Fabiano Caruana won the Young Grandmaster Tournament in Biel today. The Italian was the strongest in a necessary play-off with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, whom he beat in the final.

The play-off final between Fabiano Caruana and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son

The Young Grandmaster Tournament was part of the Biel Chess Festival in Switzerland, which takes place July 17-30. Anish Giri, David Howell, Fabiano Caruana, Maxim Rodshtein, Parimarjan Negi, Dmitry Andreikin, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Wesley So and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son played.

Round 9 & play-off

As leaders Caruana and Vachier-Lagrave drew in the last round, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son was able to catch the two in the standings by beating Giri. In fact the Vietnamese finished first on tiebreak. As regulations dictated, on Thursday morning a rapid play-off was played between the players who finished on shared 1st place. It was decided that the numbers 2 and 3 played each other and the winner would play Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son.

But first things first: the final round on Wednesday. From a quiet King’s Indian Attack, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son slowly outplayed Anish Giri, who might regret his 17th move (e.g. 17…Rfe8 looks close to equal). After a forced sequence of moves an ending was reached where White had more than enough compensation for the pawn.

Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son-Anish Giri
Biel 2010

Position after 28.Rxb7.

The Vietnamese continued to play strongly and although Black might have been able to hold the draw, the win seemed fully deserved.

Rodshtein must have missed a win somehere against Tomashevsky. Both 37.Qd4! and 40.Ne4! seem to lead to a decisive advantage. Andreikin reached equality remarkably easily against So, using the Old Indian. The ending was soon better for Black thanks to his superior knight, but it was never winning. Caruana and Vachier-Lagrave drew relatively quickly to secure the rapid play-off.

Play-off

And so we come to this morning’s action. Caruana and Vachier-Lagrave first both won one rapid game (10 minutes & 10 seconds increment) with the white pieces. What exactly happened in the first game is not yet clear to us – was one more move played (Bxg3) and did the Frenchman touch his queen? It’s more likely that the game was saved incompletely. In any case, he recovered well and won a nice, tactical ending to level the score.

Vachier-Lagrave continued strongly, and reached a promising position again with the white pieces in the Armageddon blitz game.

Vachier-Lagrave-Caruana
Biel 2010

Here 38.Rb2?! allowed 38…Qa4! and the tables turned, as …Qd1 and Ra1 cannot be prevented. White should still be able to hold it, but the defence proved too difficult.

Caruana had an even narrower escape in the first game of the final against Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, as he defended an ending two pawns down to a draw. In the second game he struck decisively.

Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son-Caruana
Biel 2010

Here 30.Rc2 should draw. 30.b3?! was answered by the strong 30…a3! and after 31.Ra8 Ra5 32.Rxa5 bxa5 33.Nd4 Nb4 34.Nb5 Nxa2 35.Nxa3 Nc1 Black won a pawn, which was, like in almost any knight ending, decisive.

Games rounds 9 & tiebreak

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Fabiano Caruana with the winner's medal in Biel

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Fabiano Caruana and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave are sharing the lead in Biel with one round to go. The two are on 5/8. After five more draws in round 7, the 8th round saw much more spectacle.

The Young Grandmaster Tournament is part of the Biel Chess Festival in Switzerland, which takes place July 17-30. Anish Giri, David Howell, Fabiano Caruana, Maxim Rodshtein, Parimarjan Negi, Dmitry Andreikin, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Wesley So and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son play.

Rounds 7 & 8

After our last, and slightly critical report on Biel, in which we noted the many short draws between these ten young and ambitious players, the games of the 7th round were more interesting. Nonetheless, all of them ended peacefully anyway!

From all the players it seems that Vietnamese GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son came closest to victory thanks to the tactical shot 16…Nxe5! but then he spoilt his advantage.

Wesley So-Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son
Biel 2010

16…Nxe5!

Today no less than four games ended in victories. Only Andreikin and Caruana split the point again; the game always looked equal and in the end Black’s activity compensated for the pawn he lost.

In another game with Black, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son now did manage win, against Tomashevsky. And with creative play, we may add. Thanks to a strong pawn phalanx the exchange sac 27…Rxb6! was the obvious way to continue, and soon White had to give back the material, but more power moves (especially 36…d5!) decided the game.

Evgeny Tomashevsky-Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son
Biel 2010

36…d5!

Giri defeated So in a pawn ending, after some interesting tactics had appeared in the middlegame. The Philippine might still have drawn the game with 35…Qf6! because in that version, if White takes on f4, he will have a distant passer. But since the ending is quite complicated, we’ll refrain from giving a definite conclusion.

