It's pretty cold again in Wijk aan Zee after a warmer period last week...

...and yes, it snowed again!

Ice and snow dancing together

Snow-covered beach I

Snow-covered beach II

Snow-covered beach III

Closer to the water the sand takes over

Snow and sea water mixed and turned into ice again

15:51 CET
After the second rest day, the tournament continues today with the 9th round, and a very theoretical round it is. Ivanchuk and Shirov already drew in an Archangelsk Ruy Lopez which they also had on the board, with the same colours, in another game 13 years ago in Belgrade. It was also very similar to Leko-Caruana of round 6.

Tiviakov is trying his Alapin Sicilian against the World Champ and there 11.Qe3 seems to be new but not very dangerous. In a Hedgehog, Van Wely has compromised his pawn structure but has more space against Leko. Nakamura just repeated moves against Karjakin but then continued playing in a Nimzo that might get sharp. Carlsen, who was pondering for a while before making his first move, chose 1.d4 against Kramnik and just made an interesting pawn sac. Smeets and Caruana left theory quickly in a Taimanov Sicilian that’s relatively quiet so far.

16:04
Right after his game against Shirov, Ivanchuk came into the press room and showed Cora, a longtime member of the Corus press team and who likes chess problems, a mate-in-three problem. You can join Cora and try to solve it too:

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C

Corus 2010 | Round 8 Standings Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Round 8 Standings Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Round 8 Standings Grandmaster Group C

Links

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

Alexei Shirov was held to a draw easily by Nigel Short in round 6 of the Corus Chess Tournament. Besides a few quick draws, Leko beat Caruana, Dominguez beat Tiviakov and Kramnik beat Van Wely.

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 6

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Round 6

15:10 CET Despite the “friendly request” from the organizers to avoid short draws, Ivanchuk and Nakamura repeated moves in a Slav after 14 moves and then shook hands. Nakamura’s explanation after the game: “The thing is that oddly enough I had prepared this variation, looked at everything except 13.a5. I looked at about four other lines and then I overlooked this 13.a5 line and after this 13.a5 I more or less have to force a draw I think, because otherwise I am significantly worse. If I had the choice between playing a worse position with Black againt Ivanchuk or taking a draw obviously I’m gonna take a draw in that situation.

Not long after that, Anand and Carlsen also split the point. Carlsen left the venue quickly but Anand was happy to give some explanation: “I wanted to try. He surprised me with this opening; I’ve been checking lots of other stuff but exactly this Dragon I didn’t expect from him. (…) It seems that I just have to force the draw with 19.Qh4. He goes 19…e5, takes, bishop takes, swap everything down, Qe7, Qe5 and it seems to be a draw. (…) My problem is that if I don’t force the draw where I did, on the 19th move, then it takes very little for me to be worse. Either his e-pawn comes to e5 and if I don’t force the draw I’m just worse because my bishop is really bad now. It’s only good if I can keep this pawn on e7. I must have missed something in the opening.”

The main other attraction, of course, is Shirov-Short. The Latvian seems to have real chances of improving his position slowly; might become a tough afternoon for Short! Leko-Caruano is a sharp, interesting fight in a theoretical Arkhangelsk Ruy Lopez. The current evaluation is anyone’s guess and the clocks also don’t give hints in this case. The same can be said of Kramnik-Van Wely (a difficult KID) and Karjakin-Smeets, It’s clear the two Dutchmen will have to work hard for their points but so far they seem to have avoided yesterday’s disasters. Their compatriot Tiviakov has a solid position against Dominguez. For not-so-mysterious reasons, we bet on a draw in this game.

in Group B, Anish Giri faces Tommy Nyback – we’ll come back to the game in a later stage – and in C, Ray Robson will surely try to increase his lead against Bok. Look out for the endgames Reinderman and L’ Ami are playing – potential instructiveness is in the air.

17:03 CET
As far as the A group is concerned, this 6th round is not too exciting so far. Short quite easily held Shirov to a draw, and received a “Congratulations!” whisper from Vladimir Kramnik on stage, to which the Englishman answered: “Thank you, it’s one of the best achievements in my career!” Soon afterwards Smeets and Karjakin also drew their game.

Much more fun are the B and C groups. Giri’s move 21…Kd6! was praised by the journos in the press room and one of them was reminded by the games of ex-World Champion Tigran Petrosian. Nyback might well become Giri’s next victim today.

Ni Hua-Muzychuk is a good one as well, where the Chinese GM gave a bishop, knight and rook to win the opponent’s queen and three pawns. As a result a highly rare material imbalance is left on the board. Howell and Sutovsky are in for a long game today and in C, Gupta-Vocaturo has gotten quite sharp. Bok seems to have more than enough compensation for the exchange he lost to tournament leader Robson.

17:20 CET
Just after that last update, Bok missed a trick by Robson, who is now leading C with an amazing 5.5/6. Giri also won again and will do the press conference also today. Who doesn’t want to hear Anish’ own thoughts about his 21st move?

19:56 CET
It turned out to be another bad day for the Dutchies in the A group. Tiviakov did win a pawn against Dominguez but his position remained very passive. The Cuban managed to keep his opponent’s queenside locked and in the ending his better pieces and passed pawn decided the game immediately. Kramnik played the – these days popular – Gligoric System against Van Wely’s KID, and had a good answer to Black’s g5-g4: a strong white-squared bishop and control over the b-file in the ending. The ex-World Champion kept on playing strongly and eventually forced resignation in a knight ending. Leko scored his first win of the tournament against Caruana after winning a piece for two pawns in a complicated Archangelsk middlegame.

In B, Giri’s win meant that the Dutchman increased his lead because Howell is defending a most probably lost queen ending. Ni Hua keeps chances for promotion as well after winning that umbalanced middlegame against Muzychuk. In C, Li Chao is only half a point behind Robson thanks to a black victory against Lie.

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C

Corus 2010 | Round 6 Standings Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Round 6 Standings Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Round 6 Standings Grandmaster Group C

Links

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

Alexei Shirov also defeated Loek van Wely today and now leads the Corus Chess Tournament with 5 out of 5. The Spaniard is 1.5 points ahead of Carlsen, Nakamura and Ivanchuk. Giri is in sole lead in the B group again, and so is Robson in the C group.

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 5

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Round 5

14:59 CET
Yesterday was the first of three rest days and for the TV program De Wereld Draait Door a football match between Holland and Norway was organized, in which both teams played with the official shirts. Unfortunately I couldn’t be there but it’s not clear if it had made a difference since the DWDD team didn’t even allow official Corus photographer Fred Lucas to shoot on the scene. I did hear that that Kjetil Lie is a fantastic footballer and that he basically decided matters by himself, with 4 goals in a match that was won 5-1 by the Norwegians.

Today it’s chess again, and the first that catches the eye is Vladimir Kramnik’s opening choice with Black against Jan Smeets. A) Not the Petroff, and B)… the Pirc. Yes, the opening that’s not considered to be a real test to 1.e4, and the opening that’s mainly used by GMs who want to beat weaker opponents during the first few rounds of 9-round Swisses. Kramnik might well be trying to win this one, since in his (only) previous game against Smeets, he was easily held to a draw in a Scotch, when the ex-World Champion played for Groningen in the Dutch league in March 2007.

In the top encounter Nakamura-Carlsen White goes for ultra-solid play with a Delayed Exchange against the Ruy. Tiviakov is in a similar mood (his usual mood) and tries his pet Qe2 against Karjakin, who makes it look totally harmless. Caruana went for 1.d4 against Dominguez and it looks like he has to be careful already in a Grünfeld. Short has successfully managed avoid theoretical waters and has a classical, tiny edge against Ivanchuk’s IQP position.

Leko and Anand are in a very unclear, queenless middlegame arising from a 4…Bc5 Ruy Lopez while Shirov continues aggressively against Van Wely. About his move 9…g4, which we’ve seen in a similar position in the Korchnoi-Spassy match last month, Jon Speelman said on the Chess.FM broadcast (with typical native British accent): “What a hero, what a hero!” Host Mig said “it seems like these days this is a move before breakfast”.

16:32 CET
Except for a quick draw between Leko & Anand and So & Harikrishna in group B, all games are still running. We were wrong about Caruana-Dominguez: after the strong move 20.Re6! it’s Black who is in danger. At the moment of writing Caruana is thinking about his 24th move, where Qd8! seems close to winning.

Short is still trying to get more than an edge, now in an ending, and after Van Wely’s exchange sacrifice against Shirov it looks about equal there as well. In Smeets-Kramnik, 8.e5 looks dubious as it leads by force to an ending where Black is fine, if not already better. The youngest of the three Dutchmen is under pressure there. For a while Nakamura seemed to have serious pressure against Carlsen, with a menacing knight on f5, but with some cool defensive moves Carlsen avoided real problems. The long line Nakamura went for, starting with 23.Qh4, looks risky. Tiviakov and Karjakin seem to be heading to a draw, although Black might be more comfortable.

Naiditsch-Nisipeanu is an interesting Panov Caro-Kann in group B where the complications seem to favour White.

Giri is doing well again, in a better ending against Sutovsky. Peng-Robson from C is another good one to follow today.

18:07 CET
Anish Giri also beat Emil Sutovsky and is now on a fantastic 4/5. Ni Hua probably won’t win today, and so the reigning Dutch champion will take the sole lead in the B group again. A good reason to have him doing the press conference! This just finished in the press room, and Anish explained his success as follows: “They just make some mistakes and then I win.” Press officer: “OK, but this group is stronger than the Dutch Championship. They have 2700.” Giri: “Yes, but they also make mistakes.”

Meanwhile, Naiditsch beat Nisipeanu in a very powerful game, and in C Robson beat Peng with Black. Kramnik outplayed Smeets in the ending, and to the question why he went for the Pirc, the Russian answered that he was was sure Smeets would refute it. “The problem is I’m playing the Petroff for a very long time already and I had no doubt he was going to refute the opening and then I thought: I still have a long career and if he’s going to refute it, what am I going to do. For this game I thought: I can do it with Anand, but not with this guy.”

