The battle for the FIDE Presidency took another lurch towards chaos on Thursday when FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov announced he was suing Presidential Candidate Anatoly Karpov. Meanwhile, the Ilyumzhinov campaign has just declared its ticket and claimed the support of 35 countries, including… Russia. An update on the latest political developments.

By Colin McGourty

Ilyumzhinov takes Karpov to court

In an on-line interview with Gazeta.ru, Ilyumzhinov said that the case against Karpov was being brought by the FIDE Presidential Council before courts in Moscow (where Karpov is resident), an international court (where FIDE is registered) and the FIDE Ethics Commission. The charge is libel for Karpov’s alleged comments about corruption in FIDE, a topic that was already covered three weeks ago in an article by Arne (and see Mig Greengard’s comments below it). The legal case looks weak, and Mark Crowther may well be correct when he writes at TWIC that it seems “a completely empty threat”. Perhaps that explains why in the interview Ilyumzhinov focussed on the less newsworthy Ethics Commission. A court case might drag on and damage both candidates, but could the Ethics Commission come to a quick ruling that would exclude Karpov from running in the election?

Legal threats are, however, a double-edged sword. In the same interview Ilyumzhinov responded to the question of why Karpov and Kasparov have united against him:

“They need the financial and political resources of FIDE. 15 years ago they did everything they could so that FIDE wouldn’t be united. Now, when FIDE is a prosperous international organisation in a financial sense, and has great political authority, they need a platform for their ambitions. As chess players they’ve exhausted themselves, people have begun to forget about them and with their inadequate declarations they’re trying to draw attention to themselves again.”

Setting aside the dubious content, the above echoes earlier statements by Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Russian Chess Federation Arkadij Dvorkovich which provoked Karpov to respond with an official letter on his campaign website: “It is ironic that Mr. Dvorkovich libels me as pursuing the presidency of FIDE for improper purposes”.

Makropoulos: ‘Only dirt’

FIDE Deputy President Georgios Makropoulos, if anything, went even further in an interview a few days ago. He says only “dirt” is coming from Karpov, that he “doesn’t like to work”, that, “Gary can write a programme for Anatoly. But Anatoly himself can’t”. Kasparov is exploiting the campaign for his own political ends and, to cap it all, “Karpov is being used as a Trojan horse”, according to Makropoulos, in order to end the one-country, one-vote system (the “logic” seems to be that Russia already has great influence now despite only having one vote). Another almost surreal example of the depths to which the campaign has sunk came in an interview Karpov gave to argumenti.ru:

“Interviewer: They’ve started to say all sorts of things about you. In particular there are hints about a homosexual tie to the current President of the chess federation, Alexander Bakh. What do you have to say to your opponents? Are you going to sue?

Karpov: Thanks for the revelation. It’ll really help me to establish better ties with the mayors of the largest cities: Paris, London, Berlin (laughs). But of course I won’t sue. In my time I’ve heard so much, they’ve thrown so much dirt, that I understood that it’s better not to pay attention.”

New vote!?

Of course as well as libel, Karpov’s camp have accused Dvorkovich and others of much more serious offences. A continually developing story revolves around claims that some of the delegates who supported Karpov’s nomination at the Russian Chess Federation meeting last month failed to represent the wishes of their local organisations. The official website now has a colourful map of Russia with links below it to signed letters that together are meant to demonstrate that Ilyumzhinov really is the “people’s choice”. A new council may well vote to nominate Ilyumzhinov. In the argumenti.ru interview mentioned above Karpov commented on that situation:

“Now they’re trying to twist the arms of certain members of the council in the regions. They demand that they rethink their positions. They threaten them with dismissal, repression and even physical violence. I never thought that I’d live to see such fighting in chess. The most peaceful of games is living in a state of war.”

Still, perhaps it’s worth taking a step back from these recriminations to try and assess the current campaign on the level of ideas and normal debate. The following comparison pays particular attention to the opinions of well-known GMs, as well as comments on Russian chess forums (where the debate has been fiercest):

Ilyumzhinov:

Pros: Although enthusiastic voices are few and far between (his campaign website even chooses to quote GM Alexander Khalifman’s: “But, I think that the criticism addressed to the incumbent President is deserved”), Ilyumzhinov’s FIDE finally has a unified World Champion and runs a regular series of events. GM Vassily Ivanchuk was quoted in Odessa as saying that the life of a chess professional has improved during Ilyumzhinov’s reign. Khalifman notes that if required Ilyumzhinov, “reaches in his own pocket”.

Cons: The question of finance works both ways. Should a reputable international organisation have a president who, in the interview where he announced suing Karpov, also boasted: “For 15 years I was his sponsor. I personally set aside a few million American dollars from my fund and the money of my businessmen friends…”? Major sponsors may be wary of becoming involved with Ilyumzhinov, even if they do not credit, for instance, the accusations of the Jabloko political party, who said that the nomination of Ilyumzhinov brought shame on Russia (they refer to the murder of the Kalmykia opposition journalist, Larisa Yudina). Apart from these serious issues, Ilyumzhinov has also lately become something of a figure of fun. In the same interview, instead of laughing off his alien comments, he addressed the topic in total seriousness, adding:

“When the American astronaut Armstrong set down on the Moon his first phrase was: they’re here. Later they concealed it (…) For the first time I’m officially declaring: I don’t work for any alien intelligence.”

Despite the above, Ilyumzhinov himself is perhaps not even the main issue. Chess players seem almost unanimously united against Ilyumzhinov’s team, with Makropoulos (now confirmed on the new ticket), the focus of much anger for his alleged contempt for grandmasters and his handling of chess finances. In a recent Russian radio interview on poker, Grischuk said he had no enthusiasm for either candidate but would, if forced, come down in favour of Ilyumzhinov. But he mentioned that he could only ever actually support Ilyumzhinov if Makropoulos and others were removed from the ticket.

Karpov:

Pros: Sponsors and political figures should be happy to be seen meeting a former world champion, and the support of Carlsen and Kasparov is a great international PR success. He offers at least the prospect of change, and should be able to bring the perspective of a player to bear on chess organisation.

Cons: For now his programme, ticket and potential sponsors remain a mystery (Khalifman calls his campaign “words, words, words”), with some sub-elite grandmasters worried that the money the World Cup and similar knockout events provided will disappear. Also, although his self-destructive tendencies in interviews are no match for Ilyumzhinov, Shipov and others have noted his tendency to go overboard on self-promotion when mentioning e.g. his medals from Yeltsin and Putin, or the extraordinary number of schools in his name. Though, at times, you perhaps want to cheer him on:

“But why should he (Dvorkovich) set any conditions? I’m the world of chess. If he wants to be in the world of chess then he has to respect world champions. And not only me, but also Kasparov and the other champions. Stalin once said to his minister of culture: “I don’t have any other writers for you!” Just as there are no other world champions for Dvorkovich.”

The other dominant issue has been Kasparov, whose involvement has provoked predictable questions about his motivation, and divided opinion. Karpov is adamant that politics are not involved, and that his condition for working with Kasparov was focussing solely on chess.  In fact, he even half-joked:

“I think that the authorities should be grateful to me: Kasparov has barely engaged in politics for three months now, and won’t until the end of September. He’s got no time, we’ve agreed to travel around different countries and promote chess!”

Which is a reminder that the FIDE elections are still three months away! Karpov’s team had an early lead, with only Turkey having come out in support of Ilyumzhinov at one point. In the interview mentioned above Makropoulos claimed that countries had adopted a waiting stance after Karpov persuaded them that Ilyumzhinov might not even be a candidate. That now seems to have changed, with the Ilyumzhinov campaign website claiming the support of 35 federations.

Ticket announced; more candidates!?

They have also announced their ticket. As well as confirming Makropoulos’ involvement the other name that perhaps stands out is that of Ignatius Leong as General Secretary. The Karpov campaign site had previously quoted Leong as saying that he would not stand beyond the current term…

Where does the campaign go from here? All that’s certain is that we can expect many more twists and turns in the coming months. One likelihood is that it’s all about to become even more complicated. In the same interview where Ilyumzhinov managed to mention libel, and aliens, and that Karpov was “his friend”, he also added:

“At present I know of two more candidates who want to come forward”.

The Bulgarian organizers of the Anand-Topalov World Championship match take Chessbase to court for “violating copyright rules”. Chessbase transmitted the moves of the match live on their Playchess server, against the will of the Bulgarians.

During the Anand-Topalov World Championship match it already became clear that the organizer were planning to take legal action against Chessbase for transmitting the moves of the match live on Playchess. On May 27th the Bulgarians filed a case at a court in Berlin, and Chessdom has now quoted Silvio Danailov on the matter:

“Before the start of the World Chess Championship we explicitly stated that no company can use the moves without the official site’s staff permission. And this was violated by Chessbase, they put themselves above the law in Europe, above the general FIDE ethical rules. (…) I believe in European law and in our Attorney who is presenting the case – Mr. Rainer Polzin. What’s more, I am candidate for President of the ECU and as such I have to stand behind the rights of professional chess. Such actions, as the one by the German company Chessbase, affect the sponsors of events negatively, which damages sponsorship, from there future organization and level of events. In the long run the biggest damage is made on the chess fans, who are the most important part of the game – they certainly deserve to enjoy high level events and have chess sponsorship on all levels. Thus, by defending our rights through European law, we will be defending all fans and the future of chess.”

In an article by Dnevnik, Danailov states that the Bulgarians would expect to win at least 500,000 euros from this court case.

The attorney of the Bulgarian organizers, GM Rainer Polzin, has a law firm in Berlin. We asked him for some more details. He told us:

“The case has been filed at a court in Berlin [Landgericht - CV]. The action is partly based on the German Copyright Law, which is based in the protection of databases mainly to European directives. The EU directive (EU Directive) 96/9/EC of 11 March 1996 will play an important role.

Further claims from the Competition Law will be invoked. It is essentially a question of whether the live acquisition of content from a website, which is funded by sponsors, put onto another website, with the intention of generating profits, is admissible.

There have been some cases in Germany on broadcasting rights of football matches. But there it’s clear what is copyrighted: photos, moving pictures and radio reports. The problem for the clubs is when reporters without prior permission for sale, after buying a ticket, make photos or videos. These are fascinating cases. But it’s not comparable with our case, as ChessBase had no reporters in Sofia.”

Media rights
The organizers of the Anand-Topalov World Championship match, which took place in Sofia, Bulgaria last month, managed to collect a prize fund of 3 million Euros: 2 million for the players, 400,000 for FIDE taxes and 600,000 for organizational costs. In an attempt to earn back at least part of that money, they tried to sell the rights to cover the event to other media. For instance, the Bulgarian national TV channel are said to have paid the organizers to have the right to film the players with cameras inside the playing hall.

The organizers also attempted to sell the media the right to transmit the games live on the internet. Silvio Danailov, the manager of Veselin Topalov but also one of the main figures responsible for the organization of the match, told ChessVibes a few weeks before the match that we needed to pay 15,000 Euros if we wanted to transmit the games live. Although we weren’t sure about the legal situation, we were not inclined to fight this over court. Chessbase apparently was. All twelve games could be followed on the Playchess server.

During the match, the official website transmitted the games live on a page with a standard DGT game viewer. Below the viewer, the following note was seen throughout the match:

Warning! It is absolutely prohibited the live broadcast of the moves or video during the game on other websites, media or software without the explicit permission of the organizers of the match. This prohibition is being violated by ChessBase.

Earlier warnings
It was not the first time the Bulgarian organizers did this. The same warning was placed on the official website of the Topalov-Kamsky match, also held in Sofia in February 2009. Back then the Bulgarians “won”, since after being threatened with a law suit, Chessbase did stop transmitting the games. Arne wrote a column in which he discussed philosophical, legal and historical aspects of the issue. It led to 127 comments.

Meanwhile, we discovered that already in 2006 a similar note was published on the website of the MTel tournament:

(Sofia, May 13, 2006) Pirates broadcast the super chess tournament M-Tel Masters in internet. The biggest game server in the world ICC (www.chessclub.com) announces the live broadcast of the moves from the games in the tournament. The transmission is being done by using signal from the official web site of M-Tel Masters 2006 – www.mtelmasters06.com, which is violation of the copyrights of the organizes of the competition.

Interestingly, the Bulgarian organizers first attacked ICC, but in recent years they only seem to point their attack to the German company Chessbase. It’s well known that the relationship between the Bulgarians and Chessbase has become very bad, especially after a video was embedded by Chessbase on February 11th, 2007 that was claimed to show “assistance given to the world’s top-rated player Veselin Topalov during his games”.

Why only Chessbase?
We asked Silvio Danailov why other media, like ICC, Chessdom, Susan Polgar and Crestbook (Sergey Shipov) were not taken to court. He answered:

“With Chessdom we have commercial agreement signed. Susan Polgar and Sergey Shipov I respect very much. Both are excellent professionals, doing a lot for chess, making it more popular. They are not commercial and don’t resell the games. Having in mind all this, they had our permission.

With ICC I have long collaboration with mutual interest for both sides. But I explained already before that this is the last time; next time they should paid like everybody else.”

Danailov added that the situation in the US is complicated, and would probably ask for more research, and more attorneys.

Motorola vs NBA
We asked John Henderson of the Internet Chess Club (ICC) about their experience with events wanting to copyright the games. He answered “Many threatened but never followed through” and then referred to the “Motorola vs NBA case”, which to his knowledge basically settled matters until now in the States.

In that case, from 1997, the National Basketball Association demanded the exclusive right to transmit scores of basketball games, which Motorola was doing with their “Sports Trax” pagers. These were electronic devices which transmitted the scores, ball possession, and time remaining. Motorola obtained those scores by using public information, e.g. by watching basketball games on TV. Initially, in a New York court, the case was won by the NBA (comparable to the Bulgarian organizers). However, later Motorola (comparable to Chessbase) won the case, at the United States Court of Appeals For the Second Circuit.

Last year, the Staunton Memorial didn’t even make its games available for free live; visitors had to pay five pounds to watch the tournament games. One and a half years ago, the organizers of the World Championship match in Bonn, between Anand and Kramnik also attempted to prevent other media from broadcasting the game live (they only allowed the broadcast elsewhere with half an hour delay), to benefit as much as possible from their new broadcasting system Foidos. This never became a commercial success.

Copyright: an old issue
The copyright-over-chess-moves issue is about as old as the game itself. During the very first big, strong, international chess tournament, London 1851, rule number 12 said:

“As the managing committee guarantee to every subscriber of a guinea and upwards, a correct copy of the whole games, and as considerable expense must attend the recording of so many games and their subsequent publication, it must be understood that no-one will be allowed, in the first instance, to publish any part of them without the express sanction of the committee.” Source: Chess Notes

In many later disputes, the main point was always that if anyone would own the copyright over a game, it was the players themselves. The contract over the 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort match included a clause that gave the property right in the record of all games played in the match to each player. In negotiations for a match with Capablanca as early as 1911, Lasker wanted to claim the rights personally, because of his “activity in chess extending over more than 20 years”. As was also pointed out by Arne in his column, Capablanca’s point of view has always been taken as the general rule:

“A chess game, from its very nature and the manner of its production, must be the joint property of the two persons producing it … You can charge what you like for the publication of the games in any form you may deem to your advantage. But, unfortunately, that is a common privilege, of which anyone may take advantage.” Source: Chess Notes

Asked whether he thought the Bulgarian organizers had a chance, attorney Rainer Polzin answered us:

“Chances are good. You never know in court cases, but I’m a chess player. I don’t make a move when I know my opponent can mate me in one or two moves.”

Naturally we also asked Chessbase to comment on the lawsuit, but thus far we didn’t receive an answer from them.

Pavel Eljanov today won the sixth and final FIDE Grand Prix tournament in Astrakhan, Russia. The Ukrainian finished with a score of 8/13, a full point ahead of a group of five GMs. One of them was Teimour Radjabov, who finished second in the final GP standings and qualified for the FIDE Candidates matches.

The 6th FIDE Grand Prix took place May 10-24 in Astrakhan, Russia. Akopian (2694), Alekseev (2700), Gashimov (2734), Gelfand (2741), Eljanov (2751), Inarkiev (2669), Ivanchuk (2741), Jakovenko (2725), Leko (2735), Mamedyarov (2763), Ponomariov (2733), Rajabov (2740), Svidler (2735) and Wang Yue (2752) played. More details can be found in our first report.

Round 10

Would Pavel Eljanov be able to finish the tournament as strongly as he had played so far? How would he fare after the second and last rest day? Well, on Friday the Ukrainian had a crystal clear answer to this question. He defeated Hungarian top GM Peter Leko in 43 moves, perhaps not in the most convincing way, but the result is what counts.

Leko was more than fine after the opening (Eljanov didn’t like his 10.Ng3) and even rejected a draw offer on the 20th move. However, in the subsequent game the Hungarian made a few mistakes, and White obtained an advantage in the ending due to a strong passed pawn on the queenside. From that point Eljanov played very energetically. He did not allow Black to bring his king into the center, which would save the game for Leko. On the 43rd move White’s passed pawn became unstoppable, and Leko resigned.

Gashimov stayed half a point behind the leader after beating Inarkiev in a strong Ruy Lopez game. “I found an interesting plan with 15.Bd3 and 16.Re2,” he said afterwards. “My pawn sacrifice led to a curious position: White is a pawn down, Black pieces seem to be active, but actually White can play for a win at no risk. Soon I regained the material, keeping all the advantages of my position, then won an exchange and converted the advantage without much trouble.” Inarkiev: “I admit that Vugar played very energetically and deserved his win.”

Radjabov slowly but surely outplayed Akopian with Black in a Sveshnikov. “Maybe trading the queens was wrong,” said Akopian, “and I should have preferred 24.Qh6. I also don’t like my next moves – 26.Ndf4 and 28.f4. White’s position became very cramped, and Teimour showed good technique, not giving me any chances to survive.” 26.Ndf4 was a “serious inaccuracy” according to Radjabov.

Round 11

This round saw another Azeri derby: Radjabov versus Mamedyarov. It was an important game, since Radjabov’s win regained his chances to qualify for the Candidates matches. In the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez White got a small advantage and then developed a strong initiative following Black’s unsuccessful queen maneuver on the 19th move. The game transposed to a queen ending with a remote passed pawn for White. Black was short on time and committed the decisive error on the 38th move. Mamedyarov resigned immediately due to inevitable loss of the kingside pawns.

Radjabov: “I think after 20.Qf4 White may already be winning. Not sure if 28.d6 was necessary, but I thought I needed to force the issues. In any case, after this move it becomes extremely difficult for Black to hold.” Mamedyarov didn’t agree with Radjabov’s assessment of the opening: “In my opinion, White didn’t get any advantage. He started to take the upper hand only when I made a mistake by 19…Qd4 – this move is overambitious.”