Anish Giri-Wesley So
Biel 2010

35…Qf6! instead of 35…Qxh4?

Negi is having a hard time in Biel and after a bad start the Indian is ‘even going for a draw in better positions’, as a Dutch grandmaster said today. He hadn’t seen today’s game yet, but it did look like this. Against Howell’s Alapin, Negi was fine after the opening and could have played for an advantage at some point, but instead he allowed a strong exchange sacrifice and then was outplayed in the subsequent ending.

Vachier-Lagrave played a strong game against Rodshtein but then almost let it slip away. Instead of going for mate, he somehow allowed the Israeli to continue the game, but eventually the rook ending was won anyway for the Frenchman, who thus caught Caruana in the standings.

Tomorrow is the last round with Rodshtein-Tomashevsky, Negi-Vachier-Lagrave, Caruana-Howell, So-Andreikin and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son-Giri. There’s a possible tiebreak on Thursday morning if two players (or more) finish at the 1st place. In that case two rapid games (10 minutes & 10 seconds increment) will be played and if the result is 1-1, two blitz will be played.

Games rounds 7 & 8

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Wesley So won his second game in the third round of the Young Grandmasters Tournament in Biel, grabbing the sole lead in an extremely strong field.

Report and analyses by IM Robert Ris

After a long hard working day yesterday, fellow countrymen Dmitry Andreikin and Evgeny Tomashevsky didn’t really want to hurt each other. The impact of their marathon games was still visible when soon out of the opening, a funny kind of English hybrid, an endgame with opposite coloured bishops was reached. Not much later hands were shaken.

Three rounds into the tournament, at least one thing can be concluded so far: it’s not yet Parimarjan Negi’s week. After two unfortunate losses with Black, the Indian totally lost track against Fabiano Caruana in mishandled Closed Sicilian, which is normally not Negi’s style at all. And indeed, almost everything went wrong for White right from the beginning. Caruana could easily could penetrate on the queenside, whereas White’s forces couldn’t even dream of finding reasonable squares.

Here Negi made a strategical error with 17.Nd5? Better would have been e.g. 17.Nb2 when at least Black can’t immediately force a breakthrough on the queenside.

17…Nxd5 18.exd5 Bxa4 19.bxa4 Rb4 and Black was better already.

“Fortunately” for the Indian, the game ended abruptly after a bad blunder, which may actually make it easier for him to forget the game than if he had been tortured for fifty more moves.

The most dramatic game of the day was the encounter between Maxim Rodshtein and Wesley So. Evidently, both players have studied the recent developments of the topical Grünfeld Indian with 7.Bc4, and it was So’s turn to be the first to deviate from the recently played game Giri-Bok, Dutch Championship 2010, in which after 19 moves the following position was reached:

Bok had played the cautious 19…a6 and indeed, So’s 19…gxf5!? looks very suspicious at first glance -really, who would want to open the residence of his majesty? – but soon Black’s intentions became clear when all his pieces were directed to g2! White’s kingside seemed to be under severe pressure, but the Israeli had everything well protected until move 38.

One move ago, White could have easily transformed the game into an dead equal ending. 38.Qf4 is still possible now, but instead Rodshtein blunders horribly:

38.Qh4?? Bxg2+! 39.Bxg2 Qc1+ and White resigned in view of 40.Kh2 Nf3+ 41.Bxf3 Qg1 mate.

Maxime Vachier Lagrave hasn’t yet reached the level we may expect from a player of his calibre. Against Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, he didn’t get anything with White again, despite Black’s somewhat “modern” opening setup (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 h6!?) and actually White had to be a little careful.

However, Black’s pawn centre was soon stopped by the white rooks. Further on in the endgame, when Black threatened to get his other rook on the second rank (always a sign for extreme caution), the Frenchman correctly gave a pawn away. His activity assured him a liquidation into a rook ending with f against g+h which was once more proven to be an easy affair: draw.

Finally, David Howell decided to test Anish Giri’s memory in a tricky Petroff with 8.Nc3 and 9.Qe1!?, a line many GMs have fallen victim to. Giri passed the test with honour and accepted his opponent’s proposal for a draw on move 27.

Standings after Round 3:

1. So 2,5
2. Tomashevski, Caruana 2
4. Rodshtein, Vachier-Lagrave, Giri, Andreikin, Truong Son 1,5
9. Howell 1
10. Negi 0

Games start daily at 14.00 CET, except July 25, which is a rest day.