20:01 CET
Van Wely collapsed against Shirov, and so the Spaniard is now on an amazing 5/5. “I believe that he definitely shouldn’t take on c6 immediately. After that all the time I have this idea of …c5 and doing something on the diagonal”, the tournament leader said after today’s game. He thought first Re1 would have been better, after which it’s roughly equal.

Nakamura pressed a lot today, and “deserves credit for declining my draw offer”, as Carlsen said after the game. The American eventually reached an ending with rook, two knights and two pawns against rook, bishop and three pawns, but it was impossible to win this ending. Caruana was disappointed as he was almost sure he missed a win against Dominguez. He thought 24…Bf6 was an adequate answer to 24.Qd8, but then 25.Rc1 Bxe7 26.Rxc6 Bxd8 27.Rc8 wins a piece.

Short also had to be satisfied with a draw, and he complimented his opponent Ivanchuk for his great defence. “Against any other GM I would have won this.” In our opinion the Englishman is playing fine so far, and fully deserves his return into the A group. Tiviakov easily survived Karjakin’s bit of pressure. In B, Howell beat Ni to take over clear second place. The Englishman is half a point behind Giri.

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C

Corus 2010 | Round 5 Standings Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Round 5 Standings Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Round 5 Standings Grandmaster Group C

Links

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

Although not too convincingly, Alexei Shirov also won his 4th game in Wijk aan Zee, against Jan Smeets. Going into the first rest day, the Spaniard from Latvia leads with 4/4, a full point ahead of Carlsen, Nakamura and Ivanchuk, who defeated Loek van Wely.

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 4

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Round 4

15:04 CET
It promises to be another very interesting round at Corus! All eyes are on Alexei Shirov, who can increase his lead even further if he manages to beat Dutchman Jan Smeets. However, Smeets’ second GM Spike Ernst just told us he is reasonably happy in the theoretical Petroff they’re playing so far. A razor-sharp 6.Bg5 Najdorf can be seen in Ivanchuk-Van Wely. Chucky played the underestimated line with 8.Qe2 against Van Wely’s 7…Nbd7 and looks in excellent shape already.

Hikaru Nakamura bravely played the Dutch Defence against Vishy Anand and Nigel Short is no less adventurous with his Portugese variation of the Scandinavian.
More conventional theory can be seen by Dominguez and Leko, grinding out one of the main lines of the Marshall Ruy Lopez. Finally, more subtle manoeuvring can be expected in Kramnik-Tiviakov and Karjakin-Caruana (which, by the way, might well end in a draw any minute).

In the B-group, Akobian is trying out another Tarrasch Defence against Erwin L’Ami which we’ll be following closely, and we would also like to draw your attention to two games in the C-Group: Van Kampen-Plukken is a very interesting ‘ Shirov gambit’ against the Philidor while Swinkels-Muzychuk started rather funny as well. Enjoy!

16:15 CET
As expected, Van Wely quickly lost against Ivanchuk. There was some amazement in the press room when Ivanchuk didn’t go for 24.Qc8+ and 25.Rd7+, winning the queen (as also pointed out in the comments), but in fact the line he played wins even quicker.

Anand and Nakamura drew their game. In the post-mortem Nakamura made a strong impression. Perhaps White had an edge but Nakamura defended without much problems.
Meanwhile, Shirov is still pressing against Smeets. Leko and Dominguez are having fun it seems and Kramnik-Tiviakov seems to be a model IQP game. Will Tivi be able to hold? We expected a quick draw with Karjakin and Caruana, but they’re still playing. Looks like Karjakin is trying hard to win the game. PD: Well, after all he has the classical Ruy Lopez Exchange pawn majority…

In the B Group, let’s just note Dimitri Reinderman looks fine against Howell. In Group C, two games have finished already: Benjamin Bok crushed Niels Grandelius and Van Kampen’s Shirov Gambit proved successful against Sjoerd Plukkel.

18:00 CET
We just witnessed Shirov’s press conference about his win against Smeets: he was quite lucky, as he admitted his ‘ attack’ was just a bluff, though the audience surely didn’t mind. The computer indicated that 33.Kh1 would have been better, but Shirov said he felt both king moves had their disadvantages and it was just impossible to evaluate which was the right one. In any case, Smeets’ 33…Rcd8? ended the game immediately, where 33…Rce8 would have at least kept the balance in Black’s favour. Asked about his ambitions for the rest of the tournament, Shirov said he mainly wanted to avoid missing moves like 27…Bh7. The entire press conference will be up later, of course.

The other games in Group A ended in a draw, although especially Tiviakov won’t be happy with the result. In the press room, around move 25 a win for Black was predicted. Kramnik miraculously held the position.

In Group B, Harikrishna scored a win with the King’s Indian Attack over Naiditsch. Reinderman is still suffering a bit against Howell; all other games ended in a draw as well. In Group C, the boys were separated from the men – in fact, there are no ‘ mercy draws’ at all yet, although Muzychuk is still hanging in there. But then, after all, she is a lady.

01:27 CET
Reinderman eventually lost the endgame against Howell and is on a terrible 0.5/4 now. Compatriots l’Ami (2.5) and Giri (3) started their Corus better. In C, with 3.5/4 Robson and Li Chao are a full point ahead of a pack of five players. Wednesday is the first of three rest days.

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C

Corus 2010 | Round 4 Standings Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Round 4 Standings Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Round 4 Standings Grandmaster Group C

Links

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

Three draws and four victories for the black pieces, that’s the scoe of round 3 in Wijk aan Zee’s Grandmaster Group A. All Dutch GMs lost with White: Smeets to Ivanchuk, Tiviakov to Shirov and Van Wely to Carlsen. Nakamura won again; he beat Short.

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 3

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Round 3

15:34 CET
After two hours of play, Tiviakov has a horrible position against tournament leader Shirov – look at White’s rooks! Karjakin came with a new answer to the popular 5.Qc2 pawn sac against the Queen’s Indian. His 20…0-0 was a TN compared to e.g. Leko-Barcrot and Nyback-Wojtaszek of last year. The Ukrainian seems to have equalised comfortably. Short is playing a very rare set-up against Nakamura’s Najdorf, to keep the game as quiet as possible. In an Archangelsk Ruy Lopezn. Anand still has to prove whether he has enough compensation against Dominguez. Smeets and his second Sipke Ernst didn’t manage to predict Ivanchuk’s opening choice but White looks at least OK after grabbing the h-pawn. Caruana might have a tiny edge against Kramnik, who again opted for the Petroff. In the next update we’ll also look at groups B and C.

18:13 CET
A good day for Black! Shirov defeated Tiviakov nicely and just gave a press conference, which will be available later over here at ChessVibes. He said that White is probably lost already after 23…Kxd7. After his win in round 1, Van Wely lost twice; today Carlsen was too strong. The Norwegian used an interesting pawn sacrifice in the QGD and quickly won two back to win the rook ending. It seems that the Dutchman shouldn’t have traded queens, to keep the intermediate move f4-f5 as a possibility.

Short ‘chose the wrong plan’ according to Nakamura and was blown away quickly. The American GM continues the great form he showed in Turkey last week.

Smeets’s king was assualted with almost all of Ivanchuk’s pieces. White went down after 27.Qe2? where 27.R5d3 to cover the third rank avoids Black’s plan for the moment.

Besides all this fireworks we saw many draws today, including the encounter between the leader and the tailender Giri and Reinderman in group B. Ni Hua joined Giri in the lead thanks to a black win against Nyback in a Grünfeld ending.

In C, Swaminathan fell for a well-known opening trap against Swinkels. Vocaturo quickly beat Van Kampen with an aggressive 6.Bg5 system. Plukkel lost without a chance against Li Chao and Gupta beat Kuipers.

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C

Corus 2010 | Round 2 Standings Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Round 2 Standings Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Round 2 Standings Grandmaster Group C

Links

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

World Champion Viswanathan Anand began his 2010 campaign with a solid draw against GM Sergei Karjakin in the first round of the Group A Corus Super GM tournament at Wijk Aan Zee, The Netherlands. Karjakin-Anand Ruy Lopez game lasted 40 moves.

In other key games, Dutchman Sergei Tiviakov held World No.1 Magnus Carlsen to a draw in a 27 move Ruy Lopez game. Tal Memorial winner and former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik split the points with Cuban Grandmaster and former World Blitz Champion Leinier Perez Dominguez. The quiet Petroff game lasted just 23 moves.

In a Group B match reigning Dutch Champion Grandmaster Anish Giri defeated higher rated Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna. The Slav game saw Hari rattling the first 13 moves in under a minute, showing the strength of his preparation. But Giri was upto the task, as he built up a steady position that rose from Hari’s piece sacrifice for three pawns. Sweeping Hari’s extra pawns on the queenside with meticulous precision, Giri wrapped up the game on the 55th turn.

The other Indian in the fray at Group B, 16-year-old  Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi drew with David Howell after a stiff defence. The Slav game saw the Indian playing for the initiative on most occasions, with Howell consuming more time to find better options. Around the first time control, the Englishman had exchanged the pieces and appeared to have an edge in the bishop versus knight ending with two extra pawns. But accurate play by Negi brought cheers to the Indian camp, as the Delhi boy drew without much ado.

In two Group C games, former World Junior Champion Abhijeet Gupta drew his opener with GM Robin Swinkels of The Netherlands, while World Junior Girls Champion Sowmya Swaminathan went down to the talented American boy Ray Robson.