Also relevant for the Candidates spot was Gashimov’s loss against Ponomariov. He couldn’t adopt his Benoni as the Ukrainian went for other schemes. Ponomariov about Gashimov only playing the Benoni: “The disadvantage is that he knows other lines superficially. Thus I decided to transpose to the Nimzo-Indian Defense. In my opinion, I got a very comfortable position. Perhaps in the middlegame I could play better. For example, on the 17th move I could take on g3 with the queen, making Black’s defensive task tougher. Yet, defending was unpleasant enough for such an active player as Vugar. He started to make reckless moves such as 26…h5, which helped me to win the game.”

Round 12

Five-time Russian champion Peter Svidler finally won his first game in Astrakhan. He successfully avoided Gelfand’s Petroff and used the Four Knights to beat the Israeli in 31 moves. Gelfand’s sharp f-pawn push on the 21st move proved to be a big mistake. Svidler delivered a nice tactical blow, and Black’s position collapsed.

Akopian defeated Ivanchuk in just 23 moves. The Ukrainian handled the Ragozin Variation of the Queen’s Gambit too passively. Akopian comfortably arranged his pieces and launched a kingside attack. On the 21st move the Armenian sacrificed an exchange, which turned out to be a very unpleasant surprise for Black. In two more moves Ivanchuk abandoned his resistance.

Akopian, after the game: “I’m surprised that the victory came so easily – I have a bad score against Vassily. The plan that I employed in this game is not new: White ignores the d4-pawn and concentrates on a kingside attack. Vassily played without confidence; his 14…g6 only provokes my attack. And on the next move he should have played 15…h5. After he missed this opportunity, my only problem was to choose correctly from several good continuations. The final position is so ugly for Black that Vassily just resigned. Well, this probably just wasn’t his day…”

Mamedyarov improved upon his first round game against Jakovenko, to which Leko couldn’t find a good answer. Perhaps White didn’t find all the best moves, but nevertheless Mamadyarov managed to transpose to an ending with a big advantage, which he effectively converted to the full point.

Leko: “This was a strange game. Losing to Eljanov killed my chances to qualify for the candidates matches, which obviously affected my motivation today. Of course, this is not a good excuse for my poor play against Shakhriyar…”

Alekseev-Inarkiev was the longest game of the 12th round. After interesting complications in the Slav Defense the players arrived at a very original position, in which White had three minor pieces against a rook and three pawns. White slowly but surely consolidated his pieces and launched the attack on the king. He then won a pawn and advanced to a winning ending. Despite Black’s stubborn resistance, Alekseev won the game on the 88th move.

Round 13

Eljanov needed a draw to secure sole first, and he did so with the black pieces against Gelfand. The two have worked together in the past years, but with White Gelfand did press for while. In a Nimzo he sacrificed a pawn to open up the position, but Eljanov gave back the material and after the exchange of the minor pieces the position remained balanced.

After winning the Bosna tournament in 2009, Eljanov now has a new ‘best tournament of his career’. Winning this Grand Prix, one of the strongest tournaments on average rating and of this scale ever held, is a fantastic result for the 27-year-old, who proved that his new status of Ukraine’s number one player wasn’t a coincidence.

Report based on the tournament website

Photo courtesy of FIDE, more here

Games rounds 10-13

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Astrakhan Grand Prix 2010 | Schedule & results

After the 12th round, Ivanchuk, Leko, Mamedyarov and Alekseev were eliminated from qualifying for the runner-up position. Grischuk was also eliminated, because Radjabov scored well enough to ensure that even if he’d lose his final round, he’d gain enough GP points to surpass Grischuk.

In the final round of Astrakhan, Jakovenko was eliminated with his draw and Gashimov has been eliminated with his loss. The winner of the Radjabov-Wang Yue game decided matters: a win for the Chinese would have meant qualification, but Radjabov with White held a Petroff ending a pawn down to a draw and this was enough to end second in the overall Grand Prix. Thanks to ebutaljib for providing this table:

Source used: Wikipedia page on the GP

And so an end has come to a long series of six super tournaments which had its ups and downs. Positive were the tournament websites, with extensive reports (disclaimer: which were written by yours truly in Baku and Sochi), sometimes videos (by the Turkish Chess Federation in Baku, Europe-Echecs in Sochi and – another disclaimer – by me in Nalchik) and sometimes game analysis by GM Sergey Shipov.

More importantly, a big number of players had the opportunity to play in big, strong events and make good money.

But of course many more things went wrong. Three host cities (Doha, Karlovy Vary and Montreux) withdrew when it became clear that the money wasn’t there. Their nominated players had to leave the series and Yannick Pelletier was hit the most, as he couldn’t play a single event. The Czech organizers were very disappointed when Adams and Carlsen had good reason to leave the series: because of the sudden change of the World Championship cycle, during the cycle.

When it all started, the idea was that the winner of the GP would play against the World Champ. (We would have had a Aronian-Anand match in 2012.) winner of the World Cup. (We would have a Gelfand-Aronian match and the winner would play Anand.) But during the Olympiad in Dresden, FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov suddenly announced the Candidates ‘tournament’ (which would later be rephrased to ‘matches’), for which the numbers one and two of the GP Series would qualify.

Another point of criticism FIDE received by many (e.g. more than once by Kasparov) was about the locations of the events. The whole series never managed to leave the greater Caucasus region, and so no single event was organized in a bigger, Western city, which didn’t really help to attract corporate sponsorship either.

In general the idea wasn’t so bad. But the execution could have been much better.

Update: according to Harish in the comments, the pairings for the Candidates matches are:

1. Topalovs vs Kamsky ( 1 vs 8 )
2. Carlsen vs Radjabov ( 2 vs 7 )
3. Kramnik vs Nominee ( 3 vs 6 )
4. Aronian vs Gelfand ( 4 vs 5 )

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

Previous reports

• Astrakhan FIDE GP R1: Gashimov beats Ivanchuk
• Many draws so far at Astrakhan FIDE GP
• Eljanov leads in Astrakhan
• FIDE GP: Eljanov back ik the lead

While Karpov basks in the limelight of his New York fundraiser, Ilyumzhinov and Dvorkovich find themselves in a tough situation. Given the personalities ranged against him, how can Dvorkovich fight back? An analysis of the Russian media on the matter may clarify some things.

By Colin McGourty

The Russian Chess Federation website dutifully reports that Dvorkovich is sticking to his guns in rejecting Karpov’s nomination. A summary might read: Karpov’s nomination wasn’t valid as I wasn’t at the meeting, though even if I’d been at the meeting it wouldn’t have been valid as the federation’s new charter hasn’t been approved, and even if the charter had been approved and I’d been at the meeting it still wouldn’t have been valid… as we’ve already chosen Ilyumzhinov. It smacks of protesting too much.

This is perhaps best captured by Maxim Kononenko, a columnist at GZT.RU, whose take on the situation has garnered attention on Russian chess forums. It’s entitled, “A scythe ran into Karpov”, where “Karpov” replaces “stone” in the Russian proverb. In short, Dvorkovich met his match. The problem, as Kononenko expresses it (with the occasional mention of aliens…), is that Dvorkovich is fighting a losing battle:

Even if Dvorkovich’s right a thousand times over in coming up with a way around the decision of the national chess federation, he’ll still be a laughing stock. While those members of the federation who voted for Karpov won’t be, even if Karpov hasn’t got a clue about organising chess events.

(…) Plus he has the support, at least briefly, of Kasparov, whose authority in the world of chess (true, only chess, but still) is, in general, limitless. Who on earth is Arkady Dvorkovich compared to Karpov and Kasparov? All things considered, no-one. The whole world knows about Karpov and Kasparov, but no-one in the world knows that the Russian president has an aide called Dvorkovich.

So given the personalities ranged against him, how can Dvorkovich fight back? The answer, perhaps, is in seeking his own endorsements. When he was interviewed a few days ago on Chesspro.ru his final words were the intriguing: “By the way, my conversation with Kramnik showed that he fully supports my position in the current dispute”. Is Kramnik, not known for his political activism, really throwing his weight behind the Dvorkovich/Ilyumzhinov ticket!? The RCF website was glad to elaborate on the issue, quoting the comments of “one of the best known active chess players in the world” to the RBK newspaper:

The fact that there might be two candidates for the post of FIDE President is, on the one hand, a good thing. Competition always leads to better results. But it’s unpleasant that it’s grown into a scandal. According to my information the majority of the RCF Supervisory Board were simply misinformed about the location and time of the meeting. It’s particularly unpleasant to behave in such a manner with such respected people as Dvorkovich and Zhukov.

For years now they’ve practically carried the whole of Russian chess on their shoulders. They’ve supported our young talents and the best professional players, the development of children’s chess and also the organisation of the Tal Memorial, one of the strongest tournaments in the world. For my part, I’d like to make an appeal that the struggle for the very important position of FIDE President be conducted using only civilised methods of combat.

Quite a ringing personal endorsement of Dvorkovich, but is it anything more? No-one seems entirely innocent in the events of 14th May in Moscow. This curious report tells of how delegates from the Volga Federal District spent their day in Moscow, and sheds some more light on the proceedings (the photos from the “official” meeting include Bareev outlining plans for the Olympiad later this year).

After arriving in Moscow they only received a call at noon to say the meeting had been switched to Dvorkovich’s “Hotel”. A bus was to ferry delegates from the Central Chess House at 4 pm, but they decided to take the metro instead. They only learnt of the Karpov vote in a phone call after it was taken, and just before the other meeting began. The report sums up their bemusement with a famous line from the Russian poet Tiutchev, which could serve for the whole affair: “Russia cannot be understood with the mind alone”.

So we can agree that Kramnik’s right to think the events were unseemly and some delegates weren’t fully informed what was going on (by either side!), but we can also doubt the information he was given and, crucially, note that he says nothing to approve Dvorkovich’s nomination of Ilyumzhinov. Coming from a slightly different angle, GM Sergey Shipov, on his forum, responded to Dvorkovich’s claims with:

Voldya’s a “thing-in-itself”, in Kant’s phrase. He stands apart… And to drag him onto your side in any clear way is impossible. But in principle, the way things are shaping up right now is perfectly clear. Grandmasters are for Karpov.

In fact, rather than being an exception to this general rule (like Kevin Spraggett), Kramnik is one of the few top players to have come out in open support of Karpov. Perhaps recent events in the RCF have diminished his enthusiasm, but Kramnik was recently quoted as telling the Russian chess journal, 64:

I’d like, rather, to support the candidacy of Karpov. We don’t yet know exactly what he’s planning to do. But we know for certain that the current leadership of FIDE, if it’s chosen once more, will do nothing. No changes! Another four years of total confusion and incompetence in the chess world is guaranteed.

Perhaps it’s a bit too early to chalk Kramnik up as an Ilyumzhinov supporter! Alexandra Kosteniuk appears a better candidate. Her declaration now has pride of place on the RCF website, alongside Dvorkovich’s. She says she hasn’t received any financial support for over a year (as the RCF claim there’s no money), and dramatically declares:

I must say that if Arkady Vladimirovich Dvorkovich hadn’t been in Russian chess I wouldn’t have decided to return to professional chess at the end of 2007 and I wouldn’t have brought Russia the women’s chess crown in 2008. I also couldn’t have been part of the team that brought Russia its second European gold medal in October 2009, seeing as Dvorkovich was the only person in the whole RCF who was always willing to help when problems arose.

(…) But now all these hopes are threatened by the actions of people who say they are working for the good of chess, while in actual fact their only aim is the will to remain in power. Therefore, I would like to support the position of Arkady Vladimirovich Dvorkovich and call on those who aren’t indifferent to the future of chess in Russia to evaluate the current situation soberly in an attempt to try and reach compromises, rather than destroying what exists in order to build castles in the sky.

Interestingly, Kosteniuk’s passionate declaration has yet to appear on her immensely popular blog, and the news has only been picked up by Chessdom so far. What are its implications? Can we take her clear backing of Dvorkovich’s position as a declaration of support for Ilyumzhinov’s nomination? Perhaps, though his name isn’t mentioned, and the criticism isn’t directed at Karpov (he’s not one of those trying to “remain” in power).

In the meantime, an indication of how Dvorkovich might prevail, at least in the local battle, is emerging in comments on a thread at Shipov’s Crestbook forum (”FIDE Presidential Elections: Ilyumzhinov or Karpov?”). It appears that the local administration of two of the delegates who supported Karpov (Gilyasov and Goncharov) claim the delegates failed to represent their views. Dvorkovich, meanwhile, seems to have switched the security guards at the Central Chess House in Moscow, in what may be a move to exclude Bakh and his team.

Shipov’s summary there, as ever, is sharp and to the point:

The RCF site, it’s already absolutely clear, is working under the direction of Dvorkovich’s men and not Bakh’s. They’ve lost their mass media outlet.
It’s no doubt the same with the Federation’s accounts… People from the provinces, sensing something’s wrong, have rushed to display signs of loyalty to Dvorkovich and rejection of Bakh (even if they’d previously agreed with the latter).

In general, in a pack of wolves the strongest prevails. However, what does this have to do with the FIDE Presidential election? How will it influence it? It seems to me that in no way at all. The success of Karpov in the West is almost 100%. And in the third world he already has many countries on his side.
In the former Soviet Union there are also many under his banner. Even if the neo-RCF under Dvorkovich’s rule favours Ilyumzhinov, it won’t change a thing.

We should also note that Shipov just added that the premises have been taken over. Bakh called the police but when they saw the papers Dvorkovich’s men had they just went away! A new date for the supervisory council to meet appears to have been set for 4 June.

Summing up the current state of affairs, the minor coup d’état that Bakh, Karpov and Kasparov managed to pull off in Moscow on 14 May has altered the game completely. Even if Dvorkovich can somehow uphold his choice of nominee (which, at the moment of writing, looks ever more likely!), Ilyumzhinov’s campaign has suffered a body blow - the majority, when all’s said and done, was still a majority. Not that you’d want to stake your life on predicting the outcome of this strange and enthralling battle – as someone was very quick to respond after Shipov’s, “Grandmasters are for Karpov”:

That sounds like a verdict! If grandmasters are for Karpov then his chances of winning aren’t great…

Update 22 May 2010
The events described above, almost as they happened, have been confirmed. On Thursday 20 May Dvorkovich completed what Karpov, in a letter published at Chessbase, calls “a hostile takeover of the
Russian Chess Federation”. Security guards expelled Bakh from his office at the Central Chess Club in Moscow, after first seizing control of the accounts and official website.

Karpov challenges the legality of Dvorkovich’s actions, but also goes much further, accusing him of libel and “efforts to intimidate other federations from supporting me”. In turn a radio interview revealed the depth of Dvorkovich’s animosity towards Karpov: “As a man, I just can’t stand some people (…) it would be easier for me to support Kasparov than Karpov, based on personal considerations”.

What happens next, and especially how the power struggle in Russia affects the overall FIDE election, is hard to guess, though in the same interview Dvorkovich left open an intriguing possibility:

“There are many scenarios, even the scenario in which both [Karpov] and [Ilyumzhinov] are nominated by foreign chess federations. The Russian Chess Federation, in view of the different positions and the very strong differences of opinion, might not nominate anyone”.

Ecco le soluzioni dei quesiti proposti nell'articolo "Il senso della posizione" (QUI), riguardante posizioni tratte dalle partite Karpov-Andersson, Milano 1975 e Grigorian-Agzamov, Cheliabinsk 1981.

Karpov - Andersson, Milano 1975

24...d5!? 25.cxd5 exd5 26.exd5 Ad6 27.Cf1

[27.Cde4 Cxe4 28.Cxe4 Axh2 29.g3 Txe4! 30.fxe4 Axg3 con netto vantaggio del nero]

27...Txe3!?

[27...b5 28.Aa7! Db7 29.Ad4 +=]

28.Cxe3!

[28.Dxe3 Af4 29.Dd4 Axc1 30.Txc1 b5! (30...Cc5 31.Ac4!±) 31.Td1 Cb6 32.Ce3 (32.d6 Ce8!) 32...Cbxd5 33.Ccxd5 Axd5 34.Cf5 Te8= 35.Cxh6+? gxh6 36.Dxf6 Txe2 37.Txd5?? Te1#]

28...Axh2 29.Cf1

[29.Cf5 Af4 30.Ce7+! (30.Tc2 De5!) 30...Rf8 31.Cc6 Axc6 32.dxc6 Axc1 (32...De5!? - idea Ag3 - 33.Dh4 con gioco incerto) 33.Txc1 Cc5 34.b4 Ce6 35.Axa6 con iniziativa]

29...Af4 30.Tc2 b5!

Il GM Shipov commenta così:

‘La cosa principale in questo genere di situazione è non cercare di riprendere immediatamente il materiale sacrificato ma giocare per migliorare la posizione alla ricerca di altri vantaggi posizionali.
Alla fine il materiale tornerà in automatico, come del resto avviene in questa partita.’

Sentiamo invece il commento di Karpov:

‘Ulf non ha un compenso sufficiente e rapidamente la sua iniziativa si spegnerà.
Ora è solo una questione tecnica di come vincere.
Sentivo in effetti che avrei vinto rapidamente. Perché torturarlo in utilmente quando ormai era pronto per essere finito?
Del resto Ulf aveva solo 1 minuto per le prossime 10 mosse…
Una brutta situazione! Avevo anche una qualità in più ed un ora ancora per pensare!... Quando un giocatore è in zeitnot diventa estremamente reattivo e concentrato. L’intensità del suo pensiero si accresce di molte volte.
Ma per me era tutto all’opposto!
Involontariamente mi lasciai andare, pensavo che la sua bandierina cadesse da un momento all’altro e che bastasse fare qualche mossa ancora.
Così feci una mossa ‘semplice’ e poi ancora un'altra… e ancora una… Alla fine mi ritrovai in una posizione dove capii che c’era qualcosa che non andava pensai per circa un ora… ma la posizione era ormai perduta!!’