Biel Young Grandmasters Games round 3, analysed by Robert Ris

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In the second round of the Young Grandmasters Tournament in Biel, four of the five games ended in a draw. Hero of the day was Evgeny Tomashevsky, who managed to grind down Parimarjan Negi.

Report and analyses by IM Robert Ris

Like yesterday, the games in Biel all started quietly. In Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son-Howell, White opted for a Trompovsky opening, which is a brave choice against an Englishman. Various coffeehouse chessplayers have incorporated this uncompromising opening into their repertoire, though the Vietnamese clearly had other intentions by continuing in the more solid Colle style. From a strategical point of view, however, his opening plays deserves some criticism.

9.Bxf6?! It’s hard to understand why White gives up his bishop voluntarily.

Howell equalized fairly easily after this, despite his huge time investment. This may explain why he overlooked 19…Qd7!, missing an opportunity to punish White for his primitive approach. Quickly after a mass of exchanges took place when neither side could hardly play for anything on.

An even shorter affair was the game between Caruana-Rodshtein, though it had important theoretical relevance. In a 7.Nf3/8.Be3 Grünfeld, the Israeli opted for the topical 8…Bg4, but soon the game returned to very well-known territory.

In this position, Rodshtein’s 13…Nd7! is an important innovation in a line which was considered quite dubious for Black.

Caruana accepted the invitation by taking the pawn, but Black obtained sufficient compensation due to the weakened black squares. White didn’t hesitate to return the pawn in order to mobilize his centre. Black might have prolonged the battle with 18…Nf6!?, but instead opted for liquidation which finally resulted in an unavoidable perpetual.

The third game saw an unusual Grünfeld/Slav hybrid in the duel between Wesley So and Maxime Vachier Lagrave. The Frenchman deviated from the common paths as early as move 8, but had to accept a slight edge for his opponent. The Philipino GM tried everything possible to extend his advantage, but Vachier didn’t crack. On move 64 White stopped his efforts and offered a draw.

The most spectacular encounter of the day by far was the game Giri-Andreikin. The outcome of the opening must have satisfied Black, as Giri couldn’t get anything with White. While White hesitated to execute an central thrust, Black quickly seized the initiative on the queenside. A complex middlegame arose, where Black certainly missed some chances.

Here Black took on f3, whereas 34…Qa5! would have remained better for Black.

Giri showed his tactical abilities and survived the complications. After the time-control Black had to defend a famous ending of rook against bishop with both sides having an h-pawn. Andreikin actually had an extra d-pawn, but as soon his king was driven to the edge, he correctly understood he had to give it up.

(Position after 67…Ke6)

This ending is reminiscent of Kasparov-Yusupov, Linares 1993 (in a mirrored position) and, more recently, Naiditsch-So, Corus 2010. (The famous Timman-Velimirovic, Rio de Janeiro 1979 ending was with pawns on a2 and a3.) Kasparov in fact could have won that Linares game, and it’s instructive to see what Black has to avoid in this ending.

Kasparov-Yusupov
Linares 1993

Here, Kasparov missed his chance with 102.Re7+? allowing the black king to escape. Instead, 102.Rd8!! was the correct way to proceed. White carefully needs to put Black into zugzwang: 102…Kc7 103.Rd4! (targeting a4) Kb7 104.Rd7+ Kc8 105.Kc6 Bc2 106.Rd4 Bb3 107.Kb6 and Black has no move.

Andreikin didn’t let it come that far. On move 109, Giri abandoned the struggle and settled for the inevitable draw.

The only decisive game was Tomashevsky-Negi, with the Indian again as the victim. In a QGD with 5.Bf4, White obtained an edge typical for this variation. When Negi was finally close to equalize, he lost a pawn and had to suffer an unpleasant ending with a minus pawn. However, the Indian fought like a lion and accurately defended – until he missed a clear-cut way to draw.

Now, 64…Kf6 would have probably just been a draw, but unfortunately for Negi, he went for 64…Qe4+? after which he had to suffer for many more moves to come. The Russian Club-2700 member didn’t give him another chance and on move 94, Negi had to resign.

Standings after Round 2:

1. Tomashevsky, So, Rodshtein 1,5
4. Vachier-Lagrave, Caruana, Giri, Andreikin, Truong Son 1
9. Howell 0,5
10. Negi 0

Games start daily at 14.00 CET, except July 25, which is a rest day.

Biel Young Grandmasters Games round 2, analysed by Robert Ris

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After so much (Dutch) football subjectivity over the past weeks (yeah yeah, Spain won deservedly), it’s a delight to read something objective again: Lars Schandorff has written an extremely solid and honest book on the Caro-Kann in the Grandmaster Repertoire series from Quality Chess.