Official Site :

http://www.coruschess.com/

LIVE GAMES :

http://livechess.chessdom.com/site/

Anish Giri – Pentala Harikrishna

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. a4 Bf5 6. Ne5 e6 7. f3 Bb4 8. Nxc4 Nd5 9. Bd2 Qh4+ 10. g3 Qxd4 11. e4 Nxc3 12. bxc3 Bxc3 13. Ra2 Bxe4 14. Qc1 Bd3 15. Qxc3 Qxc3 16. Bxc3 Bxf1 17. Rxf1 O-O 18. Ke2 b6 19. Rd1 Na6 20. Rd6 Rfc8 21. Ne5 c5 22. a5 Nc7 23. axb6 Nb5 24. Rd3 axb6 25. Rb2 Nc7 26. Nc4 Re8 27. Nxb6 Ra6 28. Kd2 e5 29. Nd5 Ne6 30. Bxe5 c4 31. Nb4 Ra1 32. Re3 Rd8+ 33. Kc2 Rh1 34. Re2 Rdd1 35. Kc3 Rdf1 36. f4 h5 37. Kxc4 h4 38. Nd5 Rc1+ 39. Rbc2 hxg3 40. hxg3 Rxc2+ 41. Rxc2 f6 42. f5 Nf8 43. Bf4 g6 44. fxg6 Kg7 45. Ra2 Kxg6 46. Ra6 Nh7 47. Kd3 Re1 48. Ne3 Nf8 49. Ke4 Nd7 50. Rd6 Nf8 51. Kf3 Rb1 52. Kg4 Re1 53. Nd5 Nh7 54. Bg5 Re5 55. Nf4+ 1-0

David Howell – Parimarjan Negi

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 dxc4 5. a4 Bf5 6. Ne5 Nbd7 7. Nxc4 Qc7 8. Qd2 Be6 9. e3 Bxc4 10. Bxc4 e5 11. O-O Bb4 12. Qc2 O-O 13. Ne2 Rad8 14. Rd1 a5 15. b3 Bd6 16. h3 e4 17. Bd2 b5 18. axb5 cxb5 19. Bxa5 Nb6 20. Nc3 bxc4 21. bxc4 Qxc4 22. Bxb6 Ra8 23. Rxa8 Rxa8 24. Rc1 Nd5 25. Bc5 Qxc3 26. Bxd6 Qxc2 27. Rxc2 f6 28. Rb2 Rd8 29. Bc5 f5 30. Rb3 g5 31. f3 Re8 32. Kf2 h5 33. Bd6 f4 34. exf4 e3+ 35. Ke2 gxf4 36. g3 fxg3 37. Bxg3 Ra8 38. Rb8+ Rxb8 39. Bxb8 Kf7 40. Bg3 Ke6 41. h4 Kf6 42. Kd3 Kg6 43. Ke4 Ne7 44. Be1 Nf5 45. Ke5 e2 46. Ke4 Kf6 47. Kd3 Ke6 48. Bf2 Kd5 49. Kxe2 Ng7 50. Kd3 Nf5 51. Kd2 Ng7 52. Ke2 Nf5 53. Kd3 Ng7 54. Bg3 Nf5 55. Be5 Nxh4 56. Ke3 Nf5+ 57. Kf4 Nxd4 58. Bxd4 Kxd4 59. Kg5 Ke3 60. f4 h4 61. Kxh4 Kxf4 1/2-1/2

Sergei Karjakin – Viswanathan Anand

A new year has begun, and is there a better moment to start working some more on your openings? We’ve changed our weekly PDF (+PGN!) magazine ChessVibes Openings slightly, and it might well be even more instructive…

This week on page 4 we introduced a new, interactive section called It’s Your Move: every week two exercises, of which the solutions and explanations will follow one week later. This will improve your understanding of certain opening, middlegame or even endgame themes even further.

A new year offers the chance to start all over, with new goals and new energy, also on the chess board. A bit of preparation can be of great help, and ChessVibes Openings is a fun and instructive way to keep your openings up to date.

What is ChessVibes Openings?

Every issue consists of a PDF Magazine and the accompanying PGN file. The PDF consists of four pages (A4 size) with the following contents:

• What’s hot? A round-up of this week’s important opening developments, with statistics about the frequence and score of the week’s most important opening novelty (page 1)
• What’s not? Which openings are not recommended at the moment, according to the top players? And why not? (page 1)
• Game of the week Each week you’ll find the theoretically most important game analysed by our two IMs, with a detailed survey of the opening phase (page 2).
• This week’s harvest Four more new important opening ideas from this week (page 3) revealed and described with explanation of the opening and early middlegame (page 3).
• It’s Your Move An interactive element: every week two exercises, of which the solutions/explanations will follow one week later. This will improve your understanding of certain opening, middlegame or even endgame themes even further.

Which openings are hot in top level chess? Which are not? Receive the latest opening novelties right in your mailbox with ChessVibes Openings, a weekly PDF magazine (+ PGN!) covering the latest openings news, co-authored by International Masters Merijn van Delft and Robert Ris and published by ChessVibes.

This week’s issue: #53, January 6, 2010

ChessVibes Openings #53
The latest opening developments of the first week of January 2010, covering Reggio Emilia, Hastings, Rilton Cup and the World Team Championship. All about the 7.Nf3 Najdorf which was analysed in our Game of the Week Bologan-Safarli, Reggio Emilia 2010.

Other lines that are covered:

• Ruy Lopez, Anti-Marshall
• Sicilian, Alapin
• Caro-Kann, Advance
• KID, Bayonet

This week we started a new section which replaced the Opening Expert: It’s Your Move. After one year of presenting opening experts, we felt it’s time to change page 4 of our magazine and introduce an interactive element: two exercises, of which the solutions/explanations will follow one week later.

Last week’s issue: #52, December 30, 2009

ChessVibes Openings #52
The latest opening developments of the last week of December 2009, covering the Russian Championship, the Korchnoi-Spassky match, Pamplona and Reggio Emilia. All about the Ruy Lopez, Berlin Wall which was analysed in our Game of the Week Grischuk-Jakovenko, Moscow 2009.

Other lines that are covered:

• Ruy Lopez, Marshall, 15.Qe2
• Alekhine, 4…dxe5
• QGA, 7.dxc5
• KID, Mar del Plata

This week’s Opening Expert is Georgian GM Baadur Jobava.

Previous issue: #51, December 23, 2009

ChessVibes Openings #51
The latest opening developments of the fourth week of December 2009, covering the European Rapid Championship, the Russian Championship and the Korchnoi-Spassky match. All about the Fianchetto Variation of the Grünfeld Defence which was analysed in our Game of the Week Khismatullin-Svidler, Moscow 2009. Other lines that are covered:

• Scotch, 4…Bc5 5.Nxc6
• Berlin, 5…Be7
• OSlav, 4.e3 Bg4
• Chebanenko Slav

This week’s Opening Expert is Israel GM Victor Mikhalevski.

Previous issue: #50, December 16, 2009

ChessVibes Openings #50
The latest opening developments of the third week of December 2009, covering the World Cup and the London Chess Classic. All about the Ragozin Defence which was analysed in our Game of the Week Kramnik-Short, London Chess Classic 2009. Other lines that are covered:

• Open Ruy Lopez
• Chebanenko Slav
• Open Catalan
• King’s Indian, 7…Na6

This week’s Opening Expert is Russian top GM and former World Champ Vladimir Kramnik.

Previous issue: #49, December 9, 2009

ChessVibes Openings #49
The latest opening developments of the second week of December 2009, covering the World Cup and the London Chess Classic. All about the Open Ruy Lopez which was analysed in our Game of the Week Karjakin-Mamedyarov, World Cup 2009. Other lines that are covered:

• Queen’s Gambit Declined, 5.Bf4
• Queen’s Gambit Accepted
• Grünfeld Indian, 5.Bd2
• King’s Indian, 6.h3

This week’s Opening Expert is Russian GM Vladimir Malakhov.

Ehm… can I have a look?

Here’s what ChessVibes Openings #16 (April 22, 2009) looks like:

FREE SAMPLE ISSUE – ChessVibes Openings #16 – click to download!

• What’s hot? A round-up of the most important opening developments of mid-April, including statistics about the frequence and score of the Chebanenko position after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 a6 5.c5 Nbd7 6.Bf4 Nh5 7.Bd2 Nhf6
• What’s not? This week 1.e4 e5 was hot, as the top players categorically avoided the Semi-Open Games. Interestingly, the classical 1…d5 was also much more popular than the more modern answers to 1.d4, at the FIDE Grand Prix in Nalchik.
• Game of the week “I didn’t spend much time on it before the game, but I prepared seriously for this tournament and we did investigate this line”, Peter Leko said at the press conference in Nalchik, after his game against Sergei Karjakin. Page two has a closer look at this highly interesting draw in the Chebanenko.
• This week’s harvest For more opening ideas from the Ruy Lopez Marshall, Sicilian Taimanov, Queen’s Indian and Ragozin Defence.
• Opening expert This week Rustam Kasimdzhanov is highlighted. The former FIDE World Champion and current second of Anand has a broad repertoire, switching from hypersharp openings like Dragon and Anti-Moscow to positional Queen‚Äôs Gambit lines.

FREE SAMPLE ISSUE – ChessVibes Openings #16 – click to download!

What does it cost?

As a subscriber you’ll receive the PDF Magazine and accompanying PGN files in your mailbox every week.

A one-year subscription is € 25 (that’s less than € 0.50 per issue!) - for price in US $ click here

Please note that it’s still possible to start your subscription as a first-week subscriber.
Just let us know and we’ll send you all previous issues!

July 1, 2009: Eugene Manchester reviews ChessVibes Openings for ChessCafe

In the July 1 issue of ChessCafe’s Book Review (mirror here) ChessVibes Openings was reviewed by Eugene Manchester. Some quotes:

“So, who-ya-gonna-call? Opening busters? Not quite. For the reasonable price of 25 euros per year, once a week you can receive intelligent, interesting opening surveys and analysis presented by a team lead by Dutch IMs Merijn van Delft & Robert Ris.”

“The format and presentation are consistently of high quality, with variety of coverage and opening analysis.”