Kasparov e la maggior parte dei commentatori moderni ritiene invece che nella posizione dopo d5 il nero abbia un compenso sufficiente comunque per non perdere…

31.Ad3 Cb6 32.Ae4?! Cc4 33.a4?! Te8 34.axb5 axb5 35.Te2 Ae5 36.Dc5 Cd6 37.Ca2?! Cdxe4 38.fxe4 Ad6 39.Dc2 Te5! 40.g3 De8! 41.Tde1 Ab7 42.Rg1 Ch7! 43.Cc1 Cg5 44.Cd2 Ab4 45.Rf2 Axd2 46.Txd2 Cxe4+ 47.Txe4 Txe4 48.Ce2 Ac8 49.Cc3 Te1 50.Ce2 Ta1 51.Td4 Dd8 52.Dc6 Ad7 53.Dd6 De8 54.Df4 Dc8! 55.b4 Ah3 56.De4 Af5?! 57.De3 Dc2 58.g4 Ad7 59.De4 Db3 60.Dd3 Db2 61.De4 Ta8 62.De3 Ta2 63.d6?! Ta8! 64.Te4 Ac6 65.Dd4 Db1 66.Te7 Dh1! 67.Df4 Dg2+ 68.Re1 Ta1+ 69.Rd2 Dd5+ 70.Dd4 Ta2+ 71.Rc3 Df3+?! 72.Te3 Ta3+ 73.Rd2 Ta2+ 74.Re1 Dh1+ 75.Rf2 Dg2+76.Re1 Dh1+ 77.Rf2 Ta1! 78.Tc3 Dg2+ 79.Re3 Df3+

0-1 

*************************

Grigorian - Agzamov, Cheliabinsk 1981

24.. .e5! 25.fxe5 d5!! 26.exd5 Texe5 27.h3 Txd5

Se 28.De3 Txd4 29.Dxd4 ed ora seguirebbe un fantastico scacco matto forzato in 9 mosse!:Txh3+ 30.Rg1 Ah2+ 31.Rf2 Dg3+ 32.Re2 Af3+ 33.Rd3 Ae4+ 34.Re2 Dg4+ 35.Rf2 Tf3+ 36.Re2 Txf1+ 37.Rxf1 Dxg2#]

28.Dxc7 Dxc7 29.cxd5 Dd7 30.Rg1 Cxd5 31.Ce4 Te5 32.Cf3 Te8 33.Tcd1 h6 34.Ac1 f5 35.Cg3 Txe1 36.Txe1 Cc3 37.Ac4+ Ad5 38.Ab2 Axc4 39.bxc4 Ca4 40.Aa1 Cf4 41.Ad4 Cc5 42.h4 Ce4 43.Cf1 Da4 44.Ae3 Cd3 45.Tb1 b5 46.cxb5 Dxa2 47.Td1 Db3 48.Ta1 Dxb5 49.Ad4 Cf4

0–1

*********************

La Scuola Scacchi Roma si trova in Via della Stamperia 72, Roma (Metro Barberini). Le lezioni si tengono tutti i lunedì dalle 20.00 alle 22.00.

Gli Istruttori FSI e Maestri Fide Nicolò Napoli e Marco Corvi sono disponibili anche per lezioni private via internet.

Maestro Fide Nicolò Napoli: cellulare 3290826395; email: nicolo.n@xadrez.it

Maestro Fide Marco Corvi: cellulare 3282733517; email: scuoladiscacchi@fastwebnet.it

Viswanathan Anand retained his world title today in Sofia, Bulgaria by beating his opponent Veselin Topalov in the 12th and last match game with the black pieces. The Indian won the world title in a tournament in 2007, and now successfully defended it twice in a match.

For all the match details, rules and regulations we refer to our large overview article here. Here’s a summary:

The match will take place April 21 – May 12 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Venue is the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria. The match will consist of 12 games, and if necessary, a 4-game rapid tiebreak, if necessary 5 2-game blitz matches and if necessary 1 sudden death game. The classical games will be played in pairs of 2, so there will be a rest day after every 2 games. No postponements are allowed. Topalov has White in games 1,3,5,8, 10 and 12.

Schedule

The time control for each game is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61. The Chief Arbiter is Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos (Greece). The Deputy Chief Arbiter is Werner Stubenvoll (Austria). The total prize fund is 3 million Euros: 2 million for the players, 400,000 for FIDE taxes and 600,000 for organizational costs. The winner will receive 1,2 million Euros while the loser receives 800.000 Euros.

Score

Videos

If you can’t see all videos in the player above: this is a cache problem of the browser. We’ve contacted blip.tv about the problem. Please remove your cache files and try again. Here’s the game 11 video separately:

Game 12

Today already fourty minutes before the game, while the players were just about to leave their hotels, already a big amount of TV camera, single-lens reflex cameras, and other digital cameras, and dozens of media people operating them, were waiting in the theater room of the Central Military Club. A game that could be all-decisive, is on the program.

For the 6th time Topalov opened with 1.d4, and Anand went back to 1…d5. But no Slav this time. No, the World Champion chose the opening that has been played the most in World Championship matches: the Queen’s Gambit Declined. The variation with an early …Ne4, named after the second World Champion Emanuel Lasker, is known as passive but solid. A bit like the Slav ending Anand used three times, but with the queens still on the board.

Anand will certainly be satisfied with a draw. Topalov on the other hand will certainly be pressing today, but it remains to be seen how much risk he’s prepared to take. Many locals in Bulgaria will regard another draw as a loss for their hero, since Anand’s legendary record in rapid chess is known here too…

After a quiet middlegame Anand went both …e5 and f5. Topalov then seemed to crack under the pressure. He took two pawns very quickly, which simply led to a devastating attack for Black. Anand didn’t chose the quickest win, allowing Topalov to reach a RN vs Q ending, but the result was never in doubt. And so Anand decided the match in his favour with the first win for the black pieces in the very last game.

At the press conference Anand praised his opponent’s fighting spirit. “It was the toughest match I played so far. The games were all long and tough fights.” He called the organization “superb”, and didn’t mind playing in Sofia “as soon as the chess started”.

To the question why Topalov took on f5, the Bulgarian answered briefly: “I took a risk, and I was punished.” Although clearly disappointed about the result, he said he was satisfied about the level he played.

Later more, including the last video. I’m doing a private interview with Anand tomorrow, so if you happen to have a brilliant question, drop it below in the comments!

Game viewer by ChessTempo

A Queen's Gambit Declined this time...

...a Lasker Defence to be specific

Links (we keep updating this!)

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC
• Rules & regulations (PDF)
• The Week in Chess with analysis by IM Malcolm Pein and reports by Mark Crowther
• Anish Giri annotating for Chessbase
• Europe-Echecs, also reporting from Sofia
• GM Ian Rogers blogging for the USCF
• Rogers’ articles for Crikey (all together)
• GM Kevin Spragget blogging
• GM Susan Polgar with live commentary
• Chessdom (also live commentary)
• Crestbook (GM Sergey Shipov, live commentary in Russian)
• GM Dejan Bojkov analysing the games
• Die Zeit’s coverage
• Kramnik interview in Die Zeit
• Schwatt und Weiss (Georgios Souleidis blogging for Der Westen)
• Entwicklungsvorsprung (Georgios Souleidis’ blog)
• Schach Welt (live audio commentary & chat with GM Jörg Hickl and IM Ilja Schneider)

The 11th game of the World Championship match in Sofia ended also in a draw today. Anand, who had started the game with 1.c4, could give perpetual check in a rook ending and instead offered a draw, which was accepted by Topalov. Video added.

For all the match details, rules and regulations we refer to our large overview article here. Here’s a summary:

The match will take place April 21 – May 12 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Venue is the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria. The match will consist of 12 games, and if necessary, a 4-game rapid tiebreak, if necessary 5 2-game blitz matches and if necessary 1 sudden death game. The classical games will be played in pairs of 2, so there will be a rest day after every 2 games. No postponements are allowed. Topalov has White in games 1,3,5,8, 10 and 12.

Schedule

The time control for each game is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61. The Chief Arbiter is Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos (Greece). The Deputy Chief Arbiter is Werner Stubenvoll (Austria). The total prize fund is 3 million Euros: 2 million for the players, 400,000 for FIDE taxes and 600,000 for organizational costs. The winner will receive 1,2 million Euros while the loser receives 800.000 Euros.

Score

Videos

If you can’t see all videos in the player above: this is a cache problem of the browser. We’ve contacted blip.tv about the problem. Please remove your cache files and try again. Here’s the game 11 video separately:

Click To Play

Game 11

Today’s 11th match game started with another 1-minute silence, this time for Andor Lilienthal. Last night I emailed a FIDE delegate, and he would ask the arbiters. I have no idea if it was a because of this, but Chief Arbiter Nikolopoulos did pay attention to it, which is good.

The game started with 1.c4 – a move Anand had never played in a classical game, to the knowledge of Topalov. However, we think we’ve found one: Anand-Christiansen, Munich 1991. But this was a last-round game in which Christiansen needed a draw to secure clear first, and the game ended in a quick draw indeed. Exactly the kind of draw that’s being avoided by the Sofia rule…

Today Anand showed that it’s actually a good opening when you don’t want to take risks, but still like to keep slight, very slight winning chances.

Topalov answers Anand's surprising 1.c4 quickly with 1...e5

Although Topalov was surprised by the move, he played fast in the opening. And indeed Black had no problems whatsoever. The resulting ending was quite drawish, but suddenly Anand took some risks by sacrificing his last pawn on the queenside in return for active play. However, in the game the world champ proved that his counterplay was sufficient.

At the press conference Topalov didn’t want to answer the question whether he agrees that Anand should be considered the favourite for the tiebreak. “First we have another game, then we’ll see.”

Game viewer by ChessTempo

What started as a very quiet game, turned into an interesting ending...

...with many hidden tactics

The view from the person handling the webcam

Links (we keep updating this!)

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC
• Rules & regulations (PDF)
• The Week in Chess with analysis by IM Malcolm Pein and reports by Mark Crowther
• Anish Giri annotating for Chessbase
• Europe-Echecs, also reporting from Sofia
• GM Ian Rogers blogging for the USCF
• Rogers’ articles for Crikey (all together)
• GM Kevin Spragget blogging
• GM Susan Polgar with live commentary
• Chessdom (also live commentary)
• Crestbook (GM Sergey Shipov, live commentary in Russian)
• GM Dejan Bojkov analysing the games
• Die Zeit’s coverage
• Kramnik interview in Die Zeit
• Schwatt und Weiss (Georgios Souleidis blogging for Der Westen)
• Entwicklungsvorsprung (Georgios Souleidis’ blog)
• Schach Welt (live audio commentary & chat with GM Jörg Hickl and IM Ilja Schneider)

Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov also drew their 10th game of the World Championship match in Sofia. The World Champion went back to his Grünfeld Defence and reached equality easily but then came a bit under pressure. Topalov had some chances in an ending, but let it slip away. For the first time Anand offered a draw, which was reluctantly accepted by Topalov. Video added.

For all the match details, rules and regulations we refer to our large overview article here. Here’s a summary:

The match will take place April 21 – May 12 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Venue is the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria. The match will consist of 12 games, and if necessary, a 4-game rapid tiebreak, if necessary 5 2-game blitz matches and if necessary 1 sudden death game. The classical games will be played in pairs of 2, so there will be a rest day after every 2 games. No postponements are allowed. Topalov has White in games 1,3,5,8, 10 and 12.

Schedule

The time control for each game is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61. The Chief Arbiter is Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos (Greece). The Deputy Chief Arbiter is Werner Stubenvoll (Austria). The total prize fund is 3 million Euros: 2 million for the players, 400,000 for FIDE taxes and 600,000 for organizational costs. The winner will receive 1,2 million Euros while the loser receives 800.000 Euros.

Score

Videos

If you can’t see all videos in the player above: this is a cache problem of the browser. We’ve contacted blip.tv about the problem. Please remove your cache files and try again. Below is the game 10 video separately:

Click To Play

Game 10

After yesterday’s thriller things were much more quiet in today’s 10th match game. Anand left the Slav ending to return to the Grünfeld Defence which he played in game 1. Instead of 10…Na5. he went for the rare line 10…b6 which was popular in the early eighties.

The main point of the move seems to be to change the move order in such a way that White cannot reach the most favourable positions from the theoretical lines. And indeed, Topalov failed to get an advantage out of the opening. On move 23 Black had clearly reached equality, and a draw was expected.

Topalov and Anand getting ready for another very important game

However, suddenly Anand allowed the tricky move 25.Ba6! – a nice one by Topalov – and suddenly he found himself in a slightly worse ending, where White had a passed pawn on d5 and the bishop pair.

Still, it looked like Black could easily create a blockading set-up, but after another inaccuracy, allowing g5 and Bg4-e6, the World Champion got under serious pressure. Suddenly the d5 was nicely protected and White threatened to win the h7 pawn in some lines.

Then it was Topalov’s turn to make one or two inaccurate moves, which allowed Anand’s active defence with 44…Nd6+ and 45…Nc4! keeping everything together. Soon the dark-squared bishops were traded and Black was almost better. As he couldn’t avoid all pawns disappearing on the queenside, Anand offered a draw, for the first time in the match. In the webcam on the official site it could be seen that Topalov called for the arbiter, who walked to the board, but then the players quickly shook hands anyway.

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Approaching it's end, the media attention of the match is growing by the day

The handycam taking care of the live stream on the official website - unfortunately the organizers don't put it closer to the players, inside the curtain, to avoid the dark image

Back to the Grünfeld and a reasonably easy draw for the World Champ

During game 9 Stefan Löffler had a brief interview with Vladimir Kramnik about the match for Die Zeit. Here’s one quote:

Zeit: At this World Championship Anand copied particularly your openings. With White, he has played four times the Catalan. A surprise for you?

Kramnik: It is a logical choice. Topalov hasn’t had good result against Catalan so far. At least statistically, this opening is his weak point. It’s like in tennis. If the opponent is weak at the net, one tries to lure him there. This strategy was actually difficult to predict, but for Anand it worked. With the Catalan he got his two victories.

Links (we keep updating this!)

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC
• Rules & regulations (PDF)
• The Week in Chess with analysis by IM Malcolm Pein and reports by Mark Crowther
• Anish Giri annotating for Chessbase
• Europe-Echecs, also reporting from Sofia
• GM Ian Rogers blogging for the USCF
• Rogers’ articles for Crikey (all together)
• GM Kevin Spragget blogging
• GM Susan Polgar with live commentary
• Chessdom (also live commentary)
• Crestbook (GM Sergey Shipov, live commentary in Russian)
• GM Dejan Bojkov analysing the games
• Die Zeit’s coverage
• Kramnik interview in Die Zeit
• Schwatt und Weiss (Georgios Souleidis blogging for Der Westen)
• Entwicklungsvorsprung (Georgios Souleidis’ blog)
• Schach Welt (live audio commentary & chat with GM Jörg Hickl and IM Ilja Schneider)

The 9th game of the World Championship match in Sofia ended in a draw after Viswanathan Anand missed various wins. The game was a heroic fight that lasted 83 moves, when Veselin Topalov once again claimed a threefold repetition. Video added – actually it ended up rather nicely.

For all the match details, rules and regulations we refer to our large overview article here. Here’s a summary:

The match will take place April 21 – May 12 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Venue is the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria. The match will consist of 12 games, and if necessary, a 4-game rapid tiebreak, if necessary 5 2-game blitz matches and if necessary 1 sudden death game. The classical games will be played in pairs of 2, so there will be a rest day after every 2 games. No postponements are allowed. Topalov has White in games 1,3,5,8, 10 and 12.

Schedule

The time control for each game is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61. The Chief Arbiter is Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos (Greece). The Deputy Chief Arbiter is Werner Stubenvoll (Austria). The total prize fund is 3 million Euros: 2 million for the players, 400,000 for FIDE taxes and 600,000 for organizational costs. The winner will receive 1,2 million Euros while the loser receives 800.000 Euros.

Score

Videos

If you can’t see all videos in the player above: this is a cache problem of the browser. We’ve contacted blip.tv about the problem. Please remove your cache files and try again. Here’s the game 9 video separately:

Click To Play

Game 9

Today’s game was one of the most thrilling top GM games I have witnessed on location, since I started visiting chess events for this website. What a heroic fight was the 9th match game, and what a titanic battle is this World Championship match. There was a crew from BBC World radio interviewing everyone in the press room today for a documentary on chess and technology, and although the three of them weren’t really chess players, they were clearly captivated about the happenings as well, and one of them kept on asking me what evalution the engine gave.

Hundreds of thousands of chess fans must have followed this game also with their engine running in the background, and today we saw how strong these silicon monsters have become, and how tough it is even for the World Champion himself to play without assistance! Before the players had even finished their game, the whole chess community already knew what had happened: Anand had missed one, two, probably even three clear wins today, and eventually he had to settle for the draw.

It all started with a Nimzo-Indian, not a Catalan this time. Jan Smeets and Erwin l’Ami, who were in the press room today, half-jokingly said to me that this was already “a moral victory”. It didn’t come too much as a surprise though, since Anand clearly needed something different and he had gone for the Nimzo twice in Bonn against Kramnik as well.

Today Topalov's seconds paid a visit to the venue. In the press room we chatted about the early middlegame position with rooks vs queen, and about the bishop ending of game 8. Yours truly with GMs Ivan Cheparinov, Erwin l'Ami, Jan Smeets and Ian Rogers

More or less right out of the opening White got two rooks versus the black queen, and with the bishop pair it did look slightly better for Anand, but perhaps it was just equal. However, somewhere Topalov made some mistakes (he played quite fast at some crucial moments, like he did before in his match and also last year against Kamsky) and he got into big trouble.

Anand is playing quite well in Sofia but somehow he seems to need more time on his strong moves than he used to. He got into slight timetrouble, and probably threw away the first win on move 40. More excellent opportunities followed, but in a second timetrouble phase up to move 60 the World Champion again couldn’t convert winning positions.

The game lasted over six hours, and the players clearly looked tired at the press conferene. Topalov had enough reason to smile, and he did, when he was asked why he was resetting is watch just before the game. “It’s always running fast,” he said. Anand, clearly disappointed, said he felt he had missed the win, and Topalov agreed.

The following annotations are clearly just some lines based on general ideas and computer suggestions, and form only the beginning of an analysis that should be much bigger. It probably takes weeks to analyse this game properly…

Game viewer by ChessTempo

During game 9 Stefan Löffler had a brief interview with Vladimir Kramnik about the match for Die Zeit. Here’s one quote:

Zeit: At this World Championship Anand copied particularly your openings. With White, he has played four times the Catalan. A surprise for you?

Kramnik: It is a logical choice. Topalov hasn’t had good result against Catalan so far. At least statistically, this opening is his weak point. It’s like in tennis. If the opponent is weak at the net, one tries to lure him there. This strategy was actually difficult to predict, but for Anand it worked. With the Catalan he got his two victories.

Links (we keep updating this!)

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC
• Rules & regulations (PDF)
• The Week in Chess with analysis by IM Malcolm Pein and reports by Mark Crowther
• Anish Giri annotating for Chessbase
• Europe-Echecs, also reporting from Sofia
• GM Ian Rogers blogging for the USCF
• Rogers’ articles for Crikey (all together)
• GM Kevin Spragget blogging
• GM Susan Polgar with live commentary
• Chessdom (also live commentary)
• Crestbook (GM Sergey Shipov, live commentary in Russian)
• GM Dejan Bojkov analysing the games
• Die Zeit’s coverage
• Kramnik interview in Die Zeit
• Schwatt und Weiss (Georgios Souleidis blogging for Der Westen)
• Entwicklungsvorsprung (Georgios Souleidis’ blog)
• Schach Welt (live audio commentary & chat with GM Jörg Hickl and IM Ilja Schneider)

Veselin Topalov has won the eighth game of the World Championship match in Sofia. He defeated Viswanathan Anand in an opposite-coloured bishop ending and thus levelled the score: it’s 4-4, with four games to go.