I’ve never really liked the Caro-Kann. As White, I find it an extremely tough opening, and as Black, I find it so much less attractive than the Sicilian or even the French. But of course I’m wrong, as Danish GM Lars Schandorff convincingly shows in his monograph The Caro-Kann, which, although it is officially a repertoire book for Black, is highly recommended for serious White players as well. Here’s an example.

Suppose you’re one of those chess players who kind of hates the solidity of the Caro-Kann: you can bet your life that Black players who employ the Caro-Kann often know their theory better than you do, so you’re looking for something funny to get Black to think for himself right from the start.

Suppose you’re considering playing the line 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Nc5!?

This is a rare sideline that, according to my database, has nevertheless been played by giants like Fischer, Shirov, Morozevich and Carlsen. Surely this is an interesting choice for White? Well, Schandorff is not impressed. Instead of the automatic 5…b6, he recommends:

5…e5!? A radical attempt to benefit from White’s extravagance and solve all Black’s problems in one blow.

6.Nxb7 Retreating with 6.Nb3 makes little sense. After 6…Nd7 Black is already somewhat better.

6…Qb6 7.Nc5 exd4 The most natural choice. The other way of regaining the pawn, 7…Bxc5 8.dxc5 Qxc5, might in fact also be playable. On first sight the position after 9.c3 looks slightly better for White due to his bishop pair. Closer inspection reveals that it is maybe not so simple. Consider something like 9…Nf6 10.Be3 Qe7 unclear, as in Riemens-Hoogendoorn, Netherlands 1994. Black’s bishop is very active and his knight can harass the white bishop from d5.

8.Nb3 Bb4+ Basic chess knowledge: Black exchanges the dark-squared bishop before putting his pawns on dark squares.

9.Bd2 Nf6

Black certainly has no development problems, and the far-advanced d-pawn can be protected by c6-c5, so it can hardly be called a weakness. Not surprisingly, White has had difficulties proving any advantage at all. (…)

I think such a fragment is interesting for both sides: Black players will certainly gain confidence that such a sharp variation is theoretically more than OK. Also, Schandorff explains the essentials of the position (however unusual it may look) from an objective point of view, explaining that even seemingly-obvious judgements may not be so obvious after all. And White players may want to look hard for something concrete in this line, otherwise it’s absolutely useless to study. (Actually, my engine suggests the weird but at least consistently-weird 8.Na4!?, which may be worth a try.)

Schandorff’s treatment of the Classical Variation (3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5) is one of the highlights of the book. It’s clear from every page that he thoroughly understands the position, which he explains in a systematic and rigorous manner. Here’s another example where he combines objectiveness with a distinct opinion:

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6 7.Nf3 Nd7 8.h5 Bh7 9.Bd3 Bxd3 10.Qxd3 e6 11.Bf4 Qa5+ 12.Bd2 Bb4 13.c3 Be7 14.c4 Qc7 15.0-0

Castling to the wrong side. This is quite complicated and of course playable, but come on – it can’t be better than castling long!

15…Ngf6 16.Rfe1 The most natural. We can have a quick look at a couple of alternatives [16.d5 and 16.Qe2] (…).

16…0-0 17.Nf5

An important tactical idea that is frequently seen in the Caro: rook to the e-file followed by a knight to f5.

17…Bd6! I prefer not to compromise my pawn structure and am therefore reluctant to take on f5, although some strong players have tried it. 17…exf5 18.Rxe7 Qd8 19.Re2 Ne4 seemed pretty solid for Black in Browne-L.B.Hansen, Philadelphia 2006, but I suspect White is more comfortable.

There are other ways to respond to the knight move. We do not need an alternative, but it is useful to understand White’s standard tactical ideas: 17…Rfe8 is always a good option, when 18.Rxe6!? fxe6 19.Nxg7 is spectacular, but after 19…Bf8 20.Nxe8 Rxe8 21.Re1 Bg7 the piece looks more valuable than the pawns, Jonkman-Kroeze, Netherlands 2006. (…)

18.Nxd6 The sacrifice 18.Nxh6+ gxh6 19.Bxh6 Rfe8 should of course be checked, but it doesn’t look so scary (…). White should probably settle for the quiet 20.Qd2 with some compensation after 20…Bf8 21.Bxf8 Rxf8 22.Qh6.

18…Qxd6 19.Qb3 19.Ne5? is an instructive mistake. After 19…Nxe5 20.Rxe5 Ng4 -/+ the king is not at all well placed on g1, Omarsson-Kjartansson, Reykjavik 2007.