“The cost per year is roughly equivalent to a good chess book. Each week you get a four- page issue packed with opening analysis, at least two thoroughly annotated games with one or more of that week’s featured openings, a glimpse into the world of the latest opening novelties, in short, a quality weekly opening report.”

May 7, 2009: GM Hedinn Steingrimsson reviews ChessVibes Openings for Chess Today

In issues 3103 (Thursday, May 7) of Chess Today, the daily chess newspaper which also comes into your inbox by email in PDF, ChessVibes Openings was reviewed by GM Hedinn Steingrimsson from Iceland. Some quotes:

“What I like about ChessVibes Openings is their focus on the trend and discoveries that are revealed in super tournaments and by very strong players. It makes sense for all tournament chess players and opening theoreticians to follow these developments and getting an overview from ChessVibes Openings definitely saves time.”

“I find it positive that there is consistency in the openings covered so that the readers will with time have a certain repertoire available based on different theoretical articles from ChessVibes about e.g. the Anti-Moscow Variation.”

“For those that really want to find out how to get a better position out of the opening and are willing to enter complications and do some homework in order to succeed, ChessVibes Openings can be recommended.”

He was the last-minute replacement for Malakhov and never lacks fighting spirit: Gata Kamsky today won in Reggio Emilia after beating Zoltan Almasi in a fantastic last-round game. The American and the Hungarian both scored 6.5/9 but Kamsky had the better tiebreak.

The 52nd edition of the “Torneo di Capodanno” took place December 28th – January 6th at the Astoria-Mercure hotel in Reggio Emilia. It was a 10-player round-robin with GM Fabiano Caruana, GM Michele Godena, GM Daniele Vocaturo, IM Sabino Brunello (all from Italy), GM Gata Kamsky (USA), GM Eltaj Safarli (Azerbajan), GM Baadur Jobava (Georgia), GM Konstantin Landa (Russia), GM Viktor Bologan (Moldavia) and GM Zoltan Almasi (Hungary).

Rounds 6-9

After five rounds, Almasi and Kamsky were leading the field with 3.5 points out of 5 games. The two kept the lead for one more round thanks to victories with the black pieces in round 6. Kamsky beat Brunello with Black in a g3 Grünfeld; the Italian’s exchange sacrifice was interesting but 29.Nd3 too passive. Almasi, who played the Berlin Wall regularly long before Kramnik used it to beat Kasparov, got under serious pressure against Bologan. However, a few moves before 40 the picture suddenly changed completely and with 44.Rf7? Bologan even lost what was probably a drawn ending.

The next round Almasi beat Safarli, who tried the Norwegian Variation of the Ruy Lopez (4…b5 and 5…Na5). The Hungarian was well prepared and played like Karjakin did to beat Mamedyarov at the World Blitz Ch in Moscow last month. Kamsky dropped back half a point after a draw with Landa, and the same scenario repeated was repeated in round 8: Almasi won, against Vocaturo, and Kamsky drew, with Bologan.

It’s always nice when the two strongest players meet each other in the last round, and this is what happened today. And what a finale it was! This time no Berlin Wall, no, Almasi went for the Archangelsk which is quite popular again these days. Already on move 17 Kamsky came with a stunning exchange sacrifice in return for a pawn and a strong initiative.

At first Almasi defended well, but soon after the second blow 24.Ba7 things went downhill for Black. Great stuff from Kamsky, and what a way to end a tournament for the organizers.

What about the young rising stars? Well, Brunello and Safarli played close to their expected score, but Vocaturo did much worse with a performance rating in the 2300s. As stated before, he played quite interesting chess and should have scored better. He will for sure, in the future. In fact he might be proving that theory already in the Corus C group which starts in ten days from now.

Selection of games rounds 6-9

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Konstantin Landa vs Daniele Vocaturo

Baadur Jobava vs Michele Godena

Eltaj Safarli vs Fabiano Caruana, who will play in Corus A

The crucial, and fantastic encounter Kamsky-Almasi...

...afterwards explained by the winner (with commentator GM Miso Cebalo)

An interview with a TV crew...

...and receiving the trophy from Silvano Ferraroni, President of Chess Club "Ippogrifo" and on of the organizers of the Reggio Emilia Tournament

Thanks to Giorgio Gozzi for providing the photos

Links

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2009 was a tough year, also for the chess world. Sponsors left, prize funds were lowered and in one (quite important) event the list of participants counted just four players. But it was also an interesting year, with successes for rising stars as well as experienced grandmasters. Let’s look back at the chess year that’s behind us, in our traditional annual survey.

Like we did on December 31 last year, the year before and the year before that, here’s our annual survey of 2009.

One of the first strong round-robins finishing in the new year is always Reggio Emilia. In 2009 the Chinese rising start Ni Hua clinched the title in the small Italian town convincingly. He ended 1.5 points ahead of number 2 Zoltan Almasi! In a very strong period Ni Hua collected enough rating points to pass the 2700 barrier, which got him an invitation for the London Chess Classic at the end of the year.

Another early winner was Peter Svidler, who won the Aker Chess Challenge in Gjovik, Norway. In the final he defeated Magnus Carlsen, who at that point had no idea yet that 2009 would go down into history as the year he would rise to the absolute top. Vassily Ivanchuk is known for his many ups and downs, but he started his chess year well with a 3.5-2.5 rapid victory against Peter Leko. Our next two items in January both provoked many comments. In the column ‘The new founding fathers in chess?’ we compared remarks by Henrik Carlsen (representing his son Magnus) and Vladimir Kramnik on the world championship cycle and their ideas for a future set-up. It was interesting to see that Kramnik’s opinion seemed diametrically opposed to Carlsen’s. The next day we reported about a 14-year-old chess player from Australia who had been caught cheating with a Playstation Portable, but instead of just bringing the news, we asked our readers the question whether cheating is always newsworthy.

The year 2009 made clear once more that successful chess players are getting younger and younger. Just before Corus the big news was that a 9-year-old player in India had beaten a GM. We’ll probably hear more about Hetul Shah soon. But of course the Corus Chess Tournament itself confirmed this trend much better: the headline of our final report, ‘Youth triumphs at Corus 2009′, said enough. It had been a wonderful success for Sergei Karjakin, Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So.

Also for the ChessVibes team 2009 was quite an interesting year. We tried some new things, and the first was launched just before Corus. We’re still quite proud of our very first product, ChessVibes Openings, which reached it’s 52nd issue this week! I’m not an objective person here, but when I try to forget that I’m the publisher and pretend I’m only a chess player, I must say IMs Merijn van Delft and Robert Ris have done an awesome job in keeping track of the opening developments, every week, without taking a single week off. Great stuff guys!

February was the month of Linares (as always) and the month of Kamsky-Topalov. To start with the latter: it was a controversial match for several reasons. The history of how the match finally got there is a story in itself, and how it was organized in Sofia was another matter. For the journalists who had travelled to the Bulgarian capital it was a disappointing event (they were well quarantined off from the players, taking a back seat to local television) and for several online spectators as well. They became victim of what seems like a war between the Bulgarians and Chessbase, who were threatened with legal actions if they would continue broadcasting the match at Playchess. This situation would repeat during the MTel Masters in May. Our column about copyright and chess moves provoked 127 comments. We’d almost forget that Topalov won the match after volatile play from both players. The Bulgarian thus qualified for next year’s World Championship match against the reigning champ, Viswanathan Anand.

Linares saw a slightly surprising, but no less deserved winner in Alexander Grischuk. The Russian grandmaster won on tiebreak after finishing shared first with Vassily Ivanchuk, and after Sergei Karjakin he was the second qualifier for the Bilbao Grand Slam Final in September. However, arguably the biggest news story of February was Shakhriyar Mamedyarov accusing Igor Kurnosov of cheating, just after their game in round 6 of the Aeroflot Open. As far as we know thus far Mamedyarov hasn’t apologized to Kurnosov, despite the fact that almost anybody in the chess world agrees on the simple rule that, despite feeling pretty sure about it, one should never express such accusations without proof (and comparing moves with Rybka’s choices can never be called proof).

Every year in March the crème de la crème of elite chess gathers for 11 rapid and 11 blindfold games: the Amber tournament. This year the tournament was held in Nice for the second time, and again Macauley Peterson and I made daily videos. Levon Aronian successfully defended his title. Vladimir Kramnik won the blindfold section on tiebreak, finishing shared first with 7/11 together with Carlsen and Aronian. The rapid section also ended in a tie, between Anand, Kamsky (!) and Aronian.

In 2009 I visited less tournaments and so I created less videos than the year before. However, one I quite like was created close to home, early April: about Amsterdam chess cafe the Laurierboom. If you’ve missed it you can still watch it here. In the same month a sad incident involved one of our editors, IM Robert Ris. He was one of the victims of tournament organizer Gabor Pali, who damaged both the hotel and the participants of a closed round-robin financially. The Barcza Memorial was cancelled after one round when it became clear that Pali never paid anyone and wasn’t planning to.

Later in April, the 4th FIDE Grand Prix started in Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, and I was there to do videos. It was quite a nice event, but also tough and long. After 13 rounds, Levon Aronian won his second tournament in two months. He had been leading together with Peter Leko with one round to go, in which they were paired against each other. The Armenian beat the Hungarian nicely. One of the participants was Sergei Karjakin and during the tournament he announced that he and his family would move to Russia and become Russian citizens. “I need to train with good coaches” was his explanation, and in fact his coach in Nalchik was former second of Garry Kasparov: Yuri Dokhoian.

April-May was also the period of the lengthy debate on the K-factor. At the President’s Cup, a rapid event held in Baku, Azerbaijan was crushed by the ‘FIDE World’ team led by Anand and Kramnik. Pavel Eljanov had a very good year, and among his successes was his victory at the Bosna tournament. We had an exclusive interview with the Ukrainian. In a crucial last-round encounter, Alexei Shirov defeated Magnus Carlsen to win this year’s MTel Masters. Also with him we had an exclusive interview, this time on video. Together with Gelfand’s victory at the ACP World Rapid Cup it was a good month for the older generation.