For all the match details, rules and regulations we refer to our large overview article here. Here’s a summary:

The match will take place April 21 – May 12 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Venue is the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria. The match will consist of 12 games, and if necessary, a 4-game rapid tiebreak, if necessary 5 2-game blitz matches and if necessary 1 sudden death game. The classical games will be played in pairs of 2, so there will be a rest day after every 2 games. No postponements are allowed. Topalov has White in games 1,3,5,8, 10 and 12.

Schedule

The time control for each game is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61. The Chief Arbiter is Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos (Greece). The Deputy Chief Arbiter is Werner Stubenvoll (Austria). The total prize fund is 3 million Euros: 2 million for the players, 400,000 for FIDE taxes and 600,000 for organizational costs. The winner will receive 1,2 million Euros while the loser receives 800.000 Euros.

Score

Videos

A video of game 8 will be added later. If you can’t see all videos in the player above: this is a cache problem of the browser. We’ve contacted blip.tv about the problem. Please remove your cache files and try again. Here’s the last video separately:

Game 8

It was a bit of a quiet day, today, with much less cameras and photographers in the playing hall than on previous days, when someone like Karpov or Mundell was around. The weather is still great, though a bit humid today. For some reason before the game I had the feeling Topalov would level the score today, and in the end he did.

So far the match, or at least the white games of Topalov, was a bit similar to the famous Kasparov-Kramnik match in London in 2000, where the challenger kept on playing the passive but solid Berlin Defence, and didn’t allow Kasparov to come with improvements because he kept on coming with different versions.

In this match Anand keeps on coming with new versions of the Slav ending and one could wonder whether Topalov wasn’t making the same mistake as Kasparov was ten years ago: stubbornly trying to create a win again and again, and failing till the very end, instead of chosing a completely different variation altogether.

However, what Kasparov couldn’t do, Topalov could, today. In a difficult, opposite-coloured bishop ending which was probably still a draw, Anand blundered on move 54 and could resign just two moves later. At the press conference Anand wasn’t sure if he could hold the ending even if he hadn’t blundered, and was critical about his play much earlier in the game. However, analysis shows the draw was actually in reach.

And so Topalov got finally rewarded for his fighting spirit. He kept on trying to find was to break through the Slav ending, and he kept on pressing in today’s bishop ending.

Tomorrow is another rest day and then we’re back for an even shorter World Championship match: one of four games.

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Topalov's third attempt to break down Anand's Slav wall...

...succeeded after Anand blundered in the ending

Links (we keep updating this!)

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC
• Rules & regulations (PDF)
• The Week in Chess with analysis by IM Malcolm Pein and reports by Mark Crowther
• Anish Giri annotating for Chessbase
• Europe-Echecs, also reporting from Sofia
• GM Ian Rogers blogging for the USCF
• Rogers’ first piece for Crikey
• Rogers’ second piece for Crikey
• Rogers’ third piece for Crikey
• Rogers’ fourth piece for Crikey
• GM Kevin Spragget blogging
• GM Susan Polgar with live commentary
• Chessdom (also live commentary)
• Crestbook (GM Sergey Shipov, live commentary in Russian)
• GM Dejan Bojkov analysing the games
• Die Zeit’s coverage
• Schwatt und Weiss (Georgios Souleidis blogging for Der Westen)
• Entwicklungsvorsprung (Georgios Souleidis’ blog)

The seventh game of the World Championship match in Sofia, Bulgaria also ended in a draw. Challenger Veselin Topalov showed impressive opening preparation and put the World Champion under considerable pressure. However, Anand defended accurately and perhaps even missed a win after the time control. Video added.

For all the match details, rules and regulations we refer to our large overview article here. Here’s a summary:

The match will take place April 21 – May 12 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Venue is the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria. The match will consist of 12 games, and if necessary, a 4-game rapid tiebreak, if necessary 5 2-game blitz matches and if necessary 1 sudden death game. The classical games will be played in pairs of 2, so there will be a rest day after every 2 games. No postponements are allowed. Topalov has White in games 1,3,5,8, 10 and 12.

Schedule

The time control for each game is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61. The Chief Arbiter is Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos (Greece). The Deputy Chief Arbiter is Werner Stubenvoll (Austria). The total prize fund is 3 million Euros: 2 million for the players, 400,000 for FIDE taxes and 600,000 for organizational costs. The winner will receive 1,2 million Euros while the loser receives 800.000 Euros.

Score

Videos

If you can’t see all videos in the player above: this is a cache problem of the browser. We’ve contacted blip.tv about the problem. Please remove your cache files and try again. Here’s the last video separately:

Click To Play

Game 7

Also in Sofia the day started with the sad news, brought by the Chief Arbiter, that Florencio Campomanes had passed away. Players and spectators all stood up and held a minute of silence in remembrance of the former FIDE President. Then Anatoly Karpov, who arrived in Sofia on Sunday, made the first move, and the game started.

For the first time in the match Topalov could force his will upon his opponent – well, at least for the opening phase. At the press conference the Bulgarian said that it was his second Ivan Cheparinov who had prepared the line for him. It involved an exchange sacrifice that had been played by Ivanchuk against Gelfand at the Amber tournament this year, but a slightly improved version. It soon turned into a piece for two strong pawns. While Topalov could play his first twenty moves without thinking, Anand spent about an hour.

12th World Champion arrived in Sofia on Sunday and gave a press conference half an hour after the start of the game. Above him, on the background, the game could be seen. Karpov started with 'it's one of the most interesting games of the match' - once a chess player, always a chess player

It looks like the World Champion defended accurately and in an ending with queen and knight versus queen and protected pawn, he might even have missed a win for one move. According to GM Sergey Shipov at Crestbook, 42.Qa4 might have led to a decisive advantage for White, as it stops d3-d2.

And so after seven games the score is 4-3 to Anand. Now, with five to go, Topalov has three Whites. Especially since Topalov survived his last two Black games, it’s safe to conclude that… anything can happen.

In the mean time we received an answer from Tim Krabbé, whom we emailed about the record of knight moves. (As you’ll remember Anand played thirteen consecutive knight moves in game 6.) Krabbé let us know that the absolute record of consecutive knight moves in an official game is Hecht-Suttles, Belgrade 1969, which we’ve added to the game viewer below.

Game viewer by ChessTempo

The handshake before the first game of the second half

The playing hall with again not all seats taken...

...but among the spectators were Anatoly Karpov and Chairman / President of the Bulgarian Chess Federation Sergey Sergiev, who attended the start of the match

What started as another Catalan turned into a Bogo-Indian, according to the Chessbase program

Links (we keep updating this!)

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC
• Rules & regulations (PDF)
• The Week in Chess with analysis by IM Malcolm Pein and reports by Mark Crowther
• Anish Giri annotating for Chessbase
• Europe-Echecs, also reporting from Sofia
• GM Ian Rogers blogging for the USCF
• Rogers’ first piece for Crikey
• Rogers’ second piece for Crikey
• Rogers’ third piece for Crikey
• Rogers’ fourth piece for Crikey
• GM Kevin Spragget blogging
• GM Susan Polgar with live commentary
• Chessdom (also live commentary)
• Crestbook (GM Sergey Shipov, live commentary in Russian)
• GM Dejan Bojkov analysing the games
• Die Zeit’s coverage
• Schwatt und Weiss (Georgios Souleidis blogging for Der Westen)
• Entwicklungsvorsprung (Georgios Souleidis’ blog)

The sixth game of the World Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov ended in a draw today. For the third time a Catalan came on the board, and after an interesting fight between Anand’s knight pair and Topalov’s bishop pair a drawish ending was played out till move 58 where a move repetition again brought a silent end to the game. Video added.

For all the match details, rules and regulations we refer to our large overview article here. Here’s a summary:

The match will take place April 21 – May 12 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Venue is the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria. The match will consist of 12 games, and if necessary, a 4-game rapid tiebreak, if necessary 5 2-game blitz matches and if necessary 1 sudden death game. The classical games will be played in pairs of 2, so there will be a rest day after every 2 games. No postponements are allowed. Topalov has White in games 1,3,5,8, 10 and 12.

Schedule

The time control for each game is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61. The Chief Arbiter is Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos (Greece). The Deputy Chief Arbiter is Werner Stubenvoll (Austria). The total prize fund is 3 million Euros: 2 million for the players, 400,000 for FIDE taxes and 600,000 for organizational costs. The winner will receive 1,2 million Euros while the loser receives 800.000 Euros.

Score

Videos

If you can’t see the sixth video in the player above: this is a cache problem of the browser. We’ve contacted blip.tv about the problem. Please remove your cache files and try again. Here’s another copy of the game 6 video:

Click To Play

Game 6

On the hottest day so far in Sofia (about 26° C) many citizens could be found parading on the street, celebrating Labour Day, which as in many countries is a national holiday in Bulgaria.

Instead of celebrating what was orginally planned as a rest day, Anand and Topalov chose for labour instead: they played the longest game in the match so far! It was another Catalan and again soon the queens went off. Both sides had two rooks but Anand ended up with tho knights, and Topalov with two bishops.

A special detail of this game is the route Nb1 followed. It went Nb1-a3-c4-e5-d7-c5-b7-d6-c8-a7-c6-b4-d5-b6 before it was captured! Amazingly, the knight never went to a single square more than once.

Besides, in this game the two white knights together probably broke a World Championship record of thirteen consecutive knight moves.

As FenderTwang mentioned on the Chess.FM broadcast today, in the 10th match game Tal-Botvinnik 1961 a single white knight played ten moves in a row.

For a long time it remained unclear which side was better, though these knights did seem to provide some initiative. After one knight was traded for the black-squared bishop, on move 37 Topalov sacrificed a pawn to maximize his piece activity. By returning his b-pawn, Anand liquidated to a position with three against three on the kingside, which he held to a draw comfortably.

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Both players arrived at the board, and are waiting for the arbiter to start the clock

Chief Arbiter Nikolopoulos just did that, and Anand opens 1.d4...

...which is answered by 1...Nf6...

...and like in game 2 and 4, the World Champ plays 2.c4.

"Today was a tough game," Anand said at the press conference...

...while Topalov said he was certainly planning to try harder in the second half of the match

The spectators at the start of the game

Chief Arbiter Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos from Greece

Deputy Chief Arbiter Werner Stubenvoll from Austria

In the meantime the organizers also received an official apology from the electricity company CEZ for the suspension of power supply during the fifth game:

To
Boyko Borisov
Prime-Minister of Bulgaria
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
President of The World Chess Federation
Traicho Traikov
Minister of Economy, Energy and Tourism
Svilen Neykov
Minister of Physical Education and Sport
Stefan Segriev
President of The Bulgarian Chess Federation

Subject: Electricity break in the central part of the capital at street’s area of: Rakovska Str., Slavianska Str., Aksakov Str., Tzar Osvoboditel Str., 6-ti Septemvri Str., Ivan Vazov Str.

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Today, 04/30/2010, at 15.35 h due to an accident occurred through the cable lines in the central part of the city, the consumers in the area of the streets mentioned above remained without power supply. At 16:05 h, the electricity power supply was restored with a priority for the Central Military Club, “Salza i smiah ” theater and the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism. The rest users were fed at 16:30 h.

We’d like to apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused to you, and send our special apologies to the participants and organizers of the match for the World Chess Championship Anand-Topalov. We want to assure you that despite the busy traffic, our teams have made every possible effort and succeeded in restoring the electricity power supply as quickly as possible.

The main reason for such incidents is the outdated and inadequate network capacity in the central part, which needs substantial investment to improve it state.

Realizing our responsibility for providing quality services, we assure you that we will offer adequate investment plan for approval by the competent authorities, with the help of which the problems with the electricity supply of the capital should be resolved in the long term perspective.

Sincerely,
Ivan Kovarzhchik,
Executive Director
CEZ Distribution Bulgaria AD

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC
• Rules & regulations (PDF)
• The Week in Chess with analysis by IM Malcolm Pein and reports by Mark Crowther
• Anish Giri annotating for Chessbase
• Europe-Echecs, also reporting from Sofia
• GM Ian Rogers blogging for the USCF
• Rogers writing for Crikey
• GM Kevin Spragget blogging
• GM Susan Polgar with live commentary
• Chessdom (also live commentary)
• Crestbook (GM Sergey Shipov, live commentary in Russian)
• GM Dejan Bojkov analysing the games
• Die Zeit’s coverage

Veselin Topalov and Viswanathan Anand drew the fifth game of their World Championship match in Sofia, Bulgaria. The two repeated the varation of the Slav that appeared in game 3, and again challenger Topalov couldn’t prove a clear advantage with the white pieces. Video added.

For all the match details, rules and regulations we refer to our large overview article here. Here’s a summary:

The match will take place April 21 – May 12 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Venue is the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria. The match will consist of 12 games, and if necessary, a 4-game rapid tiebreak, if necessary 5 2-game blitz matches and if necessary 1 sudden death game. The classical games will be played in pairs of 2, so there will be a rest day after every 2 games. No postponements are allowed. Topalov has White in games 1,3,5,8, 10 and 12.

Schedule

The time control for each game is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61. The Chief Arbiter is Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos (Greece). The Deputy Chief Arbiter is Werner Stubenvoll (Austria). The total prize fund is 3 million Euros: 2 million for the players, 400,000 for FIDE taxes and 600,000 for organizational costs. The winner will receive 1,2 million Euros while the loser receives 800.000 Euros.

Score

Videos

If you can’t see the fifth video in the player above: this is a cache problem of the browser. Firefox handles this well, but Internet Explorer and Safari probably not. Please remove your cache files and try again. Here’s another copy of the game 5 video:

Click To Play

Game 5

This time there was a little ceremony again at the start of the game. It was 77-year-old Robert Mundell, invited to Sofia by Silvio Danailov, who played the first move for Topalov. Mundell is a professor of economics at Columbia University (New York) and the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1999. Mundell laid the groundwork for the introduction of the euro through his pioneering work in monetary dynamics and optimum currency areas.

Silvio Danailov, Robert Mundell and press officer Boiko Hristov

After half an hour of play a press conference with Mundell started, but just when he reached his third sentence or so, suddenly all lights in the press room went off, and as it turned out, all electricity (and therefore also internet). The press conference was postponed, and soon it became clear that the playing hall had turned dark as well.

As one journalist described, the players kept looking at the position until the arbiter stopped the clock. After about 13 minutes play was resumed, with an emergency generator taking care of both the lighting on stage and the online live transmission of the game. Later it became clear that the power outage had occurred in a small part of central Sofia.

The organizers published the following statement on the official website:

To
Mr. Georgios Makropoulos
Supervisor of the FWCM
between the World Champion
V. Anand and V. Topalov

Copy to Mrs. Aruna Anand
Manager of the World Chess Champion V. Anand

Copy to Mr. Silvio Danailov
Manager of Veselin Topalov

Dear Sirs,

The Organizing Committee of the Match for the World Title in Chess between the World Champion V. Anand and V. Topalov would like to apologize for the inconvenience during the fifth game due to cut in the electricity power supply. It was caused by general failure in the electrical system in central Sofia, which affected also the emergency power generators.

We have taken all the needed precautions to prevent from future incidents till the end of the match.

An official statement by the Ministry of Economy and Energetics and the power supplying company CEZ will be presented to you later on.

Organizing Committee
Ph.D. Stefan Sergiev

In Bulgaria the government has special people for such situations (and admittedly, it was solved pretty quickly)

In the game Anand again played the passive but solid Slav line with which he had managed to draw in game 3. Before Topalov could show his improvement, Anand deviated first by pushing his h-pawn to h5 instead of h6. About seven moves later a nice tactical nuance allowed the World Champion to reach approximate equality, but still only White could play for a win, and obviously Topalov kept on trying, but to no avail. Right after the first time control the players repeated moves, called the arbiter and then shook hands and agreed to a draw.

Perhaps one of our readers can tell us about previous World Championship games that had to be stopped due to unforeseen circumstances?

Game viewer by ChessTempo

A 3-2 lead and to white games ahead: the World Champ is doing good

Links

• Official website
• Rules & regulations (PDF)
• The Week in Chess with analysis by IM Malcolm Pein and reports by Mark Crowther
• Anish Giri annotating for Chessbase
• Europe-Echecs, also reporting from Sofia
• GM Ian Rogers blogging for the USCF
• Rogers writing for Crikey
• GM Kevin Spragget blogging
• GM Susan Polgar with live commentary
• Chessdom (also live commentary)
• Crestbook (GM Sergey Shipov, live commentary in Russian)
• GM Dejan Bojkov analysing the games
• Die Zeit’s coverage

Viswanathan Anand won the fourth game of the World Championship match against Veselin Topalov quickly and impressively. In another Catalan, it was the World Champion’s turn to sacrifice a knight at an early stage, and like in the first game of the match, the resulting attack proved deadly. Later more.

For all the match details, rules and regulations we refer to our large overview article here. Here’s a summary:

The match will take place April 21 – May 12 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Venue is the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria. The match will consist of 12 games, and if necessary, a 4-game rapid tiebreak, if necessary 5 2-game blitz matches and if necessary 1 sudden death game. The classical games will be played in pairs of 2, so there will be a rest day after every 2 games. No postponements are allowed. Topalov has White in games 1,3,5,8, 10 and 12.

Schedule

The time control for each game is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61. The Chief Arbiter is Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos (Greece). The Deputy Chief Arbiter is Werner Stubenvoll (Austria). The total prize fund is 3 million Euros: 2 million for the players, 400,000 for FIDE taxes and 600,000 for organizational costs. The winner will receive 1,2 million Euros while the loser receives 800.000 Euros.

Videos

Some of our visitors can’t see the third video in the player above. This is a chache problem of the browser. Please remove your cache files and try again. For the moment here’s another copy of the video:

Click To Play

Links

• Official website
• Rules & regulations (PDF)
• Europe-Echecs, also reporting from Sofia
• GM Ian Rogers blogging for the USCF
• Rogers writing for Crikey
• GM Kevin Spragget blogging
• GM Susan Polgar with live commentary
• Chessdom (also live commentary)
• Crestbook (GM Sergey Shipov, live commentary in Russian)
• GM Dejan Bojkov analysing the games
• Die Zeit’s coverage

The third game of the World Championship match in Sofia today ended in a draw. Viswanathan Anand didn’t go for the Grünfeld, but instead the World Champion seemed to be impersonating Topalov’s nemesis Vladimir Kramnik and picked a variation of the Slav that the Russian had played against Topalov in Elista in 2006.