19…a5!? with counterplay. Often it makes sense to push the a-pawn. (…)

While this is great stuff, I didn’t find Schandorff’s explanations that clear throughout the entire book. For instance, the chapter on positional lines (4.c3, 4.Be3 and 4.Nd2) in the Advance Variation (3.e5 Bf5) left a lot of questions unanswered in my head.

One of the lines that has become popular in recent years is 4.Be3 followed by Nd2-b3 with the idea of blocking the c5 square. However, after 4…e6 5.Nd2 Nd7 Schandorff lists the alternatives to 6.Nb3 but doesn’t explain the basics of the position very clearly.

For example, after 6.Ngf3, why doesn’t Black instantly ‘punish’ White for not playing 6.Nb3 (which is the main line) by playing 6…c5 himself? I suspect this may seem totally obvious to Schandorff or others players of his calibre, so perhaps it doesn’t need an explanation – but interestingly, according to my database, the move 6…c5 is Black’s second most popular move in the position, even though it has never been played by anyone rated over 2200!

I think this indicates there is a sustantial gap in knowledge between how strong and weak players understand this position – or even the Caro-Kann in general. Schandorff, unfortunately, doesn’t help us out in this case.

Actually, I’ve always found this one of the most intriguing aspects of these position lines of the Advanced Variation: White seems to want to prevent c6-c5 by all means (Be3, Nd2-b3), but then when Black gets the opportunity to play it, he doesn’t do it! In fact, Black often doesn’t play c5 at all, as Schandorff nicely shows:

6.Nb3 Ne7 7.Be2 Nc8!?

Once you see this idea you can’t get it out of your head. It will take a trained psychotherapist to delete it. 7…Bg6 with the idea …Nf5 is standard and of course is also fully playable.

8.f4 Be7 9.Nf3 0-0 Black finishes his development with the minimum of fuss and without compromising his position at all. That’s the beauty of this simple idea. By temporarily putting the knight on the back rank everything is made possible and Black demonstrates that his lack of space isn’t necessarily fatal. There is no practical evidence from this position, but I am sure Black is okay. Well, that’s not the whole truth. Black is okay, don’t worry, but there has been one game, albeit only a blitz game by me. Since there is nothing else, we will look at a few moves of my blitz effort.

10.0-0 a6 11.Rc1 b5! 12.c3 Ncb6

Black is already somewhat better because of my active play on the queenside. (…)

No c5, but b5! Useful though such a fragment may be (it certainly is an eye-opener to chronical dogmatists such as myself), Schandorff doesn’t in the end reveal the true mystery behind this type of play. His final conclusion that “if White tries to play a slow manoeuvring game then Black is well prepared”, immediately raises the question why 4.Be3 and 4.Nd2 are so popular of late. While Schandorff does admit that “where the elite leads, the masses follow”, he forgets to tell us why the elite prefers this road.

But perhaps this is an unjust complaint. After all, the series in which The Caro-Kann was published, is called ‘Grandmaster Repertoire’. It really is a very high-level book, for serious club players and beyond. I think it’s fair to say that it doesn’t have much to offer to amateurs and casual readers. But if you want to incorporate the Caro-Kann Defence into your tournament repertoire, or find out why it’s so bloody difficult to prove anything against it, Lars Schandorff is your man.

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Decline the Blumenfeld!

I have seen quite a few Blumenfelds recently and some of them worked quite well (Molner’s win as black vs Shankland, actually winning a brilliancy prize game at the Copper State International, Mesa, 2010) but I must conclude that white does very well DECLINING this particular gambit.  ACCEPTING gives black a central preponderance with some not-so-vague attacking chances (see Alekhine’s famous win over Tarrasch, Bad Pistyan 1922) and DECLINING, in most cases, just gives black an ugly structure and white easy development, to boot!  An easy call!  I am surprised people accept these days because declining is so good.  I will be the first to admit that black SHOULD have insufficient compensation for the pawn if white accepts, but practically speaking I enjoy the structures that come out the recommended declining lines we see in this article.

Let’s see the powerful DECLINING.

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 c5 4. d5 b5?! If chess were this simple….

5. Bg5! The ueber-powerful DECLINING.   Now we follow, for a while, the very convincing treatment of GM Kaidanov vs. GM Ray Robson, US Championship, St. Louis, 2010. Perplexingly, Kaidanov went wrong at the very moment of victory and only drew.  A lucky escape for young Robson.

Decline to Win!