Vassily Ivanchuk, who had scored badly in Nalchik and Sofia, used a medicine that only works for him: play more chess! He defeated David Navara 5.5-2.5 in a rapid match in Prague (and a month later he would win in Bazna). In a similar (rapid) format, Viswanathan Anand defeated Peter Leko 5-3 and in yet another rapid event which I visited in Leon, Spain it was Magnus Carlsen who finally grabbed a first prize.

To China’s growing number of strong grandmasters, another name was added this year. 16-year-old Ding Liren won the Chinese Championship after a surreal finish which involved an incident related to the zero-tolerance rule. Russian rising star Alexander Motylev ended first at the Poikovsky tournament. In a year with mixed results, Ivan Cheparinov had one big success: his first place at the Ruy Lopez tournament in Zafra, Spain.

On the day that Michael Jackson passed away, the rapid match in Paris between Armenia and France ended in a 19.5-12.5. On July 1st, 2009 the new FIDE Laws of Chess were introduced (and to our surprise this received little attention in other media). In a very Drawful Dortmund Vladimir Kramnik clinched his 9th (!) title.

After winning the US Championship earlier in the year, Hikaru Nakamura collected even more rating points in San Sebastian. The American grandmaster won the tournament using his speciality: blitz chess. He beat Ruslan Ponomariov 2-0 in the tiebreak (here on video).

After an earlier, partly successful attempt with a Silverlight game viewer, we introduced ChessTempo’s game viewer in Javascript and we’re still quite happy with it. It’s Javacript and so it works like a charm in almost any browser, including the special version of Safari running on iPhones. (And that was how the voluntary guard at the London Chess Classic was following the games: on his phone, via the live page of ChessVibes!)

A great result for the new generation was scored by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who won Biel at the end of July. His game against Morozevich was one of the gems of 2009. Nakamura continued his fanastic year so far by winning the Chess960 section of the Rapid World Championships in Mainz. Success and failure were closely connected in Mainz: on the second day of the unofficial Rapid World Championship, eleven times winner Viswanathan Anand failed to qualify for the final. An era came to an end. This one was won by Levon Aronian; Mamedyarov took the Ordix Open title.

A much more important result for Aronian, however, was his second place at the Grand Prix in Jermuk (where Ivanchuk emerged as the winner). With this result, Armenia’s number one player secured overall victory in the FIDE Grand Prix Series with one tournament still to be played. Also in August, ten world famous chess champions gathered in Zurich, where Kramnik won the rapid tournament. By now traditionally, the month ended with the Rising Stars vs Experience tournament in Amsterdam. Again Macauley and I made daily videos at the event, where the Experience team won and Jan Smeets qualified for Amber 2010.

September started with chess reaching main stream media, but as so often it wasn’t a story that improved the reputation of the royal game. At the Kolkata Open in India, French top GM Vladislav Tkachiev showed up drunk at the venue and fell asleep several times during a game. Eventually he had to be carried off. Later Tkachiev would apologize.

Then, on September 7th, a long period started in which Magnus Carlsen would make the headlines. On that day his cooperation with Garry Kasparov was made public. “The goal is to make the Norwegian, who currently ranks as the fourth-best chess player in the world, the world’s best during the course of the coming year. (…)” was written in the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang. Who would have guessed that just four months later this goal would be reached? No doubt “the world’s best” needs to be read as “World Champion” by now! In any case, we had an exclusive interview with Carlsen about the matter and later we published Kasparov’s side of the story.

Levon Aronian scored yet another success in Bilbao, where he won the second Grand Slam final. Winning four games in a row, he eventually finished five points ahead of Grischuk (one and a half according to the classical system). With our Dutch roots it wasn’t too difficult to have the scoop on the ‘Tiviakov story’: the already seriously weakened Dutch Championship lost its top seed after the third round. Tivi had prearranged a draw for his last-round game on Sunday and had told the organizers that he couldn’t attend the closing ceremony and possible tiebreaks. This was not accepted, after which Tiviakov decided to withdraw immediately. ChessVibes spoke with all people involved.

Also in September, I had the opportunity to get one player before the camera (and even ask a few questions) whom I had never seen playing before. No-one less than Garry Kasparov himself played chess again! His opponent was his old nemesis Anatoly Karpov, and the two played a rapid and blitz match in Valencia, Spain. Unfortunately Karpov wasn’t up to the challenge; Kasparov won easily (9-3).

Soon it was Carlsen, Carlsen, Carlsen again. For a while it was the only name to be heard in the chess world, but it was fully deserved. By winning the Pearl Spring Grand Slam tournament with a devastating 8 out 10 and an unbelievable 3002 performance rating, dropping just four half points with the black pieces in ten games against the world’s best, Magnus took home € 80,000 and a total of 28.8 rating points. In doing so he broke the magical 2800 barrier.

It was also a period chuck full of strong chess tournaments, that lasted until the rest of the year. There was the European Club Cup, the European Team Championship, Hoogeveen (with videos!), the Anand-Karpov rapid match, the World Youth (another victory for Vachier-Lagrave).

The next big event was the biggest event of 2009: the Tal Memorial. For a tournament with Anand, Aronian Carlsen, Kramnik, Leko, Gelfand, Ivanchuk, Morozevich, Svidler and Ponomariov we couldn’t resist the temptation – we just had to bring live coverage. It was quite successful, and we repeated the service during the semi-final and final of the World Cup, and the London Chess Classic. Unfortunately we couldn’t welcome enough subscribers to continue it as a paid service in 2010, but we will do our best to find other ways to fund it. Because it’s just too much fun not to have it. Before I forget, Vladimir Kramnik won this super-tournament in Moscow, and Magnus Carlsen took the (world) blitz title. (Not long afterwards, Carlsen unofficially ‘lost’ that title to Hikaru Nakamura at the BNBank tournament.)

For the chess fan who still had some appetite left for top chess, there was the World Cup, which lasted no less than 23 days. Few of you will hear something new when I mention the semi-finalists: Karjakin, Malakhov, Gelfand and Ponomariov. The latter two played the final and 41-year-old top seed Boris Gelfand eventually took home the first prize of US $120,000. In London Magnus Carlsen finished a fantastic second half of 2009 by winning the Chess Classic with three wins and four draws, in a wonderfully organized event where it was a joy to work and create a few more videos.

At the end of month and the year, Korchnoi and Spassky played a match in Elista that ended in 4-4 and Alexander Grischuk won the Russian superfinal.

Before I end this survey I’d like to mention the many thought-provoking columns by Arne, his book reviews, the ‘Beauty in chess’ series by Michael, the weekly endgame studies by Yochanan and the reports written by Merijn and Robert. Enough material for a second look, on a free New Year’s Day perhaps!?

With this we come to an end of this annual survey, and of the chess year 2009. The ChessVibes team thanks you for your support and your comments, and we wish everyone a healthy 2009, with happy chess and good vibes!

Apertura Ruy Lopez Nivel Básico Primer vídeo explicativo de la web Capakhine sobre la apertura Ruy Lopez, recomendado para jugadores recién iniciados. Encontrarás material gratuito para mejorar tu ajedrez en

AjedrezTotal.com

RSS-XML Las noticias en tu sitio

A propósito de la séptima ronda, he traducido de la página oficial del torneo de Londres (www.londonchessclassic.com) el siguiente texto:

“¿No es buena la madera noruega?

“Durante muchos años ha existido una única y muy conmovedora tradición de que el pueblo noruego le haga un regalo de Navidad al pueblo inglés de un abeto noruego, de 20 metros de altura, que se presenta en la Plaza de Trafalgar, decorado con motivos de Navidad. Este año el árbol de Noruega fue enviado a Londres como de costumbre y se puede ver en todo su esplendor en la famosa plaza. Pero Noruega también envió otro regalo pensativo; no tan alto pero igual de impresionante para cualquier persona que aprecie el ajedrez de calidad. De 19 años de edad, Magnus Carlsen llegó, vio y venció en el Clásico de Ajedrez de Londres; y en el proceso se lanzó a la cima de la clasificación mundial oficial de ajedrez. Nadie ha logrado esto en una edad tan temprana.

“Así que, “vini Magnus, vidi, vinci” (yo sabía que todo aprendido en la escuela de latín se haría posible algún día)… pero, antes de dejarnos llevar por estas exageraciones, debemos dar crédito a su oponente de la última ronda, Nigel Short, que le dio un fantástico espectáculo a los aficionados al ajedrez que estaban en el Centro de Conferencias de Olimpia.
“Tomemos las cosas en orden cronológico. El primer juego en terminar fue Nakamura-Kramnik, en el que ambos jugadores hicieron grandes esfuerzos para ganar. El ex-campeón del mundo, Vladimir Kramnik, necesitaba una victoria para luchar por el primer puesto. Cambió una torre por un alfil y peones, y algunas amenazas contra el rey blanco. Pero el americano se mantuvo firme y los jugadores finalmente entablaron. Ambos jugadores quedaron ligeramente decepcionados con sus resultados finales en Londres, pero ambos merecen gran crédito por su participación exitosa en el torneo y por entretener a la audiencia en la sala de análisis.

“El tres veces campeón chino, Ni Hua, jugó la apertura Ruy López contra el adolescente inglés, David Howell. El joven de Seaford, Sussex, jugó muy bien. En primer lugar hizo un enérgico sacrificio de peón para bloquear el alfil de Ni Hua en la esquina del tablero y luego atacó las defensas debilitadas del blanco en el centro. Ni Hua utilizó demasiado tiempo en el momento crítico y cometió algunos errores en los apremios de tiempo. David Howell no cometió ningún error y lanzó una contraofensiva letal. A pesar de ser el jugador de menor puntuación, así como el menos experimentado, la puntuación final de David de una victoria, seis empates y ninguna derrota, y el tercer lugar después de las dos grandes estrellas, es un logro magnífico. Al preguntársele después cómo consideraba este resultado en su carrera de ajedrez, David no dudó en pronunciar que era el mejor”.