For all the match details, rules and regulations we refer to our large overview article here. Here’s a summary:

The match will take place April 21 – May 12 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Venue is the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria. The match will consist of 12 games, and if necessary, a 4-game rapid tiebreak, if necessary 5 2-game blitz matches and if necessary 1 sudden death game. The classical games will be played in pairs of 2, so there will be a rest day after every 2 games. No postponements are allowed. Topalov has White in games 1,3,5,8, 10 and 12.

Schedule

The time control for each game is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61. The Chief Arbiter is Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos (Greece). The Deputy Chief Arbiter is Werner Stubenvoll (Austria). The total prize fund is 3 million Euros: 2 million for the players, 400,000 for FIDE taxes and 600,000 for organizational costs. The winner will receive 1,2 million Euros while the loser receives 800.000 Euros.

Videos

Game 3

We saw a very quiet game today, which included some psychological warfare from the World Champion. He went for a passive line in the Slav defence which Vladimir Kramnik had used to draw with Black against the same opponent in the infamous Elista match in 2006. Anand not only copied the variation, but also the main idea that was introduced by Kramnik back then: the early Rg8 move, to protect g7 and free the f8 bishop. After winning a Catalan ending with White, this relatively easy draw with Black definitely had some Kramnik flavour too:

Game viewer by ChessTempo

At the press conference Topalov had Antoaneta Stefanova sitting next to him, for doing Spanish translations. Both of them stated that “it’s in the regulations” that one can’t offer a draw directly, but only through the arbiter. But this is not true; the official World Championship regulations don’t mention the draw offer at all.

Don’t miss today’s press conference, which I’ll put up in a few hours. It’s clearly the best so far.

The press, with TV and photo cameras, in action...

...covering the 2010 World Championship...

...and one of those is the ChessVibes camera!

Topalov tried, but couldn't get much with the white pieces today

The press conference with Veselin Topalov, Antoaneta Stefanova, Radoslav Atanasov, Boris Kutin and Viswanathan Anand

Topalov, not a hundred percent satisfied today

Anand, no reason to complain

Former World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova from Bulgaria joining

Links

• Official website
• Rules & regulations (PDF)
• Europe-Echecs, also reporting from Sofia
• GM Ian Rogers blogging for the USCF
• GM Kevin Spragget blogging
• GM Susan Polgar with live commentary
• Chessdom (also live commentary)
• Crestbook (GM Sergey Shipov, live commentary in Russian)
• GM Dejan Bojkov analysing the games

After Viswanthan Anand’s crushing loss in game #1, many were wondering if the “Ashgate” ordeal he faced was affecting him. In fact that question was raised in the press conference. Anand did not offer his harrowing 40-hour trip as an excuse, but he certainly was “shellshocked” as described by some observers. However, today was a new day.

Anand played had to break the rhythm and sidestep Veselin Topalov’s famous preparation. He trotted out the “Killer Catalan” a name given to an opening employed by Vladmir Kramnik. Kramnik has made this positionally-nuanced opening a killing maching and has won countless games. In fact, Kramnik used it with great effect against Topalov. Perhaps Anand has studied these games intently.

In today’s game, Anand played a very practical line that bore few risks (unlike his Grunfeld Defense). He held a lasting spatial advantage and kept his options wide open. Fans and pundits gawked at the Anand’s 15.Qa3. The move received strong consternation from many GMs including Anish Giri and Nigel Short. Short had this to say:

I am speechless. 15. Qa3 is a shockingly bad move. White has no winning chances whatsoever after this. Black wasn’t threatening anything, so why exchange off the queens, ruin your pawn formation and make things easy for Black all at one go? And this dubious decision has come VERY early in the game.

After 15…Qxa3 16.bxa3, Giri liked 16…Nc5! and said that white would have to battle for a draw. Sergey Shipov had more reverance for Anand’s ideas.

15.Qa3 Praise the chess gods, we’ve left the worn tracks. Moreover, Vishy’s made a move that you really won’t think up in a minute… The novelty of the season! It’s rare to find a queen exchange on white’s initiative in this sort of position. I remember something analogous at the end of the Kasparov-Smyslov candidates’ match, I think, the 9th game… Garry also exchanged queens in a similar manner, and even doubled his pawns – and then won convincingly.

A few moves later white’s plan was revealed as he burrowed into white’s position with his rooks and was able to win a pawn to boot. Thereafter, he wrapped up the point in a neat ending. The victory is a big boost for Anand as he has broken the effect of the “home-field advantage” and neutralized a devastating loss the previous day. This will certainly give Anand some momentum. (See Game)

Topalov trying to figure out what went wrong.
Photo by ChessBase.

• Hasta ahora la sensación del torneo ha sido el jovencísimo filipino Wesley So, que tras provocar (al parecer) la retirada de Ivanchuk del ajedrez en un match bastante afortunado batió en buen estilo a Kamsky (1.5-0.5) Otras sorpresas relativas son Caruana y Lázni?ka; el yanqui-americano superó en la lotería de los desempates a Lenier y Alekseev, mientras que el checo, tras batir convincentemente al Gran Moro, ganó en las semirrápidas a Bologan.

• Los emparejamientos de Octavos de Final son Gelfand - Vachier Lagrave, Grischuk - Jakovenko, Lázni?ka - Mamadyarov, Vitiugov - Karjakin, Gashimov - Caruana, Ponomariov - Bacrot, Svidler - Shirov y So - Malakhov. Ayer Svidler y Mamedjarov venciaron con las piezas negras a Shirov y Lázni?ka, respectivamente. Revisamos el remate de esta última partida:
  

• Para seguir las noticias sobre el torneo TWIC es una buena fuente, como de costumbre, y tampoco está mal revisar ChessVibes; otra opción es Ajedrez en Madrid, si no te llevas nada bien con la Lengua del Imperio. Para seguir las partidas en directo está muy bien el moderno Chess Bomb de Chessdom, con una interfaz elegante y análisis en directo de Rybka 2.2. Para seguir el cuadro del torneo te puedo recomendar por su claridad la entrada de la Wikipedia en Inglés.

• Estos días no tengo tiempo para demasiados análisis, pero mis blogueros favoritos sí: Luis Fdez. Siles comenta un final de alfiles en el que Areschenko vence elegantemente a Jakovenko, y Spraggett está siguiendo el torneo desde el papel de fan declarado de Gelfand.
  

• Como siempre que se organiza un torneo en Rusia, la web oficial tiene interesantes contenidos, pero no es lo mejor para seguir el torneo. El visor en directo no es muy bueno, pero las entrevistas (en inglés y en ruso) resultan interesantes, y el GM Shipov analiza las mejores partidas del día anterior.
  

? 20 ?????? ?? 15 ??????? ? ?????-????????? (??????) ???????? ????? ???? ?? ????????.
???????????? ??????????? ?? ??????-???????.
???????? ???????. ???????? ??????: 90 ??? ?? 40 ?????, ????? 30 ??? + 30 ??? ?? ???, ??????? ? ???????. ???????: 25 ??? + 10 ??? ?? ???. ????: 5 ??? + 3 ??? ?? ???.
?????? ????? ? 13:00 msk.

? ?????????? ????????? ??????? 23 (!) ?????????? ? ??? > 2700.

?????: ???????? – ?????????: 2-2 (½-½, ½-½, ½-½, ½-½). ????????: 2:2 (½-½, 1-0, ½-½, 0-1). ????: 3-1 (1-0, 0-1, 1-0, 1-0).

??????????? ?????? ????????? ? ??????? ???????!

? 1/2 ?????? ??????: ??????? – ????????: 0-2, ????????? – ???????: 1-1 (3-1).

? 1/4 ?????? ???????????: ??????? – ??????????: 1½-½, ???????? – ????????: 1-1 (2½-½), ????????? – ???????: 1-1 (2½-½), ??????? – ???????: ½-1½.

? 1/8 ?????? ???????????: ?????-?????? – ????????: 1-1 (2-2, ½-1½), ?????? – ????????: 1-1 (2-2, 0-2), ???????? – ??????????: ½-1½, ??????? – ???????: 1½-½, ??????? – ???????: 1-1 (2½-½), ????? – ?????????: 1-1 (1½-2½), ????? – ???????: ½-1½, ?? – ???????: 1-1 (0-3).

? ??????? ????? ???????????: ???????? – ??????: 1-1 (2½-½), ?????-?????? – ? ?????: 1½-½, ??????? – ??????: 1-1 (2-2, 0-2), ???????? – ????????: 1-1 (3-1), ??????? – ????????: 1-1 (½-2½), ?????????? – ??? ???: 1½-½, ?????? – ???????: ½-1½, ?????? – ???????: 1-1 (0-3), ?? ??? – ??????? : 1-1 (½-2½), ??????? – ????????: 1-1 (2½-1½), ????????? – ???????: 1½-½, ????? – ???? ??: 1-1 (2½-½), ??????? – ??????: 1-1 (2-2, 2-0), ??????????? – ?????: ½-1½, ??????? – ??: ½-1½, ??????? – ???????: 1-1 (0-3).

????? ? ????? ?? ?????? ??????: I ????: 1-? ????; 2-? ????; ???-?????. II ????: 1-? ????; 2-? ????; ???-?????. III ????: 1-? ????. 2-? ????. ???-?????. 1/8 ??????: 1-? ????. 2-? ????. ???-?????. 1/4 ??????: 1-? ????. 2-? ????. ???-?????. 1/2 ??????: 1-? ????. 2-? ????. ???-?????. ?????: 1-? ????. 2-? ????. 3-? ????. 4-? ????.

??????? ??????????????????? ??????? ??????? ?????? ??? CBV-????.

??????? ????????: I ????: 1-? ???? (a, b); 2-? ???? (a). II ????: 1-? ???? (a, b). III ????: 1-? ???? (a); 2-? ???? (a).

??????? ??????????????????? ?????? ??? CBV-????.

?????????? ?? ??????? ?????????: ?????? ??????????.

??????????? ????.
?????? ?????????? ??????.
????????? ???????.

?????

Are chess books getting better? Take the first volume of The Complete Hedgehog by Sergey Shipov: although I’ve read many books on the Hedgehog system, I think this is the best one by far. It’s more accessible, better explained, better written, it’s much more interesting for readers who do not play the Hedgehog at all, and it’s funny on top of that. Now, did they make such chess books in the 50s and 60s or even the 70s and 80s? I, for one, haven’t seen them too often.  

If chess books in general are really improving over time, it would be another example of the incorrectness of the widely held opinion that everything becomes worse and worse over time. (Here’s a very interesting essay on the decline of violence over time.) One of the explanations for this in the world of chess books is, of course, that there are simply more chess authors around. Another reason is that chess education has improved a lot. Yet another is that it’s much more important to write in an appealing, accessible style because of the arrival of new media such as chess videos and online lectures. I guess all are valid, and I think we should be glad that we’re living in such interesting times. These days, it’s possible to be extremely enthousiastic about a chess book almost every month.

The Hedgehog is surely one of the most difficult and fascination opening systems around, confusing and often frustrating thousands of chess fans around the world, not only club players  but also strong masters. Still, grandmaster Sergey Shipov, editor-in-chief of the well-known Russian website www.crestbook.com shows that such ignorance can actually become a force and a source of joy once you’re willing to embrace the principles of the Hedgehog with full conviction.  The Complete Hedgehog, published by Mongoose Press, is one of those rare chess books that are both enthusiastic and completely honest.

So what is the Hedgehog? I’ve never seen a better explanation than the one Shipov provides in the introduction:

Opocensky-Saemisch
Bad Pistyan 1922

Observe: four of Black’s pawns have lined up along the sixth rank (sometimes they are joined by the g- and h-pawns) and with their short, strong spines (thus ‘hedgehog’, not ‘porcupine’!), they control the fifth rank in front of then. The hostile armies complete their reorganizations inside the space set aside for them. White has four ranks, Black three. The appearance of a pawn or a piece usually signals the start of sharp conflict, in which the winner will be the one who is better prepared. Besides the outward resemblance, these kinds of setups also resemble the woodland creature in the way they deal with an enemy who is superior to them in spatial measurement: Black spends a great deal of time in strictly defensive maneuvers [sic], under cover of his pawn-spines, in order to find the right moment to leap out suddenly and bite White. (…)

The possible permutations of the Hedgehog position are huge, many of them without any real theoretical significance. Thus, for example, I remember that in my school days, when facing weak opposition, I used to play the weirdest Hedgehog positions in blitz games. For instance, I might open a game as White with 1.a3, followed by 2.b3, 3.c3, 4.d3, 5.e3, 6.f3, 7.g3, 8.Bg2, 9.Ra2, etc., regardless of what Black played, reaching a very strange and non-viable version of the Hedgehog. (…) The Hedgehog is a garden of branching paths that suddenly can come back together as one. The problem of transposing or combining variations prevents us from describing these Hedgehog setups in encyclopedic fashion – that is, move after move. So the logical approach is to divide them up, not accordin to openings, but by the pawn structure that exists after the development of the pieces is completed.

This is a lengthy quote, but some very important things can be extracted from it. First of all, the reader will note Shipov’s style: often personal and anecdotal, and he’s not afraid to make lively analogies look more than just a play with words. In this respect, I was often reminded of Ilya Odessky’s book on 1.b3, which I also reviewed and liked a lot. Is it me or are Russian authors often funnier than Western European chess book writers? Well, perhaps not: a second thing that becomes clear from the above excerpt is that Shipov adopts a completely different style than Alexander Khalifman’s book series Opening Repertoire for White according to Kramnik, which also deals (Vol. 2) with the Hedgehog.

Khalifman’s series - not exactly ‘funny’ but very good nevertheless – does use a rather ‘encyclopedic’ approach to explain openings, and from Shipov’s explanation it becomes clear why, in my mind, Khalifman doesn’t always succeed here.  (By the way, Shipov’s book unfortunately does not have a bibliography, so I don’t know whether he was implicitly referring to Khalifman here.) At any rate, Khalifman in his book does not attempt to explain what the Hedgehog really ‘is’, anyway, primarily focused as he is on variations and moves. A book that does try to explain the system from a more conceptual, almost philosophical point of view is Mihai Suba’s classic The Hedgehog. The main difference between Shipov’s and Suba’s book is, in my view, that Suba still doesn’t go all the way in describing the Hedgehog as a holistic concept that can be applied to entirely different openings than just the English after 1.c4 or 1.Nf3.

To illustrate what I mean, here are two positions from Shipov’s chapter ’Getting to the Hedgehog Opening Structure’:

These are positions from the Paulsen Sicilian and the King’s Indian Defence - both resulting in Hedgehogs. However, this is not the end of it. The fact that the Hedgehog can result from many different openings doesn’t mean it should always be expected. In fact, even one of the players aims for a Hedgehog-type setup, this is not enough. As Shipov explains:

In order to reach the required structure, one only needs to exchange Black’s c-pawn for White’s d-pawn and allow White to occupy the center. (…) I should warn my young and impressionable readers that Hedgehog structures can occur only if both sides are willing; so there’s no point in studying the Hedgehog with the aim of making it your principal system for Black, because ‘wicked’ opponents might not allow you to set it up at the board. (…) And so, obtaining the Hedgehog depends first of all on White’s desire to attack Black’s apparently passive and vulnerable position.  

This is the kind of explanation that I missed in the book by Suba, who often seems merely overjoyed by the fact that the Hedgehog should appear at all in a game, and that it should always be the right strategy. Shipov himself dismisses such wet dreams best, when he reproaches his youthful self for trying to reach the Hedgehog at all times:

No, my friends – one should not make a fetish out of the Hedgehog, striving to set it up in every situation regardless of the consequences. (…) Chess is rich in possibilities, and can’t be restricted to a catechism of spiny little beasties. 

So what exactly are the characteristics of the infamous Hedgehog – in other words, what makes it such a feared, complex and respected system? Well, you should really read the entire chapter Shipov devotes to the ‘Hedgehog philosophy’, but here are a few of Shipov’s main points:

• “In the Hedgehog, Black operates in guerilla style: avoiding direct contact, he hides in the bushes, observes his foe, waits, and then attacks at the most unexpected moment.”
• Contratry to what common chess wisdom teaches about cramped positions, in the Hedgehog, “exchanges are bad for Black, because they decrease his fighting potential.”
• “Right away, and with no regrets, I will tell you that, in the larger sense, the Hedgehog is a risky opening.”
• In the Hedgehog, Black “sets up a solid wall of pawns, behind whose protection he can arrange a universal piece placement that’s guaranteed to be a good one.”
• Psychology plays an important role: “When [White] takes over the center without a struggle, he gets a feeling of superiority, regardless of his rating. (…) It’s a drive that frequently leads to an unprepared attack.”
• “The Hedgehog displays only an insignificant part of its possibilities. Its handlers must calculate many variations during the course of the game, and consider many nuances, the vast bulk of which never will turn into actual moves. (…) Literally at every move, the players must examine Black’s possible breaks with … b6-b5 and …d6-d5, as well as White’s active possibilites. (…) So time scrambles are an objective necessity for those who play the Hedgehog.”
• “Those who feel uncomfortable in close quarters – in elevators, for example – should not be playing the Hedgehog. (…) The blood of the Hedgehogger must run cold as ice – at least, until a certain moment arrives…”

At this point, perhaps you think I am giving away the contents of the book already. Well, not exactly: all my quotes are from the first 20 pages only, and the book has over 500. The rest of the book, of course, is more concrete and deals with variations and moves. The main focus of these lines is on the so-called ‘English Hedgehog’, arising after 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 c5 3.Nf3 e6 4.g3 b6 5.Bg2 Bb7 6.0-0 Be7.

The book then divides into two main chapters: the classical continuation 7.d4 and the more modern system starting with 7.Re1. And Shipov deals wonderfully with the relevant games and variations and especially its ideas. Here’s an example of his clear way of explanations (and his talent for picking good examples):

DeFirmian-Zivanovic
Smederevska Palanka 1981

Let’s study this position carefully. The knight on c5 is pinned, the c6 square is weak: the white knight is heading there. Black’s king is far from the battlefield, so the invasion of White’s rook at d7 or d6 could be very dangerous. In addition, there’s a real weakness: the b6-pawn. White’s knight is very strong on e5; he also has a pawn majority on the queenside, with the possibility of creating a passed pawn there. All these nuances, taken together, define White’s advantage in this endgame as tangible and stable.

16…Bf8

The most natural reply. Black unpins the knight on c5 and draws the sting from the white knight’s leap to c6. In that case, Black would reply …Rd8-c8 and the rogue would be forced to retreat.

17.Bxc5! Yet another unpleasant surprise!

17…Bxc5 On 17…bxc5 White would also answer 18.Na4!, when the weak c5-pawn becomes a permanent weakness. (…)

18.Na4! A very unpleasant sortie from Black’s point of view. The ‘b6+Bc5′ construction is now under pressure.