This position is already bad for black. I first suspected this fact when a Blumenfeld theme tournament was run in Holland (alluded to in a GM Hans Ree’s article in New in Chess) and black encountered very heavy weather in the complex of variations following 5. Bg5!.

Declining in order to win the game is not only a clever psychological ploy; it also follows the French proverb, “Reculer pour mieux avancer!” (retreat for a better attack!).  Conversely, declining gives black ZERO attacking chances and white EXCELLENT chances for a major positional pull.  Enough said!

5…Qa5+ This move is tricky, but no more than that.  Black’s choices are limited, though.  I probably don’t need to convince you too much that 5…h6? is outright weak and 5….d6 also leads to a white advantage.  Let me know if you don’t know why.  Do you have any other black moves you would like to try?  It won’t help, white is convincingly better in all lines.  The text move should get black in a lot of trouble.

See the comments section for the turgid try (has the practical effect of limiting white’s advantage, though) 5…b4.

6. Nc3! Very strong, and a move unjustly ignored by most theoretical works.  Other interposition moves are weaker.  Now white has a clear edge in all lines.  Very surprisingly, though, Kaidanov goes wrong ON THE VERY NEXT MOVE ruining his powerful 6th.

6…Ne4? Yuck.  Robson played this lemon violating the well-known precept against moving pieces twice in the opening.  Doubly bad because this horse is really the only minor piece out there so far.  6…b4 is objectively stronger, but I don’t need to try too hard to convince you that black’s position is not good after the obvious 7. Bxf6 gxf6 8. Ne4.  Let me know if you think black is all right there and I will give you a few more lines.

This position is terrible for black!

7. Bd2? No!!!!   Arghhh!   GM Kaidanov plays a shocking lemon in return ruining, for the most part, his fantastic position.

The bust to 6…Ne4? is the easy (and worse, known from theory) 7. cxb5!

Black is much worse in all lines.  I would expect any GM to win handily.  The variations are clear:

7. cxb5!  Nxg5 (very instructive is the bust to even weaker 7… Bb7? which is 8. dxe6 fxe6 9. Bd2 Nxd2 10. Nxd2 d5 11. e4! and it’s totally lost for black as in Borovikov,V (2472)-Sharapov,E (2387)/Sevastopol 2000) 8. Nxg5 Be7 9. Qd2 and white has a big plus.

Or, 7. cxb5! Nxc3 8. bxc3 Qxc3+ 9. Bd2 Qf6 10. e4 and white, again, has a big plus and should win. I will let the reader work out the powerful reply to the lame Benko-like move 7. cxb5 a6?! here.   Warning: in a prior game, white went wrong after 7. cxb5 a6 but as a clue, white has a big, big improvement right away (if you find that prior game, which might put you off course a little bit).

Here is the prior game: 7. cxb5! a6?! 8. Bd2! (only now!) Nxd2 (forced) 9. Nxd2! axb5 (nothing better) and now… what’s the right move?

White to play and get a big edge

In the prior game, the careless 10. e4? was played.  Unfortunately after 10. e4? c4! black has equal chances.  Replace the tenth move lemon with something stronger, readers.  Do you see it?  It results in a big white edge.  This is the final link in the chain proving 5. Bg5! is strong!

The Divergence 5. Bg5! d6!?

White, of course, can play 6. dxe6 and look forward to an edge.  However, also interesting is 6. cxb5!?.

A good answer to 5...d6

There might follow 6…Qa5+ (What else? 6…exd5? 7. Bxf6 is terrible for black; 6…h6 7. Bxf6 Qxf6 8. Nc3 is a solid white edge, and the lame “Benko move” 6…a6? is outright weak due to 7. e4! Be7 8. Nc3 with a big white plus) 7. Bd2 Qxb5 8. Nc3 (with white gaining so much time on black’s queen he must be better) 8…Qb7 (relatively speaking the best placement for black’s queen which is not a good advertisement for his position; of course 8…Qxb2?? fails to 9. Rb1 followed by Nb5 and white wins) 9. e4 exd5 10. exd5 Be7 (note that 10…Nxd5? 11. Qa4+ Nd7 12. Nxd5 Qxd5 13. Bb5+ loses for black. 11. Bb5+ Bd7 12. Bc4 and white is better.

For reader enjoyment, let me take one of these lines further:

5…d6 6. cxb5! a6? 7. e4! Be7 8. Nc3 exd5 9. Bxf6! (hyper-accurate!) 9…Bxf6 10. Qxd5 Ra7 11. e5! (a surprising unusual breakthrough!) 11…dxe5 (11…Be6 12. Qxd6 wins for white) 12. Qxc5 Rc7 (12…Rd7 13. Be2 wins) 13. Qe3 (or 13. Qb4 which is also quite good) 13…O-O 14. Rd1 and black is in very bad shape.