Veamos hoy la partida jugada entre Nigel Short y Magnus Carlsen, en la séptima ronda.

 Olvidándose de que está jugando contra el número uno del mundo, Short se lanza en una línea muy aguda y nos atreveríamos a decir que por momentos pone en aprietos a su fuerte rival. Finalmente, después de muchas maniobras, el que tiene que defenderse es el blanco. De un medio juego muy complicado pasan en un final con damas y peones, algunos de ellos pasados, y terminan en tablas.

Siciliana Dragón B76

1 e4 c5 2 Cf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Cxd4 Cf6 5 Cc3 g6

Dice un comentarista inglés: “Magnus se decide por la defensa del Dragón, lo que prácticamente les garantiza a los espectadores un juego divertido. Uno se imagina que su entrenador, Garry Kasparov, habrá tenido algo que decir aquí…”

6 Ae3 Ag7 7 f3 Cc6 8 Dd2 0–0 9 0–0–0 d5 10 Rb1 Cxd4 11 e5 Cf5 12 exf6 exf6 13 Ac5

“Nigel puede recapturar el peón cuando quiera; la prioridad es conservar el alfil de ‘e3’.

13…d4

“Esta jugada se ve muy atrevida, pero los jugadores siguen una línea teórica.

14 Axf8 Dxf8 15 Cb5 Ce3 16 Tc1

[Hasta aquí, la partida Barnett, J - Dahlstroem, R, jugada en 2004 es igual.
Barnett, J - Dahlstroem, R [B76]
Rochade tt bd09 email ICCF Email, 01.05.2004

1.e4 c5 2.Cf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Cxd4 Cf6 5.Cc3 g6 6.Ae3 Ag7 7.f3 Cc6 8.Dd2 0–0 9.0–0–0 d5 10.Rb1 Cxd4 11.e5 Cf5 12.exf6 exf6 13.Ac5 d4 14.Axf8 Dxf8 15.Cb5 Ce3 16.Tc1 f5 17.Cxd4 f4 18.g3 Dc5 19.Cb3 Db6 20.gxf4 Af5 21.Ad3 Td8 22.Da5 Df6 23.De5 Db6 24.Db5 Df6 25.Cc5 b6 26.Ce4 Dd4 27.The1 a6 28.Db3 Ae6 29.Dc3 Da4 30.Da3 Dxa3 31.bxa3 Cg2 32.Ted1 Cxf4 33.Axa6 Ta8 34.Ab5 Txa3 35.Td8+ Af8 36.Ad7 f5 37.Cd6 Axa2+ 38.Rb2 Ta5 39.Ac8 Rg7 40.Ta1 Ag8 41.Txa5 bxa5 42.Aa6 Ae7 43.Ce8+ Rh6 44.Td7 Af8 45.c3 Ae6 46.Td4 g5 47.Cc7 Af7 48.Ac4 Axc4 49.Txc4 Cd3+ 50.Rc2 Ce1+ 51.Rb3 Rh5 52.Tc6 Ag7 53.Tc5 Cxf3 54.Txf5 Rg4 55.Tf7 Ae5 56.h3+ Rg3 57.Txh7 Axc7 58.Txc7 Rxh3 59.Th7+ Rg3 60.c4 Ce5 61.c5 ½–½]

16…Ah6 17 Dxd4

Devuelve la calidad, aunque no es forzado; pero probablemente sea mejor.

17…Cf5 18 Dc3 Axc1 19 Rxc1 Ad7 20 Ad3 Tc8 21 Dd2

Short evita tomar el peón de ‘f6’, que no parece tener ningún riesgo.

21…Axb5 22 Axb5 Dc5 23 Ad3

Diagrama 1.

Posición después de 23. Ad3 Ce3 24 Te1 Te8 25 Df2

Dice el comentarista inglés: “después del juego, Nigel estuvo en desacuerdo con este movimiento, aunque los ordenadores parezcan tener una mejor opinión. La posición es claramente equilibrada”.

25…f5 26 f4?!

“Tal vez esto sea una especie de concesión. ¿¡Fritz aboga por 26 Be4!? fxe4 27 Dxe3 Dxe3+ 28 Txe3 f5 29 fxe4 fxe4 30 Rd2, que considera un poco mejor para el blanco”.
26…Dd4 27 g3 Te6 28 Dd2 Cg4 29 h3?!

La posición del blanco se hace difícil después de esto. Un camino hacia las tablas encontrado por Fritz es: 29 Rxe6 fxe6 30 h3 Nf2 (después de que 30… ¿¡Cf6 el blanco tiene 31 Ae2!? ¿¡Dg1 + 32 Dd1 Dxg3 33 Dd8 +, también con jaque perpetuo) 31 Ac4!? Dxc4 32 Dd8 + y es tablas por jaque perpetuo.

29…Txe1+ 30 Dxe1 Cf2 31 Af1 Ce4 32 Ag2 b6

El blanco es de nuevo forzado a la defensiva.

33 c3 Dd3 34 g4 Cg3 35 b3

Diagrama 2

No 35 De8+?? que pierde después de 35…Rg7 36 De5+ Rh6 37 g5+ Rh5 38 b4 Ne2+ 39 Rb2 Dd2+ 40 Ra3 Cxf4, etc.
35…Ce2+ 36 Rb2 Rf8 37 Ac6 fxg4

“Aquí, los comentaristas sugirieron 37…¿¡g5!? con la idea de forzar un peón ‘f’ pasado. Ellos trabajaban sin la ventaja de un programa de ordenador. ¿¡Fritz da 38 fxg5 f4 39 a4 a6 40 Ad5!? b5 41 axb5 axb5 42 Ag2 f3 43 Af1 Rg7 y el negro seguramente tiene algunas posibilidades.

38 hxg4 h5 39 gxh5 gxh5 40 a4 a6

Impide la desagradable 41 Ab5

Esto mantiene el equilibrio. Aunque él se quede atado a la defensa de su peón ‘c3’, el blanco tendrá unas amenazas de su propio una vez que esta prenda viene a f6.

41 f5! h4

41…f6 tiene algún mérito; pero el blanco puede jugar 42 Ab7 y no es muy claro si el blanco puede progresar.

42 Ag2 Cg3 43 f6 Dd6

Diagrama 3.

[43... ¿¡De2+!? 44 Dxe2 Cxe2: jugadas que parecen prometedoras para el negro, pero el blanco puede sostenerse]

44 Df2 Rg8 45 b4 a5 46 bxa5 bxa5 47 Rc2 Rh7 48 c4 Da3!

En esta etapa el negro tiene la iniciativa y el blanco tiene una tarea difícil defensiva.

49 Ae4+ Rg8

[49...Cxe4? sería muy malo, por: 50 Dxh4+ Rg6 51 Dxe4+ Rxf6 y solamente el blanco podría ganar]

50 Df4 Dxa4+ 51 Rd2 Cxe4+ 52 Dxe4 Da2+ 53 Rc3 Da1+ 54 Rb3

54…Qd1+?

“¿Qué pasa con 54… ¿Dxf6, usted pregunta? La respuesta es ‘nada’. Nigel estuvo asombrado de que Magnus no jugara este movimiento, después de lo cual el negro bien podría ganar.
55 Kb2 Qh5?!

Magnus sufre un desconcierto momentáneo. 55…Dd2+ es el camino seguro para evitar unas tablas.

 56 c5!

De repente las cosas no son tan claras. Nigel sólo tiene dos peones y Magnus tres, pero el dúo inglés está un par de movidas más cerca su destino que el trío noruego, y el peón ‘f6’ provee a la reina blanca de algunas posibilidades de acoplamiento.

56…h3 57 c6 a4 58 Ra2!

Nigel estuvo contento con este pequeño movimiento tranquilo, que le pone a Magnus un rompecabezas horriblemente difícil de solucionar con sólo unos segundos en su reloj. El negro juega y encuentra el único movimiento para entablar, con lo que asegura la victoria del torneo y pasa a ser el número uno en las clasificaciones mundiales. Imagínese la presión. ¿Lo haría Magnus?

58…Dd1!!

“El comentarista en línea Daniel King fue uno de los que quedaron asombrados con la capacidad del joven noruego para encontrar este movimiento crucial con tan poco tiempo”.

59 De8+ Rh7 60 Dxf7+ Rh6

El control de tiempo. Ahora los jugadores tenían 15 minutos cada uno, con 30 segundos de incremento.

61 c7 Qc2+ 62 Ka3 h2! 63 Qg7+ Kh5 64 Qh8+ Kg6 65 Qg8+ Kxf6 66 c8Q Qxc8 67 Qxc8 h1Q 68 Qa6+ Ke5 69 Qb5+ Qd5 70 Kxa4 Qxb5+ 71 Kxb5  ½ – ½

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Today we give you the second set of ten questions of our Big ChessVibes Christmas Trivia Quiz! Good luck!

Today questions 11-20; tomorrow the last ten will follow. Send your answers before Sunday, December 27th, 23:59 CET to christmas09@chessvibes.com and who knows, you might end up winning one of the following prizes:

Prizes

First prize: 1-year subscription New in Chess Yearbook	Second prize: 1-year subscription New in Chess Magazine	Third prize: 1-year subscription Internet Chess Club (ICC)

Big ChessVibes Christmas Trivia Quiz – Part II

11. The World Junior Chess Championship has been organized since 1951.
11A Of the following ten players, five won the title once, and five never. Which of these names won the title? Aronian, Bielicki, Carlsen, Fischer, Hübner, Ivkov, Kaplan, Leko, Spassky, Timman.
11B Four of the sixteen World Champions also won the World Junior title. Which four?

12. Where do they live?

13. Thirteen games in the match between Anand and Kasparov in 1995 ended in a draw. How often was Kasparov the one who offered a draw?
13A zero
13B two
13C eleven
13D all thirteen

13E There are only three players who played more than one classical game against Kasparov and have a plus score. Name all three players.