 However, a warning seems appropriate. The book is mainly devoted to systems where after 7.Re1, Black does not play the critical moves  7…d5 or 7…Ne4 but instead strives for a ‘real’ Hedgehog with the black pawn on d6. All we read about these lines is this:

 The advance 7…d5 is the most logical move, from the standpoint of the principle of fighting for the center. After 8.cxd5, Black has two cardinally different paths. On 8…exd5 9.d4 0-0 10.Bf4 Na6, we have a standard Queen’s Indian type of structure. This is a great theme for a different thick book, and would probably also be best handled by a different author. In the variation 8….Nxd5 9.e4 Nb4 10.d4, a sharp clash of pieces begins in the center, which you may get a first-hand look at from the classic game B.Larsen-S.Gligoric, Bled 1979.

About 7…Ne4 we get just one variation and the assertion that “the continuation 7…Ne4 may be labeled perfectly safe; but it still doesn’t lead to a full-fledged Hedgehog.  The positions it produces are empty and boring – like a dinner without salt and pepper: tasteless!” To his credit, Shipov is the first to admit that this selection is biased and decided by taste rather than objectivity. Still, I can imagine readers who want to know all inside-out details of the Hedgehog will be disappointed by this omission. Shipov hasn’t written a compendium but a personal account, and readers who are more interested in objective variations only, should probably think twice before buying this book.

There are probably more things to this book that could be called a little odd: sometimes, the translation seems a bit forced (’the player of White‘ isn’t really a conventional way of indicating players). As said, there’s no bibliography and neither is there an index of variations (which is particularly impractical what with all the possible transpositions, although perhaps it’s done on purpose to avoid the ‘encyclopedia’ image). Finally, I have been unable to figure our what we are to expect from part 2. Shipov mysteriously (or vaguely, depending on your state of mind) ends the final chapter Looking into the Future, with the words “Time will tell! And everything will find its place…” and his Conclusion with “Play the Hedgehog! More to come…”. I honestly don’t know what to make of this.

But frankly, it doesn’t really matter. The Complete Hedgehog vol. 1 is a great book, probably the best ever on its subject. Shipov is a highly entertaining author, a true master in explaining ideas and the underlying stragies and psychology. And all this is written in an unmistakenly humouristic, erudite and personal style that distinguishes him from many of his predecessors; in short: Sergey Shipov is your ideal chess instructor.  Now go buy his book and enjoy your holidays.

Links

• Get yourself a copy of The Complete Hedgehog vol. 1
• Read more book reviews

We have just received from our friends at Mongoose Press in Massachusetts: The Complete Hedgehog, Volume 1.

The Hedgehog is a thoroughly modern defense where concepts and understanding are more important than plain memorization. It can be played against e4, d4 or c4 and is a respected weapon in Black’s armory.

Tal, Larsen, Karpov and Kasparov, have played this opening. Sergey Shipov draws on decades of experience playing this defense, andhas written much more than a simple opening manual full of variations.

Shipov not only explains strategic themes, typical formations and move-order subtleties, along the way he also teaches one of the most important skills in chess: how to evaluate a position.

Garry Kasparov says about The Complete Hedgehog: “I highly recommend this book because it investigates strategic concepts instead of being limited to mere reactions.”

Please have a look at this brilliant book.

Aronian and Leko are leading the Jermuk Grand Prix with 3/4 after a great fourth round, in which they both won their White games, against Kamsky and Karjakin respectively. Ivanchuk moved to shared third place thanks to a wonderful attacking game against Alekseev. Full report.

The 5th tournament in the FIDE Grand Prix Series takes place in Jermuk, Armenia. It’s a 14-player round-robin with Aronian, Jakovenko, Leko, Gelfand, Bacrot, Kamsky, Karjakin, Eljanov, Alekseev, Akopian, Ivanchuk, Cheparinov, Inarkiev and Kasimdzhanov. More info on the GP and Jermuk in our preview.

Round 4

The fourth was clearly the best round so far, with three wins and a number of interesting draws. Game of the day was Aronian-Kamsky that started with a very irregular and therefore highly interesting opening: 1.c4 g6 2.e4 e5 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nf3 Bb4+ 5.Nc3 (already a novelty!) and now after 5…exd4 the amazing 6.a3!?. Black’s king and surrounding dark squares looked shaky from the start and so credit should go to Kamsky for avoiding a mate, but Aronian finished it off anyway by liquidating to a won ending. Smooth play by the top seed!

Aronian explaining his victory with Lilit Mkrtchian next to him

Before that, Leko had scored the first victory of the day, with White against Karjakin. The tournament website suggests that the Hungarian might have been inspired by the arrival of his wife Sofi. In any case, it’s clear that Leko is clearly picking the fruits of his broad opening repertoire by now. “The best way of meeting the Petroff is to play 1.d4″ is a Shirov quote, if I remember correctly, and it might be the case for Karjakin’s Najdorf too! In a Queen’s Indian the now Russian GM got into trouble quickly and was looking at a hopeless position around move 23 already.

Signing an autograph for a young chess fan... Leko's wife Sofi on the right

Another cool encounter was Ivanchuk-Alekseev in which the Ukrainian beautifully refuted Black’s set-up with not one, but two knights on the rim. The knight is a very good defender so leaving both of them that far from the king is playing with fire, as was demonstrated in great style by Ivanchuk.

Tigran Petrosian’s live commentary is a bit disappointing (nothing at all around the star move 21.Nd5!) and makes us wondering whether Sergey Shipov’s approach of focusing one just one game isn’t preferable. Anyway, it seems that 23…Re8 might have been the decisive mistake but the position was very difficult to defend already.

Ivanchuk explaining his win with typical gestures

The draw between Bacrot and Eljanov was played out till bare kings and all in all it was quite an instructive Zaitsev Ruy Lopez, starting with the fight for the d5 square, then a rook ending and even a pawn ending to conclude with. Jakovenko and Gelfand was theory for exactly half of the game and soon after Black had equalized, the players went for a repetition.

Akopian couldn’t break through Kasimdzhanov’s Petroff despite trying hard, which included a pawn sacrifice in return for nice centralization and a silly black knight on b7. Poor Inarkiev spoilt a probably winning position for the third time in a row against Cheparinov. Watching the game live I spotted 36.Qe3! but the Russian must have totally forgottten about his g2 pawn there.

Round 4 games

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Jermuk Grand Prix 2009 | Schedule & results

All photos © Arman Kharakhanyan

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN

The FIDE Grand Prix in Jermuk, Armenia started today with five draws and two decisive games in the first round. Cheparinov beat Jakovenko using the Four Knights while Peter Leko defeated Ernesto Inarkiev with Black in an Anti-Marshall. Full, pictorial report.

The 5th tournament in the FIDE Grand Prix Series takes place in Jermuk, Armenia. It’s a 14-player round-robin with Aronian, Jakovenko, Leko, Gelfand, Bacrot, Kamsky, Karjakin, Eljanov, Alekseev, Akopian, Ivanchuk, Cheparinov, Inarkiev and Kasimdzhanov. More info on the GP and Jermuk in our preview.

Round 1

While it’s still highly unclear whether this first FIDE Grand Prix will be concluded as planned, with no news whatsoever about the 6th and last tournament scheduled for December, the 5th event has started, and quite smoothly or so it seems, in Jermuk, Armenia. In New in Chess Magazine 2009/4 yours truly wrote that “perhaps it’s best to look at the Grand Prix tournaments like most of the participants are doing by now: as a series of individual super-tournaments with many strong players and good prize money.”

With two Grand Prix victories already in the pocket, Levon Aronian should be considered favourite to win this tournament and the GP in general. Armenia’s number one player needs to do very little to surpass Grischuk’s 2nd place in the overall GP standings: he’s just 3⅓ points behind the Russian while one more tournament result will be counted and Grischuk has already played his 4 tournaments.

Aronian started on home ground with a solid draw with the Black against Ivanchuk. With his bishop pair White kept a very small plus in a Guioco Pianissimo – apparently Ivanchuk had little appetite to test the already legendary preparation of the Aronian/Sargissian tandem in either the Marshall or the Berlin Wall.

The tournament is officialy opened with a handshake between FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, with Vassily Ivanchuk, Levon Aronian and all other players watching (Zahar Efimenko to the left)

Peter Leko, who lost the crucial last-round game of the previous Grand Prix in Nalchik to Aronian, must have travelled to Armenia with similar hopes and ambitions, and lived up to them immediately. After his colorless Dortmund tournament the Hungarian is showing serious business right from the start in Jermuk with a very nice black victory against Ernesto Inarkiev. A small inaccuracy by the Russian was immediately punished and although White’s bishop was trapped like a rat, Leko made use of a nice tactic to win the rook instead.

Boris Gelfand lost his White game against Pavel Eljanov in Nalchik but this time it went much better. GM Tigran Petrosian (a logical choice in a tournament that’s dedicated to 80th birth anniversary of the former world champion bearing the same name) is doing live commentary of all games and so we cannot expect the same depth of GM Sergey Shipov, who always focused on one game during the day and only then started looking at the other six. However, it’s still a bit disappointing that Petrosian couldn’t pinpoint where exactly White lost his endgame advantage.

Sergey “just married” Karjakin not only brought his wife WIM Kateryna Dolzhikova to Jermuk, but also Alexander Motylev. After obtaining Russian citizenship Karjakin can now work with strong coaches (see our interview) and after working with Yuri Dokhoian in Nalchik, he’s now got himself the 2009 Poikovsky winner working for him! It immediately paid off as Karjakin used Motylev’s idea 18…Re8 and drew quickly with Rustam Kasimdzhanov in a Queen’s Indian.

Karjakin and Kasimdzhanov at the press conference, hosted by IM Lilit Mkrtchian (2467), who celebrated her 27th birthday yesterday

Alekseev-Akopian was a highly thematical Chigorin Ruy Lopez where White trades his ‘good’ bishop for Black’s ‘bad’ one to make use of the c5 square. However, with this pawn structure Black can sometimes make use of the d4 square himself, and this is what happened.

Ivan Cheparinov had a quite successful preparation himself. Like Ivanchuk he avoided Spanish theory (in Dmitry Jakovenko’s case the Berlin Wall) and went for the Four Knights, using the interesting set-up 11.Bd2!? and 12.Bd3. Although he wasn’t prepared for this, Jakovenko reacted solidly and Black was doing fine for a long time. Only 29…Qe5? was a mistake, where he overestimating the rook endgame – Black should have played 29…dxc2.

Jakovenko and Cheparinov at the press conference

The only game we didn’t mention yet was Kamsky-Bacrot but this one can be quickly forgotten. White used an innocuous line of the Symmetrical English which can be found on the repertoires of ultra-solid grandmasters like Ribli and Andersson. Without the Sofia Rule, the players would have shaken hands around move 16 already.

Round 1 games

Click on the pairings at the top of the board to reveal a drop down list of all the games. More info on our new game viewer can be found here.

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Jermuk Grand Prix 2009 | Schedule & results

As the tournament website reports, the opening ceremony was quite spectacular last night, covered live on Armenia’s Public TV channel and witnessed by nearly 3000 people who crowded around the central pond in the quaint center of Jermuk, Armenia.

Spectators were treated to a variety of live songs, a retrospective short film about World Champion Tigran Petrosian, speeches by the President of Armenia Serge Sargsyan and President of FIDE Kirsan Iljumdzhinov as well as a clip documenting the last two Olympiad victories by Armenia’s national team.

The participants had a unique vantage point, viewing the entertainment while cruising around the pond on a motorized raft while enduring the evening cold temperatures.

The drawing of the lots took place on the raft itself

An organizer this time: GM Smbat Lputian

Peter Leko talking to special guest GM Svetozar Gligoric

Thousands of spectators in chess-loving Armenia...

...who had a beautiful view especially when it got dark...

...of the raft and the ceremonies

A big star: Levon Aronian

The two presidents playing a game themselves during the first round

Traditionally, by now, the press conferences are held with a TV screen showing the position

Also pretty typical: seconds working with laptops in a hotel lobby - Igor Kurnosov and Denis Khismatullin

All photos © Arman Kharakhanyan

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN

I have been writing about positions with bishops of opposite colour for a while now, and today came across another example on this topic – this time from an endgame with queens. The video has annotations by Russian grandmaster Sergei Shipov, translated into English:

The final position is quite thematic, it’s as if White has an extra piece for the attack – the bishop on e4, and Black can’t defend against threats of Qh3x and Qh7x:

I am always on a search for good free chess videos to watch while exercising, the Crestbook channel on youtube is to be highly recommended.

Luca Shytaj batte il GM Drozdovsky (2620)!!

Anche Fabio Bruno a punteggio pieno. Oggi in diretta: GM Sulskis (2559) - Bruno e IM Petrov (2479) - Shytaj

Ben 38 nazioni rappresentate nell’Arctic Chess Challenge 2009, che si svolge a Tromso dal 01 al 08 agosto. Siamo in una località affascinante, la città  con oltre 50.000 abitanti più a nord nel mondo, oltre il circolo polare artico!

Tromso

In uno dei miei pochi viaggi all’estero ho avuto il privilegio di visitare la Norvegia, fino a Capo Nord e passando dall’incantevole Tromso, situata su un’isoletta tra i fiordi (con estensione sulla terraferma e su un’altra isola), riportando con piacere il ricordo dei tersi e cristallini colori del grande nord. Grandi distese inabitate, con case isolate che restituiscono la sensazione di un forte contatto con la natura. Le betulle decrescono in dimensioni man mano che ci si avvicina al circolo polare artico, fino a lasciare spazio alla tundra. Ovunque le renne punteggiano l’arcano paesaggio (e lo stufato di renna è un’esperienza gastronomica da non perdere!).

Una classica immagine composita del "Sole di mezzanotte"

E c’è naturalmente il sole di mezzanotte, anche se a Tromso il periodo è già passato (21 maggio / 21 luglio) e il sole si concede già diversi minuti sotto l’orizzonte prima di albeggiare! Tromso è stata il punto di partenza di tante spedizioni al Polo Nord. E’ una cittadina piena di vita e si dice che la somma dei posti a sedere nei vari pub, ristoranti e caffè renderebbe possibile a tutti gli abitanti di Tromso di uscire contemporaneamente (Wiki)! Il clima, in proporzione alla latitudine, è relativamente mite, anche se d’inverno i due metri di neve sono garantiti. Tromso è candidata ad ospitare le Olimpiadi Invernali del 2018 ma, soprattutto ( ), è candidata per le Olimpiadi Scacchistiche del 2014!

In questa atmosfera maestosa e quasi fatata (e non abbiamo parlato dei Troll!) si svolge una manifestazione scacchistica interessante e che comincia a vantare una buona tradizione. Siamo nella terra di sua futura maestà Magnus Carlsen, che ha partecipato, già da over 2700, nel 2006 e nel 2007, senza tuttavia arrivare alla vittoria. Nel 2006 l’inaspettata sconfitta con il vincitore Shipov frenò la corsa del fenomeno norvegese, giunto secondo con 7 su 9. Nel 2007 partecipazione di Magnus in stile quasi vacanziero, con troppe patte con giocatori (norvegesi…) più deboli, chiudendo anche stavolta a 7 su 9. Partecipazione comunque di ottimo livello e vittoria per Moiseenko davanti a Lie Kietil e Gashimov. Lo scorso anno successo per Igor Kurnosov davanti a Simen Agdestein.

Magnus e Hammer nell'edizione 2007

Successo crescente in questa edizione e prima volta oltre i 100 partecipanti, con 134 giocatori impegnati in un open integrale a sistema svizzero. Non mi sembra sia prevista un’accelerazione nel sistema di abbinamenti e questo potrebbe rendere non facile, con le nuove regole, l’inseguimento di una eventuale norma GM, con il rischio di incontrare diversi avversari con un Elo inferiore a 2200. Tabellone comunque di tutto rispetto, con quattro over 2600. I primi 16:

GM Bartosz Socko 2656

GM Igor Khenkin 2634

GM Yuri Drozdovskij 2620

GM Emanuel Berg 2610

GM Jon Ludvig Hammer 2583

GM Vadim Malakhatko 2570

GM Sarunas Sulskis 2559

GM Julian Radulski 2539

GM Allan Stig Rasmussen 2536

GM Matthew J Turner 2517

IM Ray Robson 2491

GM Amon Simutowe 2481

IM Marijan Petrov 2479

IM Kalle Kiik 2475

IM Fabio Bruno 2455

IM Luca Shytaj 2455

Emanuel Berg e Bartosz Socko

Le speranze norvegesi puntano sul giovane Jon Ludvig Hammer, coetaneo di Magnus che sta avendo una crescita importante ed è ormai vicino ai 2600. Da seguire la prova della “rising star” americana Ray Robson (15 anni il prossimo ottobre), che ha recentemente vinto il titolo USA under 20 con una performance over 2700 ed è già da alcuni anni una promessa di primissimo livello. Presente anche il “finalmente GM” Amon Simutowe (tantissime norme ma quota 2500 superata faticosamente, finora solo durante un torneo), apprezzato partecipante in diversi nostri open.

Ray Robson

Montepremi di circa 14.000 euro. Si gioca alle 15 dal primo al quinto turno, per poi passare alle 12 negli ultimi quattro turni (non chiedetemi perché  ). Tempo di gioco senza incremento, di due ore per 40 mosse e un’ora per finire la partita, una delle cadenze Fide valida per le norme. Nove scacchiere in diretta, in cui speriamo di poter seguire nei prossimi turni le prestazioni dei nostri alfieri.

Luca Shytaj ritaglia gli spazi possibili dai suoi notevoli studi universitari, viene da un torneo con segnali interessanti di buon gioco ad Andorra e potrebbe aver oliato il motore per questa gara: prima o poi…   La carriera di Fabio Bruno è ben nota, con la ripresa dell’attività agonistica dopo una quindicina d’anni e l’arrivo di grandi soddisfazioni, con il Campionato Italiano, il titolo di Maestro Internazionale e le due norme di GM già nel carniere. Il neo CT potrebbe forse riuscire a regalarsi anche il massimo titolo e sarà sicuramente preparato ed agguerrito per questa gara.

Luca Shytaj

Sito di riferimento: http://www.arcticchess.org/ 

 Aurora boreale su Tromso e un bel logo dall'edizione 2006

VISORE

In another excellent round fight in Nalchik, Evgeny Alekseev climbed to shared first place after a fine win over Sergey Karjakin. Gata Kamsky finally won again, beating Grischuk with Black, and Etienne Bacrot scored his first win of the tournament after drawing eight. The rest of the games were very interesting draws.