Dark days for the Blumenfeld, indeed!

Reader comments welcome.

Chalons en Champagne, led by Loek van Wely and Anish Giri, Sunday won the French league. The team finished just ahead of Evry Grand Roque, who played with Eljanov, Gashimov, Svidler and Vachier-Lagrave.

The winners | Photo French Chess Federation

The last four playing days (rounds 8-11) of the French League Top 16 were held in the stadium of the French soccer club En Anan in Guingamp, a commune in the Côtes-d’Armor department in Brittany in north-western France. The time control was 90 minutes for 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the games with 30 seconds per move from move one.

The last round saw the clash between the two leading teams, Chalons en Champagne and favourite Evry Grand Roque, which had four players rated above 2700. Peter Svidler did his job and defeated Anish Giri with Black in a sharp Grünfeld. Giri had scored 2/3 in rounds 8-10 against Bauer, Bacrot and Housiaux. The game showed remarkable resemblance with the recent computer game Stockfish-Rybka, which we included for comparison. (All details will be explained in this week’s ChessVibes Openings by guest commentator GM Sipke Ernst!)

Loek van Wely, the other Dutchman in the Chalons en Champagne team (mainly for ‘playing Giri’s chauffeur’, as he joked last week) did well by beating Vugar Gashimov with the black pieces. Marie Sebag then managed to hold Pavel Eljanov to a draw, and Sebastien Cossin did the same against Arnaud Hauchard. This way Chalons ended first on tiebreak and became French Team Champions for the first time.

Selection of games rounds 8-11

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Outside the stadium there were activities for children...

...including simuls

Inside many top GMs played - on the right we see Bacrot-Giri

Different generations in France: Vachier-Lagrave vs Andrei Sokolov

Pavel Eljanov, who scored a mediocre 1.5/3 this weekend

GMs Khazgaleyev (right) and Tkachiev, who seems to be going for more healthy drinks these days

Laurent Fressinet

Etienne Bacrot

Photos © Échiquier Guingampais Chess Club

Anish Giri, part of the winning team...

...with compatriot Loek van Wely, who scored an important victory in the last match, with Black against Vugar Gashimov

Photos © Dominique Primel

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

Yearbook 95 has just arrived! In this issue of The Chess Player’s Guide to Opening News you will find answers to urgent questions like:

- Who still dares to offer Alexander Grischuk the Poisoned Pawn in the Najdorf?
- What does Magnus Carlsen think of the French Defence?
- Has Viswanathan Anand refuted 6…a5 in the Catalan?
- What miracle move saved Anish Giri in the Slow Slav?
- Has Alexei Shirov found equality for Black in the Arkhangelsk Ruy Lopez?
and much more …

Please, have a look at the full contents of Yearbook 95.

Loek van Wely won the Chicago Open tournament in Wheeling, Illinois. In the 9-round Swiss, the Dutch GM was the only player to score 7.5 points. Adams, Najer, Mikhalevski and Stocek ended shared second with 7 points. Interview with Van Wely added.

Loek van Wely in Chicago | Photo: Rose Homa

The 19th annual Chicago Open was held May 27-31 and organized by the Continental Chess Association. This year the organizers added two more rounds to their traditional 7-rounder, making norms possible.

The tournament was traditionally held during the Memorial Weekend. The rate of play in the Open Section was 2 hours for 40 moves plus another hour to finish the game.

For the different sections (besides the Open there was an Under 1000, Under Under 1300, Under 1500, Under 1700, Under 1900 and Under 2100) there was a US $100,000 unconditionally guaranteed prize fund.

The venue was the Westin Chicago North Shore Hotel in Wheeling, Illinois

Like in previous years, the tournament attracted several very strong grandmasters from the US and abroad. Besides US Championship participants Ben Finegold, Varuzhan Akobian, Aleksandr Lenderman, Melikset Khachiyan, Alex Yermolinsky, Samuel Shankland, Alexander Shabalov, Dmitry Gurevich and Jaan Ehlvest (who defended his title in Chicago), the tournament had for instance Michael Adams (England), Evgeny Najer (Russia), Victor Mikhalevski (Israel) and Jiri Stocek (Czech Republic) from abroad. One name we didn’t mention yet is that of Dutch GM Loek van Wely, who won the tournament with 7.5 points.