14 Three photos. One of them is a former World Champ, the other a former FIDE President and the third a former World Junior Champ. Name these three famous players.

14A	14B	14C

15 Four album covers. Name the albums and artists!

15A	15B
15C	15D

16 IM Christoph Wisnewski wrote a monograph about 1…Nc6, the Nimzovich Opening, for Everyman. Last year a book about opening traps was published by the same publisher, this time written by Christoph Scheerer. ‘Previously Wisnewski’, according to Everyman. This question is about players whose name was changed significantly during their chess career. Connect the old names to the correct new names.

17. A question about the World Senior Chess Championship.
17A From what age are you allowed to participate in this event?
17B Which player won the title three times?
17C Of the following names, six players won the title at least once, and six didn’t. Which players won the title?
Yuri Averbakh, Jacob Murey, Ewfim Geller, Jusefs Petkevich, Larry Kaufman, Lajos Portisch, Viktor Korchnoi, Vassily Smyslov, Bent Larsen, Boris Spassky, Henrique Mecking, Mark Taimanov.

18.There are many couples of two chess players in the chess world. Create the correct couples!

19. For a long time Peter Svidler thought the Marshall Gambit of the Ruy Lopez to be dubious, but eventually he started playing the move 8…d5 himself. Who inspired him?
19A Michael Adams
19B John Nunn
19C Jimi Hendrix
19D Billy Joel

20A Who are the two men in the left picture?
20B Which chess player is chosen for the sculpture on the right?

That’s it for today. Tomorrow the last ten questions! Feel free to discuss the quiz in the comments, but needless to say, no answers please!

Because of clashes with other events the Russian Superfinal was postponed till the end of December this year and so it’s the last classical event of 2009 in which a top 10 player is active. That’s Peter Svidler, who defends his title and is leading the Championship with 2.5 points after 3 rounds.

At Moscow’s Central Chess Club the 62nd Russian Championship Superfinal for men and 59th Russian Championship Superfinal for women takes place December 19-30. Play starts daily at 15:00 hrs Moscow time, which is 13:00 CET and 07:00 EST. The last round starts two hours earlier and the only rest day is on the 25th.

The time control in the men’s section is 1 hour and 40 minutes for the first 40 moves and then 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 10 minutes to end the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from the first. In the women’s section it’s 1 hour and 30 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes to end the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from the first. The prize fund is US $100,000 for the men and US $40,000 for the women.

Rounds 1-3

In most parts of Europe snow has covered the streets, and it’s not different in Moscow. Everyone is preparing for celebrating Christmas and New Year, but not the Russian top players. No, they are playing their national championships, which were postponed till the very last weeks of 2009 (last year they were held in October).

As Mark Gluhovsky and Misha Savinov wrote in their first report for the official website, the women seemed more eager to start their tournament than their male counterparts.

All female players were present a few minutes before three...

...but the men's section looked quite differently. Was it because the organizers don't use the zero-tolerance rule, but the system of a fine (5,000 rubles)?

This fightful mood was also represented in the results of the first round: in the women’s section not one game ended in a draw. In the mens’s section, Alexander Grischuk defeated Evgeny Tomashevsky after 75 moves in a Closed Ruy Lopez while Denis Khismatullin, who had spent the time before the game in the press room playing blitz and darts (!) beat Alexander Riazantsev. (I met Khismatullin at the Grand Prix in Sochi last year, where he had even more time for blitz during the rounds because back then he was a second. He played many entertaining games with Viktor Bologan.)

In the second round this original way of preparing backfired: Khismatullin lost with the white pieces against title holder Peter Svidler – the only decisive game of the round. Yesterday Svidler added another win to his score, with White against Riazantsev. The game, an Advance Caro-Kann, reached a remarkably similar pawn structure as Svidler’s round 1 game against Vitiugov (a French Defence) – see the game viewer below.

A good start for Peter Svidler

Svidler leads with 2.5 points, followed by Jakovenko and Grischuk who are on 2/3. In the women’s section, both Nadezhda Kosintseva and Alisa Galliamova started with three wins.

Still on a 100% score: Nadezhda Kosintseva...

...and Alisa Galliamova

Photos by Mark Gluhovsky and Misha Savinov – more at the official website.

Selection of games rounds 1-3

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Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN: Men | Women

• I manager dei due giocatori, Silvio Danailov e Aruna Anand, hanno recentemente chiuso gli accordi ad Atene.
• Il periodo di gioco è : 23 Aprile ( 1° round) - 12 Maggio (spareggi)
  
• 12 partite a cadenza classica + 4 eventuali spareggi rapid in caso di parità
• 2 Milioni di euro la borsa

Anand - Kramnik  2008  ( mondiale in Germania )

Game 1 - Slav Exchange (replay)
Game 2 - Nimzo Indian Saemisch (replay)
Game 3 - Queens Gambit Meran (replay)
Game 4 - QGD (replay)
Game 5 - Queens Gambit Meran (replay)
Game 6 - Nimzo Indian (replay)
Game 7 - Slav Defence (replay)
Game 8 - QGD Ragozin (replay)
Game 9 - Anti-Meran Gambit (replay)
Game 10 - Nimzo Indian (replay)
Game 11 - Sicilian Naidorf (replay)

Topalov - Kamsky  2009  (sfida dei candidati in Bulgaria)

Game 1 Gruenfeld 1/2:1/2 (replay game)
Game 2 - Ruy Lopez 0:1 (replay game)
Game 3 - Gruenfeld Botvinnik 1/2:1/2 (replay game)
Game 4 - Ruy Lopez Chigorin 1:0 (replay game)
Game 5 - French Tarrasch 1:0 (replay game)
Game 6 - Caro Kann 1/2:1/2 (replay game)
Game 7 - French Tarrasch 1:0 (replay game)

AUTOR: SAVIELLY G. TARTAKOWER

INDICE:

PRIMER GRUPO: APERTURAS DEL PEON REY

PRIMERA SECCION: JUEGOS ABIERTOS

1. APERTURA ITALIANA 2. APERTURA DE LOS DOS CABALLOS 3. RUY LOPEZ 4. APERTURA DE LOS CUATRO CABALLOS...

SEGUNDA SECCION: JUEGOS SEMIABIERTOS

1. DEFENSA CARO-KANN 2. DEFENSA SICILIANA 3. DEFENSA FRANCESA 4. DEFENSA ESCANDINAVA 5. DEFENSA ALEKHINE 6. DEFENZA NIMZOVICH

SEGUNDO GRUPO: JUEGOS CERRADOS

PRIMERA SECCION: GAMBITO DE LA DAMA

1. DEFENSA ORTODOXA 2. OTRAS VARIEDADES DE LA DEFENZA ORTODOXA 3. DEFENSA ORTODOXA CON 3. C3AR 4. DEFENSA CAMBRIDGE SPRINGS 5. DEFENSA TARRASCH

SEGUNDA SECCION: APERTURA DEL PEON DAMA

TERCER GRUPO: JUEGOS DEL CENTRO FLEXIBLE

PRIMERA SECCION: COMPLEJO INDIO

SEGUNDA SECCION: APERTURAS IRREGULARES

http://hotfile.com/dl/17713829/dfbf822/APERTURAS.rar.html

Magnus Carlsen won the London Chess Classic yesterday with a score of 13 out of 7: three wins, four draws and no losses. His +3 was enough to officially become the youngest world’s number one player ever on the next FIDE rating list.

The London Chess Classic took place December 8-15 in Kensington, Londen. Venue was the Olympia Conference Centre. The time control was 2 hours for 40 moves, then 1 hour for 20 moves and then 15 minutes plus 30 seconds increment to finish the games. Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Hikaru Nakamura, Nigel Short, Michael Adams, Ni Hua, Luke McShane and David Howell played.

Round 7 report by John Saunders

For many years now there has been a unique and rather touching tradition that the people of Norway make an annual Christmas gift to Britain of a 20-metre high Norwegian spruce tree, which is put up in Trafalgar Square and festooned with Christmas decorations. This year the Norwegian tree was sent to London as usual and can be seen in all its glory in the famous square, but Norway also thoughtfully sent another present – not as tall but every bit as impressive to anyone who appreciates top-quality chess. 19-year-old Magnus Carlsen came, saw and conquered at the London Chess Classic and, in the process, launched himself to the top of the official world chess ratings. Nobody has ever achieved this at a younger age.

So, “Magnus venit, vidit, vicit” (I knew all that school Latin would come in handy one day)… but, before we get too carried away with all this hyperbole, we must give credit to his last-round opponent, Nigel Short, who gave him a terrific run for his money and provided excellent entertainment for the chess fans at the Olympia Conference Centre.

Let’s take things chronologically. The first game to finish was Nakamura-Kramnik, in which both players made strenuous efforts to win. Ex-world champion Vladimir Kramnik, needing a win to give himself a realistic chance of the first prize, gave up a rook for a bishop and pawns, and some threats against White’s king but the American stood firm and the players eventually repeated the position for a draw. Both players will be slightly disappointed with their final results in London but they both deserve great credit for their part in making the tournament a roaring success and entertaining the audience in the commentary room.

Three-time Chinese champion Ni Hua played the Ruy Lopez opening against England’s top-rated teenager David Howell. The young man from Seaford in Sussex played an excellent game. First he made an energetic pawn sacrifice to block up Ni Hua’s bishop in the corner of the board and then attacked the weakened white defences in the centre. Ni Hua used too much time at the critical juncture and made some mistakes as his time ebbed away. David Howell made no mistake and launched a lethal counter-attack. As the lowest-rated player in the field as well as the least experienced, David’s final score of one win, six draws and no losses, and third place after the two megastars, was a superb achievement. Asked afterwards where this result ranked in his chess career, David had no hesitation in pronouncing it his best ever.