By Arne Moll

I have to admit that when I hear the name ‘Alekseev’, I still find myself thinking sometimes: ‘Sorry, Who?’. Alekseev is not a name as familiar yet as Aronian or Karjakin, but yesterday, the Russian showed how unfair this is. In a great game he beat young Sergey Karjakin on his own territory: the Najdorf Sicilian. For this occasion, Alekseev had prepared the little Fischer line 6.h3!? The players followed an old game Bronstein-Gufeld from 1965, but on move 12, Karjakin already played the rather strange move 12…Nc6?! after which White was able to gain the pair of bishops. Personally, I find it hard to imagine why Karjakin chose for this kind of position, for the rest of the game was a fine and instructive display of how to make use of your centralized bishops. I liked the moves 22.b2-b3 and 25.b3-b4 with the idea of gaining space on the queenside. Karjakin got a weak pawn on b5 and Alekseev won it quickly, after which Black’s counter play wasn’t sufficient to confuse the Russian, who moves into first place.

Super-theoretician Levon Aronian scored yet another opening success with Black. In a sharp Vienna Variation, 19…Rg8! was only the first new move, and it was also a strong one. Boris Gelfand, no less a theory expert himself, thought for a long time, and with a few sharp moves and an exchange sac, it looked like he refuted Aronian’s preparation, but in the end a draw was agreed on anyway, despite Black’s isolated doubled f-pawns. Aronian is simply in great shape and is still in shared first place.

In the game Eljanov-Kasimdzhanov, Black also had to accept isolated doubled f-pawns, but at least White had the same problem since his h-pawns had the same defect. One of the main features of these structures is that you control a lot of squares and this was exactly what could be seen in the current game. The subtle manoeuvring and fight for important squares reminded me of some of the classic manoeuvring games from long gone days: knights making long trips to get to the vital squares, rooks occupying outposts on open files and bishops attempting to attack weak pawns. I felt as if I was a live witness to a Capablanca or Rubinstein game! I imagine that normally it would have been Kasimdzhanov, who had the worse bishop, being the one most happy with the final result (draw), if he hadn’t hadn’t missed the win twice at the very end.

Games round 9

Vassily Ivanchuk again failed to convert a good position to a win, this time against Vladimir Akopian. As GM commentator Sergey Shipov noted, 16.f3! was the start of White’s way of make ‘elbow room’ after a quiet but interesting English Opening. I really thought Chuky was going to make it this time, but it must be said that Akopian put up a great defensive show and after some fruitless attempts to break Black’s wall, White settled for a move repetition.

If you replay the game Svidler-Leko quickly without paying attention, you might think it was just another uneventful theoretical Ruy Lopez draw, but looks deceive. First of all, the opening line, the “Anti-Marshall Marshall Gambit” with 8.h3 and 9…d5, with which both Svidler and Leko have experience, was not uninteresting. Then, as was mentioned by Shipov, Svidler could have won with the nice thematical bishop sac 27.Bxg7+! which completely destroys the defence of the black king, but the Russian either didn’t see it or didn’t calculate it well! After this missed chance, rooks and queens were swapped and a draw was agreed upon.

Bacrot scores a nice attacking victory over Mamedyarov

Last but not least, we are happy for Etienne Bacrot for scoring his first win of the tourney. This game too, reminded me of classic games from the old days, but this time it could well have been grandmaster vs. N.N. The Frenchman punished Shakhriyar Mamedyarov for his too risky opening play, a sharp Sicilian Taimanov/Paulsen hybrid in which Black was stuck with a king in the middle of the board. 12…c5 was already slightly unusual: normally, 12…Qa5 is played. Mamedyarov played Qa5 a move later, but it’s debatable whether combining it with c5 is such a good idea. As Shipov points out, 16…Bf8 was the last chance for a decent game. After that, it was just one-way traffic and after a mere 31 moves, it was all over.

Videos

A video of round 9 will be added later today.

Links

• Tournament website
• Games in PGN

In round seven of the Nalchik Grand Prix, Karjakin and Eljanov won their games, while Aronian maintained his lead. The round was also notable for the players‘ opening choices – some were unusual, some instructive and some rather strange. Update: video added!

By Michael Schwerteck

Games round 7

The greatest revelation, as far as openings are concerned, was made by Gata Kamsky. In his match with Topalov he greatly surprised his opponent by playing the French Defence for the first time in his life. Topalov decided to avoid the sharpest lines and chose 3.Nd2. The big question was: what had Kamsky prepared against the most principled move 3.Nc3? Now, after the game against Sergey Karjakin, we probably know the answer – the pawn sac line in the Winawer with the slightly unusual twist 11…dxc3 and 12…d4 instead of the well-known 11…Bd7 and 12…dxc3.

Karjakin and Kamsky at the press conference

Karjakin chose 13.Ng3 [at the press conference he admitted that Nxd4 was the critical choice, but he decided to avoid Kamsky's preparation - PD], but the opening was a success for Black who obtained dangerous compensation for a pawn. We will probably see this line more often now! The final phase of the game was weird: Kamsky had a winning attack, but somehow completely lost his head, ruined his position and finally lost on time. What happened to his nerves of steel? The French doesn’t bring him luck – he keeps getting decent positions, but his score his 0/4!

Another theoretically important game was Grischuk-Akopian, which started with 22 moves of sharp theory in the Slav 6.Ne5 line. It’s not easy to understand what attracted Akopian to play the black side, however. The position isn’t very pleasant for Black and after theory was left, he was soon much worse. Grischuk won a pawn, but then probably chose the wrong plan and misplaced his rook. Akopian managed to activate his forces and got enough counterplay for a draw.

In the clash of two Marshall Gambit experts, Bacrot-Aronian, another long theoretical line was played. As usual, the Armenian parried his opponent’s ideas pretty easily and made a comfortable draw. We have already seen a lot of games like this, where Black’s bishop pair and/or light-square blockade controls White’s queenside majority and we will probably see many similar games in the future. Yawn.

What’s even more annoying for the 1.e4 player than the Marshall Gambit? The Petroff, of course. According to Mig Greengard, every time this defence is beaten, an angel gets its wings (this is how it looks). The poor angels have to be very patient, however. This time it was Peter Svidler who couldn’t do anything to create problems for Rustam Kasimdzhanov. The Russian’s pawn sacrifice 14.b4!? was original, but as he commented himself, it was already played with the aim to make a draw. Does a devil get its horns now?

Gelfand often works together with Eljanov, and this time he lost to his young colleague

Vassily Ivanchuk is another player who has been in poor form so far. This time, after leaving theory very quickly, he got a promising position against Peter Leko, only to spoil it by missing 38…Bb3. An Ivanchuk in normal shape would never miss such a relatively simple tactical motif. A lucky draw for Leko, who had completely misplayed the early middlegame.

Evgeny Alekseev for a long time played very well against Shakriyar Mamedyarov, but he too only got a disappointing draw in the end. From a deceptively harmless Fianchetto Pirc with an early queen trade, the Russian had slowly outplayed his opponent, only to stumble shortly before the time-control (39.Kd2?). Well, „chess is brutal“ (Shipov). Sometimes.

Videos

Links

• Tournament website
• Games in PGN

Everybody has a favourite chess move. Many just love 23…Qg3. Tim Krabbé’s favourite is 16…Nc6. According to British Chess Magazine, it’s 47…Bh3. And a member of my local chess club is obsessed by the move 7.Ke3! in the Traxler Counter-Attack. These are all highly spectacular moves. My own favourite is the very modest queen-shuffle 2.Qe2.

I’m talking about the little-known Chigorin Variation of the French Defence, which arises after 1.e4 e6 2.Qe2.

I still remember the moment when I first encountered this move. I stumbled upon it in an old volume on chess strategy by Euwe and Kramer and, incomprehensibly, the authors didn’t comment on the move at all! I couldn’t understand what was going on, and was very frustrated about it. The quoted game was Chigorin-Tarrasch, 1893 and this frustrated me even more: how could such an outstanding player like Mikhail Chigorin play this absurd move?

Baffled at first, I started hypothesizing that White must have some idea with it, and I supposed (correctly, as it turned out) that it was to prevent d7-d5. But this didn’t make much sense either. First of all, Black could still play 2…d5 and after 3.exd5 Qxd5 he would have a position from the Scandinavian Defence with a rather strange Queen on e2, would he not? Secondly, even if Black couldn’t play d7-d5, it hardly seemed worth misplacing the queen just for that.

As always, things turned out to be not so easy. I started stuyding the line and discovered many things; mostly that, of course, the white king’s bishop could simply go to g2 and wasn’t so blocked after all. The game would then look much like a reversed King’s Indian. Also, if Black played Nc6-d4 at some point, chasing the queen even further over the board, the knight could be forced to retreat with tempo by c2-c3, making a nice ‘hole’ for the Queen on c2 in the process. It seemed there was actually some positional basis for Qe2 and this showed me in a profound way what a deep and rich game chess is.

Nowadays, it’s of course well-known that Qe2 and the idea to develop the bishop to g2 is a kind of prelude to later King’s Indian positions. Being a French player myself, I too sometimes face the move 2.Qe2 and in my experience, white players indeed usually strive for a quiet KID-like setup, apparently in an attempt to deviate from better known lines such as after 2.d3. Alexei Suetin, in his classic 1982 mongraph on the French, writes of the move:

It may be looked upon as the forerunner of the modern openings strategy which in semi-open systems aims at achieving a King’s Indian position with opposite colours, e.g. in the variation 2.d3 d5 3.Nd2 etc.

Similarly, Gligoric, Uhlmann and Botvinnik (The French Defence, 1975) note:

Tchigorin’s [sic] move, 2.Qe2, can transpose to the King’s Indian Attack (in which White’s queen usually plays to e2) but by playing his moves in a different order Black can bypass the K.I.A. setup and take a more aggresive stance.

And the great Kasparov, in the first part of My Great Predecessors, says the following of the line (as played in the game Chigorin-Teichmann, Hastings 1895):

Chigorin demonstrated all the basic ideas of the set-up with the X-ray bishop at g2 and symmetrical pawns on e4 and e5: restriction of the knight at c6 by c2-c3, manoeuvre of the knight to c4 (…) This was the style of the future! Many decades later the King’s Indian Attack became fashionable.

Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch (1862-1934)

Now, I must make a personal confession. Although I really love the move Qe2 for all its initial weirdness, I don’t like the stereotyped moves that usually follow after it! White often automatically plays g3, Bg2, Nf3 and 0-0, then goes for d3 and/or c3 and he reaches ‘normal’ King’s Indian structures. Played this way, the system loses all its charm, at least for me. It’s just another boring KID with reversed colours! Therefore, in this article I will take a different point of view than the (however highly esteemed) opinions quoted above. In an attempt to stop this cliché treatment of the move Qe2, I will show that Mikhail Chigorin played it with many different ideas in mind as well, and that it’s not such a boring setup at all. In fact, Chigorin played the move to deviate from stereotyped chess to force the opponent and himself to think right from the start of the game.

In 1893, the Russian Mikhail Chigorin and the German Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch, two of the strongest players of those days, played a 22-game match in St. Petersburg (Chigorin’s home town) against each other. It was not an official title match, but the stakes were high. It was a clash not just of chess giants, but of chess schools. As Raymond Keene describes the situation in The Evolution of Chess Opening Theory:

Steinitz’s games had taught the chess world much but certain eccentricities persisted in the old master’s conception of opening play, which could not satisfy an idealogue and purist such as Tarrasch. For the first time, we now see the multiplicity of Steinitzian options narrowed down and pruned. Variations and moves are ‘incorrect’ for general and logical reasons and Chigorin’s objections (in his games with Tarrasch) that his incorrect or ugly moves are actually quite viable were more or less ignored. That was until Nimzowitsch came along to renew the challenge to Tarrasch, and until (much later) Soviet writers rediscovered Chigorin as the ideological father of Russian chess, finding that his ‘ugly’ moves, too, had a scientific basis.

The final score of the match was +9 -9 =4. The games were famously analysed by Tarrasch in his masterpiece Dreihundert Schachpartien (300 chess games). In all-but-one of Chigorin’s white games, the ‘ugly’ Qe2 line was played, making this historic match the ‘creation story’ of this particular variation. But according to Tarrasch himself, Chigorin wasn’t the first to have played the move. In his comments to the first game, Tarrasch writes:

This move was no surprise for me, I had seen it already in a game by Pollock, but given it no attention. It has no other value than to prevent the usual methods of play, and to lead to a difficult, closed game for both. Such experiments are usually allowed to white without huge risks.

Tarrasch's first comment on Qe2 in his book 'Dreihundert Schachpartien'

So far, I have not been able to dig up this game by Pollock, but it must exist, as it is also mentioned in the official match book by Albert Heyde (Der Schachwettkampf zwischen Dr. S. Tarrasch und M. Tschigorin, Ende 1893).  Can a reader locate it? (Interestingly, Kasparov quotes Chigorin mentioning how he got the idea for 2.Qe2 from a game he played - as Black - against Steinitz in their 1892 match in which Steinitz also played Qd1-e2 to prevent d7-d5: ‘It was this that gave rise to my initial plan with g2-g3, Bg2 and d2-d3, which was later varied’. Didn’t Chigorin know the Pollock game while Tarrasch did? An why, if he already had the idea, didn’t Chigorin play this setup on the first opportunity he got - the second match game - in the match against Tarrasch?)

In any case, Heyde makes a very important observation about these games, which is also important for our pursuit:

The games with this opening which were played in this match are the most interesting. In these, Chigorin tries a move tried in America - by Pollock if I’m not mistaken - 2.Qe2, which is well underestimated by most players.  Admittedly, Chigorin himself did not immediately find the right continuation, since in the defence with 2…Be7, the queen move gains in strength only by means of 3.b3 and 4.Bb2.

Here’s the thing. I’ve played the logical move 2…Be7 (preparing d7-d5) myself a number of times against 2.Qe2, and on none of those occasions did my opponent go for b3 and Bb2. In all cases, White automatically went g3, Bg2 and d3, without even thinking. I find this very strange. If you play such an interesting move as Qe2, why follow up with such boring schemes?

But let’s not overhaste things. After all, Tarrasch himself didn’t play 2…Be7 until the 10th match game. In the first four games, he played 2…c5. And as already briefly mentioned, Chigorin didn’t play the g3, Bg2 and d3 setup until the second time he got the line on the board. Chigorin’s first attempt went as follows (comments are by Tarrasch):

Chigorin - Tarrasch
St. Petersburg (m/2), 1893

1.e4 e6 2.Qe2 c5 ‘With this, Black switches to a Sicilian game, in which the position of the white queen on e2 in any case can’t help the attack.’

3.Nc3 ‘This is, on account of the however insignificant threat Nb8-c6-d4, not good and lays the foundation of later problems. White should play g2-g3, as in the 4th and 6th games of the match, and not rob himself of the possibility to chase away the enemy knight with c2-c3.’

3…Nc6 4.Nf3 a6 5.g3 ‘The wing development of this bishop was of course already intended with Qe2.’

5…Nd4 6.Qd3

At this point, we get a marvellous example of Tarrasch’s famous sarcasm: ‘One sees, Chigorin has learned a lot from Steinitz, perhaps too much. In any case it was more natural to withdraw the queen to d1 and continue the game with d3, Be3, Bg2 etc.’ In the end, Tarrasch got a beautiful position indeed, but unfortunately, he got mated.

Well, never mind that Black got a good position out of the opening - what’s important for us is to note is that White wasn’t playing the typical KIA moves here. It shows that the move can also be used to achieve interesting, different kind of positions. Tarrasch himself understood this point well when he wrote, in that other famous book of his, Die Moderne Schachpartie (1916): ‘The one idea of this unusual move is that it complicates the game and makes it more difficult.’

Although Tarrasch obviously was no fan of Qe2, I think it does show that Tarrasch values the move not as a way for White to reach a certain kind of standard setup, but to make play interesting. And this can be done in many more ways than just one! In a way, Tarrasch acknowledged this also by varying his own setup as Black during the match. For instance, even though he reached a perfectly fine position (and a classic victory) in game 6 after 2…c5 3.g3 Nc6 4.Bg2 Nd4 5.Qd3 Be7, he played differently with 4…Be7 in the 8th game, ‘to take a new course as soon as possible’.

Let’s now turn our attention to the line described above by Albert Heyde.

Chigorin-Tarrasch
St. Petersburg (m/12), 1893

1. e4 e6 2.Qe2 Be7

While searching for contemporary sources in the Max Euwe Centre in Amsterdam, I discovered that at the time, opinions about how to play this line varied considerably. In the november 1893 issue of the Deutsches Wochenschach magazine, the text move is regarded as the ’simplest and securest’ reply to White’s concept. On the other hand, in the same issue of the Deutsche Schachzeitung, 2…c5 is considered ‘clearly the best answer to this untheoretical move’. 

In the end, it seems history has proven the Schachzeitung right. For instance, The Handbuch des Schachspiels by P.R. von Bilguer (1922) mentions that Steinitz considered best a setup with …c5, Nc6, d6, Nf6, Be7 and 0-0, later followed by d6-d5. Euwe (Theorie der Schaakopeningen, 1953) does likewise. Suetin (1982) and Psakhis (The Complete French, 1992) also prefer 2..c5, and so does Uhlmann (Französisch - richtig gespielt, 2004). It has also been the choice of players such as Morozevich, Bareev, Jussupow and Kortchnoi., but I wonder if it was just an ‘autoreply’ or if they actually considered 2…Be7, which I personally find more esthetic.

In the end, it seems history has proven the Schachzeitung right

3.b3 ‘A creative reply, directed against d7-d5′ - Tarrasch.

3…d5 4.Bb2 Bf6 Tarrasch’s notes are worth quoting in full:

The normal development would have been 4…Nf6, after which Black must ruin his king’s side by means of 5.exd5 exd5 (5…Qxd5 is not good for Black) 6.Bxf6 gxf6. Because of this, I chose the bishop’s move in all games with this opening. This further provokes the advance of the e-pawn, which is almost always more unpleasant for Black on e4 than on e5. In general, central pawns are best advanced only two squares, and because of this 4…d4 isn’t good; White would attack the pawn several times with c2-c3, Nf3 etc, and the end force the exchange.

An interesting discourse, but it’s interesting that Chigorin appears not to have intended 5.exd5 at all! In three later games, he chose 5.Nc3 or 5.e5. The latter move, by the way, was also played against Grandmaster Rafael Vaganian in 1998. It seems these positions have not lost all relevance after all…

5.e5 Later in the match, Chigorin deviated with 5.Bxf6. But according to Kasparov, who analyses some of these games in his already mentioned My Great Predecessors vol. 1, taking the bishop is inferior to the text.

5…Be7 This position also occurred in the 14th match game. On both occasions, Chigorin played

6.Qg4 after which Tarrasch played the amazing 6…Bf8

A unique position: on move 6, Black has ‘completed’ his bishop manoeuvre with Bf8-e7-f6-e7-f8! According to Tarrasch,  this is better than weakening the king’s side with g7-g6. He writes: ’One can’t blame the bishop now for making four moves; of course, taken together these are wasted. But because of the move e4-e5 Black has the opportunity to develop play on the queen’s side well, and start an attack there, while not much can happen to him on the king’s side.’

In my opinion, this manoeuvre also shows that Siegbert Tarrasch wasn’t only the dogmatist he has often been called , but also, like Chigorin, an empiricist who liked to experiment. Recall the Keene quote, or what Robert Wade (in his well-known book Soviet Chess) had to say about it:

Dogmatic as benefits a teacher and a methodist, Tarrasch tried to explain chess in an uncomplicated mechanical fashion rather similar to the way in the same period that the universe was explained. Just as small exceptions upset the rules to which the universe supposedly conformed, small exceptions required the rules propounded by Tarrasch to be modified. Chigorin was a non-confirmist, just as Nimzowitsch became in the days of the twentieth century preceding World War I.

Well, that may be so, but I fail to see what’s so ‘conformist’ about making four bishop moves in your first six moves, ending up on f8 anyway! (By the way, in an internet game from 2004, Alexander Repritsev played 6.h4!? against the well-known grandmaster Sergey Shipov, so we’ll never know if the grandmaster analyst also intended Tarrasch’s non-comformist move Bf8…)

But this wasn’t the end of it. The idea of attacking g7 by means of Qg4 inspired Chigorin in 1899 to play (against Showalter) the even more radical 3.Qg4!?! after 2…Be7. The game continued in ‘Winawer style’: 3…Nf6!? 4.Qxg7 Rg8 5.Qh6 and White won - all of which goes, I hope, to show the potential versatility of the move Qe2.

And even if Black doesn’t play 2…Be7 but the more popular 2…c5, White can still play differently than a standard King’s Indian Attack setup with Nf3 and g3. This time, it was Géza Maróczy who found out how. In early 1904, after 2…c5 he played the move 3.f4 against Swiderski, postponing the development of the white squared bishop to a more suitable moment.

Two months later, during the famous Cambridge Springs 1904 tournament, Chigorin himself caught Maróczy’s idea and tried it two times (against Showalter and Marco). He lost both games, though, and generally was in poor shape in those days. (He did win $67,50 for his final result, according to the tournament site.)

Still, despite this bad experience with 3.f4, the move was regularly seen in tournament pratice. It was employed by Paul Keres in the 1930s, and after that occasionally used by strong players. Admittedly, most white players later went for a KIA setup anyway (but now with the standard move f4 included already), but not always. Canadian IM Lawrence Day, for instance, has played the position with considerably more gusto, trying, after 3.f4 Nc6 4.Nf3 g6 the move 5.Na3!? and after 4…Nge7 our good old plan 5.b3!? And as a perfect example of how the system can be played in a creative fashion, consider the beginning of the following game:

Day - Stonkus
Toronto open 1995

1.e4 e6 2.Qe2 c5 3.f4 Nc6 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.c3 b5 6.g4!? Nxg4 7.Qxb5 Be7 8.Rg1 Bh4+ 9.Ke2

and White won.

Now, according to my database, 3.f4 is still only White’s third most popular move behind 3.Nf3 and 3.g3, but not too long ago, it has also caught the attention of the creative British top grandmasters Nigel Short and Luke McShane. Short employed the move twice in his 1997 FIDE knockout match against Viktor Kortchnoi, while McShane, too, has played it against Kortchnoi. (Short told me that he had played the move mainly because he ‘must have been desperate’. Well, even better, for apparently he hoped that  Chigorin’s move would somehow bring back his usual creativity!)

Nigel Short, who admitted playing 2.Qe2 only because he was desperate...

The strong Belarus grandmaster Alexei Fedorov has also played 3.f4, and guess what - he played b2-b3 two moves later. I consider all of this sufficient proof that Chigorin’s Qe2 is not just ’some move’ to enter a King’s Indian Attack in a less theoretical way, but has independent value as a system. However, to my knowledge, no monograph or theoretical survey has ever been written about the variation in over 100 years! Why is this?

Is it because White’s move still just looks too silly to take seriously, as Tarrasch used to think? Or is it because people think it’s just another boring (when you’re playing black) or easy (as white) way to arrange your pieces without actually having to think the first few moves? I hope I have convinced you that this was not the fate Chigorin intended his variation. He played it as a way to start a chess game in an interesting, creative way. When I first saw the move Qe2, I thought it was a great big mystery.

Now I know it still is.

Chess is a difficult game. Not only because you have to make good moves, but also because you have to stay alert for many hours. However hard you’ve worked before, one tiny lapse of concentration can destroy hours of labour. This sadly happened to Gata Kamsky in the fifth round of the Nalchik Grand Prix against Vladimir Akopian. Of course, all over the internet people immediately reacted as if they didn’t understand what had happened.

By Arne Moll

It’s very common these days: as soon as the blunder’s been made, people act as if it’s the weirdest thing in the world. Using lots of question marks and exclamation marks, they are quick to point out the correct path and show their incredulity. Of course, it’s especially easy to notice blunders when you’ve got an engine running in the background, but even without it, many chess fans on such moments seem to forget that grandmasters are still human, and that chess is still a human game.

The first to experience this was Vassily Ivanchuk. One of the pre-tournament favourites and definitely a favourite of the ChessVibes team, he just isn’t making the right moves in this tournament. I’m afraid there’s not much to say about the game. Playing a not too enterprising QGD with White, the Ukrainian badly blundered at move 22 against Rustam Kasimdzhanov, who finished him off within a few moves. Well, let’s look at things from the bright side: at least the former FIDE World Champion is getting properly into the tournament now, moving to zones in the ranking where he belongs.

As we’ve already noted in a recent issue of ChessVibes Openings, the German GM Jan Gustafsson plays an important role in modern day opening theory. In Nalchik, he’s Peter Leko’s second. No wonder, then, that Leko came excellently prepared against Alexander Grischuk in Gusti’s pet line, the always exciting Anti-Moscow Slav (once again showing, by the way, how untrue the stereotype is that Leko is a boring player!). To an outsider like me, all these games look pretty exciting - until you realize the guys have been following theory for 20 moves or so already. Not in this game, however, in which the Leko/Gusti team had apparently prepared a novelty at move 16 already. The move 16…c5 looked logical enough (even to me), and it led to a sharp position that seems not to have been out of balance, allowing Grischuk to hold on to his leading position in the tournament. I guess with hindsight it’s easy to dismiss such games as uninteresting, but that is a gross underestimation of the amount of work that has gone into it. In my opinion, deep opening preparation is always interesting, even if the result is sometimes ‘only’ a solid draw.

Gusti’s influence could also be felt in the game Alekseev-Aronian. In yet another Marshall Attack (also a speciality of Gusti’s), the players followed for some time the game Volokitin-Gustafsson from last year’s Bundesliga until Aronian deviated with the new move 16…Qf5!? instead of the usual Qh5. The idea of advancing the h-pawn to weaken g3 worked out excellently, and Aronian obtained an easy draw in the Marshall, as we’re used to by now.

Sergey Karjakin is working together with Kasparov’s ex-second Yuri Dokhoian and also came well prepared for his game against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. In sharp Taimanov Sicilian, his move 8.Qg3!? was already new (previously, 8.Bf4 had been tried), and led to an optically very pleasant position. It’s not clear where Karjakin could have played better, because although his position looked extremely attractive despite having sacrificed his central e-pawn, Black defended excellently and comfortably cruised towards a draw. Sergey Shipov suggested 16.Ne4 (instead of 16.h4) as a natural way to gain advantage, and I think 15.Bf3 deserves attention as well. We’ll probably see this line again some time soon!

Speaking of Kasparov, the opening in the game between Etienne Bacrot and Pavel Eljanov (a Zaitsev Ruy Lopez) reminded one of the great fights between Kasparov and Karpov. Bacrot chose the now-topical 12.d5 and for a long time, the players the game Carlsen-Navara from last year’s FIDE Grand Prix in Baku. In this line, White wants to prove his bind on the white squares against Black’s pair of bishops. Bacrot sacrificed his e-pawn to gain total control over the white squares and the diagonal a2-g8 in particular, but somehow there wasn’t a forced win as Black got his game together just in time. Crazy sacs on f7 or h7 didn’t work out for White, and in the end Bacrot had to settle for a move repetition.

Peter Svidler faced an extremely sharp and no doubt home-prepared line against Boris Gelfand but achieved a shaky draw in the end. What started as a quiet Moscow Slav soon turned into a tactical position where Gelfand unleashed the spectacular 18…Bh3!? setting lots of practical problems for White. Svidler handled it in a principled, but very risky way, exposing his king and ruining his pawn structure. It seems Gelfand missed a couple of excellent chances in the double rook ending, but in the position was drawn anyway.

Akopian and Kamsky at the press conference

However, he, too, wasn’t the sharpest chess player in the world anymore after such a tough game, and Kamsky managed to stay alive and even missed a study-like draw where a single Knight draws against Rook + Bishop. The game went on mercilessly and Akopian got a position where KBR+P vs. KR had to be won by sacrificing the last pawn. As a result, Akopian reached a theoretically won KRB vs. KR endgame, but according to the tablebase he misplayed it at several points. Of course, such an endgame is always difficult, especially after all previous emotions, and at move 93 he allowed a simple stalemate which Kamsky then… missed as well, losing in a few more moves after all.

Of course, the moment will be recorded in the cabinet of chess curiosities, but please let’s not be so surprised that this sort of thing happens in top tournaments as well. Anyone who’s ever had to defend (or win) this particular ending (at whatever level) knows how extremely exhausting a job this is, especially when the pressure has been so high in the previous hours. So, let’s applaud both Akopian and Kamksy for a marvellous and instructive game, reminding us once again that we’re all human and that that is precisely why we love the game of chess so much!

Videos

Links

• Tournament website
• Games in PGN

After a marvellous start of 2/2 Levon Aronian was held by Sergey Karjakin, who announced earlier this week that he will play for Russia in the near future. Main reason is the less reward for the big results the Ukrainian team achieved in last few years, for example winning the 2004 Olympiad. (Video added!)

By IM Robert Ris

It doesn’t look like this big news affects Karjakin’s play, outplaying Armenian’s number one in an Anti-Marshall after the latter made a few inaccuracies. Grischuk managed to defeat Rustam Kasimdzhanov and is currently the sole leader with 2½/3. The third round showed a lot of exciting chess. One doesn’t see four decisive results so much anymore these days, while we shouldn’t forget to mention that the other three games were also interesting to follow for the audience.

In line with his solid chess style, Etienne Bacrot reacted with the solid 12.d5 after Peter Svidler went for the Chigorin Variation of the Ruy Lopez. According to current theory, this riskless approach doesn’t promise White anything special, which was proved once more by Svidler. On move 36 the players agreed to a draw in a position where both couldn’t hope for anything more.

The f3-Grünfeld is still one of Shakh Mamedyarov’s favourite pet lines. During the Aeroflot Open in Moscow, the Azeri was shocked by a 21-move loss against Igor Kurnosov and accused the Russian of cheating during the game. This time, his opponent Gata Kamsky decided not to fall into his preparation, and deviated with 7…Nc6 from the aforementioned game, accepting a rather passive position. With 15.Qe5! Shakh went for a pleasant ending thanks to his space advantage. Nevertheless, the ever-tough American defended accurately and so the game ended peacefully.

Grischuk: the new leader after three rounds

Well, time to have a look at the decisive results. Tournament leader Levon Aronian faced with Black a harmless looking Anti-Marshall. The Armenian was the first one to deviate from his rapid game one month ago against Carlsen in Nice, but again found himself soon in a worse position. Both players didn’t show their best play, but it mostly affected Aronian who mishandled a drawish rook endgame to finish it off with a huge blunder.

As Svidler drew already, only Alexander Grischuk could overtake the lead from Aronian. These last few months, Grischuk seems to be in an extremely good shape. After sharing the first place in the third GP in Elista, the Moscovite last February won his first elite tournament in Linares.
In a Queen’s Gambit Accepted, Rustam Kasimdzhanov tried to copy an old game he played himself against Dutch GM Harmen Jonkman with White. Grischuk improved on Kasim’s play with 12.Rc1, intending to weaken Black’s position with the standard Na4 before starting a pawn storm on Black’s king. Kasim achieved much too late sufficient counterplay in the centre, so that Grischuk could easily convert his second win of the tournament.

The game between Evgeny Alekseev and Pavel Eljanov brought an interesting Ragozin, which recently came back into the spotlights. Black’s ambitions were very quickly revealed when he played the most aggressive possibility 9…c4. Typically for this opening, Black is trying to create counterplay on the queenside, while White is doing his job on the other flank. Optically it looked very promising for Black, but things turned out the other way. Black had to choose allowing White blocking the c3 square or force matters with 21…c3 himself. Eljanov went for the latter, but found himself in big trouble when it became clear that he couldn’t keep his b2-pawn. After picking it up, Alekseev had an easy task bringing the full point back home.

Commentator GM Sergey Shipov, who celebrated his 42nd birthday on Friday

Videos

• Tournament website
• Games in PGN

Update Peter Doggers, 14:08 (or rather 16:08 here in Nalchik):

Karjakin - Dokhoian (!) first time they work together
Leko - Gustafsson
Alekseev - Sakaev
Eljanov - Efimenko
Aronian - Sargissian
Kasimdzhanov - D.Fridman
Gelfand - Huzman
Akopian - Galdunts
Bacrot - Pelletier (ironically the nominated player of Montreux, where originally this 4th would have been held).

Now in its tenth consecutive year, the annual “Ciudad de Dos Hermanas” 2009, the biggest and best online blitz tournament is set to be hosted March 13th to 21st yet again on the Internet Chess Club. You can play one of the qualifiers till and including Wednesday.

The cash prize fund amounts to EUR 7,600 (about $9,600), with Euro 2,000 (roughly $2,500) first prize, plus additional class prizes and ICC membership prizes for amateur players. Entry is completely FREE for all but you DO need to be a member of ICC to play!

This is one of the most important Internet chess tournaments in the world with the last three editions boasting an entry of over 4,000 players from all over the world. Will two-time winner IM Jorge Sammour-Hasbun make it a third successive victory this year, or will one of the many top grandmasters who have played in the past, such as Shahriyar Mamedyarov, Tigran L. Petrosian, Gata Kamsky, Hikaru Nakamura, Kiril Georgiev, Jan Gustafsson or Sergey Shipov stop his winning run?

As in previous editions, the playing system will be twelve 12-round Swiss qualifiers (3 minutes per game). Qualifiers are held twice a day from March 13th to March 18th, with the finals being held on March 20th & 21st. The 12 qualifier winners plus the 20 best scores qualify to the 32-player KO final.

Even if you are not aiming to win a prize, this tournament gives you a unique chance to face world class players! Make sure to register early! Your registration is valid for all qualifiers, but you do not need to play all. Full rules, guidelines and registrations can be found at our special Dos Hermanas website.

John Henderson
ICC

Gata Kamsky had great winning chances in the 7th game of the match, but Topalov skilfully complicated the position which proved very effective against Kamsky’s habit of getting into time trouble. So Topalov goes through to face Anand after winning this match 4.5 – 2.5. Even though some might say that 8 games for a match like this is not long enough, it was still a very entertaining event to follow. I enjoyed following the live broadcast on ICC’s chess FM during the last game, and if you speak Russian I also strongly recommend watching Sergei Shipov’s great video commentary of each game.

In a slightly worse position that was probably tenable, Gata Kamsky blundered horribly today dropping a healthy pawn. He then decided to try his luck in a queen endgame two pawns down, but the American had to resign at move 51. In the Challenger’s Match in Sofia, Veselin Topalov now leads 3-2.

The Kamsky-Topalov World Championship Semi-Final Match takes place February 16th to 28th in the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, Bulgaria. The Challenger’s Match consists of eight games and possible tie-breaks and has a prize find of US $250,000 which will be shared equally by the players. The winner qualifies for a World Championship Match against Viswanathan Anand.

Game 5
To the surprise of many chess fans and journalists, Topalov played with the white pieces today, and not Kamsky. Even after the fifth game had finished, match regulations on the official website still quoted the rule:

“The colors shall be reversed after game 4. (The player getting the white color in game 1 shall play game 5 with the black color).”

This idea was borrowed from the Anand-Kramnik match of last year, the idea being that there wouldn’t be just one player profiting from a White game after a rest day.

However, during the negotiations that took place in November in Dresden, this idea was abandonded for being too complicated for such a short match, and so an amendment to the rules had been signed by all parties prior to the match, but this hadn’t (and still hasn’t) made it to the official website.

A funny consequence of all this was that online commentator Sergey Shipov, who always annotates the game live in Russian at Crestbook, had mixed up the names of the players and was discussing reasons for Topalov to chose the French, and recognizing the style of Sutovsky in Kamsky’s handling of that opening!

Unfortunately there’s not much more to say about the game than what you’ve already read in the intro. Just when the worst was over for Kamsky, he blundered a pawn and then he had to make a choice between two evils: continuing with a pawn down in a hopelessly passive position or going for a queen ending with two pawns down. He chose the latter, but this was clearly lost too, as was shown by Topalov, who finished the game off accurately.

A huge setback for the Kamsky team, who again have to deal with the situation of being one down. But on the positive side, they have two Whites to work on against just one left for the Topalov team.

The fifth game Topalov-Kamsky

Photos © Ivan Stoimenov - courtesy of the official website

Links:

• More background info
• Report of game 1
• Report of game 2
• Report of game 3
• Report of game 4
• Official website
• Games in PGN
• Chess.FM blog
• Chess Life Online with Ian Rogers blogging

The third round of Corus 2009 promises to be full of razor sharp opening battles. Will Jan Smeets hold on to his leading position with the Botvinnik Variation? Just like yesterday, ChessVibes will provide regular updates and photos.

Clearly, the game to start with is Loek van Wely vs. Jan Smeets: a very interesting Botvinnik Variation indeed! Smeets deviated from a rapid game Van Wely-Shirov, Monaco 2005 with 19…Bxe7 and produced a novelty on move 21: before, 21…Qc6 was always played in this position. Both players seems to follow Rybka’s main line after this. Its evaluation, meaningless though it may be, is +.0.52 for White after 27.Re2! (Instead, Loek already chose for perpetual check.)

Another game to follow closely is Ivanchuk-Radjabov, where Black avoided the main lines by going for 9…Ne8, which was answered by the not so popular 10.a4; 12.Bg5 seems to be the new move here. And what to think of the tactical endgame Aronian and Stellwagen are playing? After 18 moves, a surprisingly dynamic balance seems to have been established. Carlsen-Movsesian is a very principled Bishops vs. Knights fight, reminiscent of some classic Chigorin games.

It looks like a tough round in general, with games that basically still have to start. Karjakin-Wang Yue and Adams-Dominguez are the always-exciting Sicilians of this round. Finally, today’s Ruy Lopez comes from Movsesian and Kamsky. That game is analysed live (in Russian) by Sergey Shipov.

Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2009 Grandmaster Group A | Round 2 Standings

Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2009 Grandmaster Group B | Round 2 Standings

Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C