England’s Michael Adams too had an excellent last round, making the same final score as David Howell and remaining unbeaten. His game against Luke McShane started as a classic Adams squeeze: he applied gradual pressure to the weak spots in his opponent’s position, to the point where Luke could barely move. But Luke then demonstrated why he is such a dangerous fighter. His ingenious attempts to wriggle out of trouble brought about an exceedingly complicated position, but Adams somehow defused all the counterplay and won. This will be great fillip to Adams and should help to narrow the rating gap between him and England’s number one, Nigel Short. For McShane, there was tangible consolation in the shape of the tournament brilliancy prize of 10,000 euros, given for his win against Hikaru Nakamura in round five.

That just left Magnus Carlsen’s crucial game against Nigel Short. It lasted around five and a half hours and was a game of considerable fluctuations. Once Kramnik had agreed a draw, Carlsen only needed a draw to secure the first prize. However, the tournament rules precluded the agreeing of a draw in a position with life in it, so the two players got on with the job of playing the game through to its logical conclusion. After a fairly equal opening, Nigel Short made a mistake around move 25, and Carlsen seemed to be on the verge of victory. As with many sports stars on the brink of victory (e.g. a tennis player needing to serve out for a grand slam title or a golfer needing a straightforward putt for an open championship), nerves played their part. Magnus sometimes plays chess like a machine but he is human like the rest of us.

The game swung in favour of Short as they reached a queen and pawns endgames where Nigel had checkmating threats and even the chance of having two queens operating together on the board. It was an enthralling finish for the spectators but Carlsen recovered his equanimity and picked his way through a minefield of tricks laid for him by the former world title challenger. At the end of the game, just the two kings were left on the board – and there can be no better proof of a game fought to the bitter end.

Games round 7 with notes by John Saunders

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You can still replay GM Dimitri Reinderman’s live commentary of the 7th round in London. We’ve been covering the World Cup and the London Chess Classic for free; starting from 2010 our live commentary will be subscription-based. You’ll find more info here.

Videos

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• Official website
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Sergei Karjakin and Vladimir Malakhov have excellent chances to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup. On the first day of round 5, Karjakin beat Mamedyarov with White in an Open Ruy Lopez while Malakhov beat Svidler with Black in a Chebanenko Slav. Both Gelfand-Jakovenko, and Ponomariov-Gashimov ended in a draw.

The FIDE World Chess Cup takes place November 20th-December 15th inn Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. It’s a seven-round knockout with six rounds of matches comprising two games per round. The final seventh round consists of four games.

The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move from move one. Games start at 15:00h local time (11:00 CET).

Round 5, day 1

Only four boards, and eight players are left in Khanty-Mansiysk. By the way, the round 4 losers went home with US $ 20,000 each (tax already deducted), while the players still in the field will be dividing a total (net) sum of $ 352,000. (This round’s losers will earn US $ 28,000, the losers of the semis US $ 40,000, the runner-up US $ 64,000 and the winner US $ 96,000).

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov started with wins in all first four rounds, but today he lost game 1 against his first higher-rated opponent, Sergey Karjakin. Shakh’s opening choice was a surprising one, since according to the database he played the Open Ruy Lopez only 11 games before, the last time in December 2004. Besides, Karjakin’s preparation looked much better too.

15…0-0 was a deviation from a previous Karjakin game, but already with 18.g4! White had a clear advantage. Black just held on in the endgame, but White was always clearly on top. It seems that the last phase of the rook ending contains a few mutual mistakes:

49.f3! is winning on the spot here because of Zugzwang. After 49.Rf5 the move 49…g4 was absolutely necessary, but 49…Rb2? allowed the pretty 50.f4! and the pawn always queens.

In this group of eight, Vladimir Malakhov is a relatively unknown grandmaster since he’s never played in a super-tournament, but as we mentioned before, the Russian has been a 2600-high GM for a long time (and now even 2700+). More concretely we’re talking about the FIDE rating list of April 2002, when Malakhov passed the 2650 border and never went below!

This little intro makes it less of a surprise that Malakhov beat Svidler today, and we might add in an excellent game. Svidler went for 1.d4, despite the fact that his opponent’s Chebanenko Slav has been looking very solid in this World Cup. After the opening the game got more and more interesting with every move, with Svidler sacrificing material for an attack, and Malakhov just taking everything because he had seen something very nice at the end of a long variation.

The move 27…g5! was necessary here but after 28.Qh5 d2 29.f6 Qxf6! 30.Bxd4 Qxd4+ 31.Kg2 it looks like White is winning…

…except for Malakhov’s final move: 31…dxe1N+! and Svidler resigned.

Gelfand was probably caught in preparation by Jakovenko and got nothing out of the opening. In a long and tiresome event like this it’s not a bad idea to take an early draw, even with White. And that’s what Gelfand did.

Ponomariov-Gashimov was a fascinating battle. The Sicilian Dragon has been theoretically under a cloud for years against 1.e4, and in this respect its counterpart against 1.d4 is the Benoni. However, the new top 10 player Vugar Gashimov has been using it successfully for quite a while now.

Perhaps the opening needs such a strong player to be playable, because also in this game White got the upper hand. However, it looks like Ponomariov missed a few chances and therefore Gashmov’s Benoni draw was a narrow escape today.

29.f3! would have won because 29…Rxd5 can be answered by 30.Nb4! Rc5 31.N2d3. In the game 29.Nd3 Qf7 was played, where 30. g5! Nxg5 31.Na7! Rb8 32.Nxc8 Rbxc8 33.Rxc8 Rxc8 34.f4 would have trapped the knight.

All photos by Galina Popova | courtesy of FIDE

Games round 5, day 1

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Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN

Sergey Karjakin and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov fought in the Open Ruy Lopez. White employed a novelty and his opponent responded with a temporal pawn sacrifice in the search for activity. Mamedyarov weathered the storm and took the game into an endgame which appeared to be leaning towards draw. To his regret, one careless move with the Rook allowed Karjakin to create a net around the Black King.

Dmitry Jakovenko dully neutralised Boris Gelfand's pair of Bishops and white was forced to accept the Queens' exchange after which a draw was immediately agreed. On the other hand, Vugar Gashimov had to work longer to earn a draw against the aggressive Ruslan Ponomariov. With a timely piece sacrifice, Gashimov eliminated most of the white pawns and practically annulled opponent's winning prospects. Ponomariov then agreed to a repetition of moves.

Results:

Gelfand Boris (ISR) ½-½ Jakovenko Dmitry (RUS)
Ponomariov Ruslan (UKR) ½-½ Gashimov Vugar (AZE)
Svidler Peter (RUS) 0-1 Malakhov Vladimir (RUS)
Karjakin Sergey (UKR) 1-0 Mamedyarov Shakhriyar (AZE)

Games, interviews, and photos at the official website.

Sergey Karjakin, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Peter Svidler are the first three players who have reached the quarter-finals of the 2009 World Cup. On day 2 of round 4, Karjakin defeated Vitiugov with Black while Mamedyarov drew very quickly with Laznicka. Shirov tried against Svidler, but he was never close to more than equality. The second draw between Ponomariov and Bacrot was a real thriller.

The FIDE World Chess Cup takes place November 20th-December 15th inn Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. It’s a seven-round knockout with six rounds of matches comprising two games per round. The final seventh round consists of four games.

The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move from move one. Games start at 15:00h local time (11:00 CET).

Round 4, day 2

The first player to reach round 5, which equals the quarter-finals, was Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. His opponent Viktor Laznicka went for the Queen’s Gambit Accepted, which can’t be considered a serious winning attempt. Logically, the Azeri grandmaster chose an unambitious but risk-free variation and the draw was a fact already on move 13.

Viktor Laznicka can be, and apparently was, satisfied with reaching round 4

Peter Svidler’s task was the same: drawing with White. Again Alexei Shirov went for one of his favourite defences, the Archangelsk Ruy Lopez, but Svidler naturally avoided the sharpest variations. In fact, his 9.Nxe5 looks like a solid way to reach a small advantage in this line and the Russian easily drew the game.

After winner Gata Kamsky, now World Cup 2007 runner-up Alexei Shirov is also out

Like yesterday, compatriots Dmitry Jakovenko and Alexander Grischuk played a quick draw – apparently the two preferred to battle it out in rapid and possible blitz games. Boris Gelfand and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave needed a bit longer, but there too the balance was never disturbed.

Slightly more interesting was Wesley So vs Vladimir Malakhov, where the Philippine deviated from one of his opponent’s tiebreak games against Eljanov, of only two days ago – but there Malakhov was Black! This time there were no big mistakes, just many exchanges.

Deep concentration: Wesley So and Vladimir Malakhov

For the second time in this World Cup, Vugar Gashimov was clearly in trouble with the black pieces. Fabiano Caruana reached a dream position after the first time control, with the bishop pair, an active rook and a well protected passed pawn, but eventually he couldn’t break his opponent’s stiff defence.

The game between Nikita Vitiugov and Sergey Karjakin seemed to be heading to a draw as well, until Vitiugov suddenly blundered with 31.Qe4?, obviously missing Karjakin’s nasty reply. Black suddenly won a pawn, and the subsequent queen ending was very easy.

The longest game of the round was Ponomariov-Bacrot; an absolute thriller with mutual mistakes and a final position with only two bare kings. After a harmless opening choice by Ponomariov, Black was doing fine (17…Rb5 makes 18…c5 possible and a draw is near) but after some inaccurate moves by Bacrot, White was suddenly clearly better.

Ruslan Ponomariov won't be too happy with his play today

However, Ponomariov didn’t profit (especially 25.a3? is a very strange move) and the knight ending was drawn. However, after Bacrot’s 64…Nd5? the tablebase gives a win for White. Ponomariov was the last to err with 82.Kf7? when it’s a draw again, and so Bacrot is entering the tiebreaks with a small psychological advantage tomorrow…

Etienne Bacrot: still alive

Games round 4, day 2

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Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, the first to reach the quarter-finals...

...together with Sergey Karjakin and Peter Svidler

All photos by Galina Popova | courtesy of FIDE