GM Loek van Wely (a pic from last year in Chicago) | Photo Chris Bird

Van Wely won after beating IM Sam Shankland in the final round, while Akobian, who went into the round tied with Van Wely and Shankland, lost to Adams.

Van Wely-Shankland

From the moment the move c4-c5 was possible tactically on move 15, the bishop on a7 had been out of the game. Now Van Wely decided the endgame with 28.Bxa6! bxa6 29.Nd4 Bd7 30.Bd6 and White was basically a piece up.

Adams-Akobian

Can you see how White won a pawn (and later the game)? Answer below in the game viewer.

Selection of games

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Links

• Tournament website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

Interview

We talked with Loek van Wely through Skype on Tuesday night (Dutch time; afternoon in the US), while he was at Chicago airport, on his way back to The Netherlands. He told us that he played Chicago together with his girlfriend Lorena Zepeda from El Salvador, who didn’t do bad either (5/9). Before Van Wely will play the Dutch Championship (June 10-20 in Eindhoven), he will first compete in the French team championship and travel to France together with Anish Giri (’I'm in the same team so I can be his driver!’), that other Dutchman who won a tournament this week.

When was your last victory at a big open?
“That must have been Foxwoods, in 2006. In the U.S. I won the World Open in Philadelphia in 1994, and the New York Open in 1996. The funny thing was that Mickey Adams played his last tournament in the States in New York in 1996, the one I also won. He said to me he was bringing me luck.”

That last round looked quite easy, but what were the more difficult moments in this tournament?
“Against Mulyar in round 3 was tough. We got this very sharp line from the Slav, from the Anand-Kramnik match, and at some point I deviated from what I intended to play. I won a piece, but then I saw that I had to simplify the position as quickly as possible. And the games against Yermo and Dmitry Gurevich were both very tricky.”

Does this mean you were also lucky, or do you feel you did play the best chess in Chicago?
“Well, in those games against Yermolinsky and Gurevich I was the one who was pushing. Against Yermo, for instance, I declined a draw offer and played an ending a pawn down. You always take some risks, you know. Against Gurevich it was very sharp, and I deliberately went for complications, based on some calculations. This means it can go well, or bad.”

“What’s the main difference between tournaments in the US and Europe, for you?
In Europe, with all these strong Russians, and with just one round a day, openings are much more important than over here. In the States it comes down to stamina, tactics, those kind of things. In Europe preparation plays a much bigger role.”

Does such a tournament, with 9 rounds in 5 days, suit you better?
“Well, I don’t know, I wouldn’t mind to play one game a day here, but for some players over here it’s a bigger problem. My physical condition is not bad, I would like to do a bit more sports, but I can’t complain. But for some players that’s different.”

And what about bringing your own chess set and clock, I cannot imagine that big names like you, or Mickey Adams, walk into the playing hall with a chess set under their arm?
“Well, you think wrong, mate! We do. Some people don’t, and hope that the opponent will bring material, but this means you might get into the situation that your opponent isn’t there yet, and you cannot press his clock.”

Does a victory like this make you want to play more often?
“Well, one victory doesn’t suddenly change the world, you know. And in fact I play more than you might think. After this I play the French team championship, then the Dutch championship, then a tournament in Norway, then Amsterdam, then the Spanish league and then the Olympiad.”

Yes, that’s a pretty tough schedule. What about the Olympiad team? I presume Anish will play, and…?
“Yes, Anish is in team, Jan Smeets is, and I am, for the moment. The other two spots will be clear after the Dutch Championship. But it comes down to the following, I believe: if Dimitri Reinderman doesn’t win, it will be Erwin l’Ami and Daniel Stellwagen by rating.”

On Facebook Anish teased you, that staying ahead of him was an extra motivation for you to win in Chicago. Is it still important to you to be the number one on the Dutch rating list?
“Let’s say it’s always good to keep Anish down as long as possible. ”

Sometimes, I get a little tired of reading about the big names in chess all the time. Another super tournament with seven players out of the top 10; another huge open featuring dozens of well-known GMs fighting hard for serious money prizes; another great exhibition rapid match between two former World Championship candidates. In such cases, reading something from Genius in the Background, is the perfect remedy for me.

Genius in the Background by Tibor Károlyi and Nick Aplin (published by Quality Chess) is a book about, well, geniuses in the background. As Károlyi writes in the preface:

Most of the people featured in this book have recorded significant achievements, yet they remain virtually anonymous to the great majority of chess fans. A few of them are known amongst certain segments of the chess world, but none are known widely as I believe they deserve to be. (…) Your author, who is first of all a junior trainer who desires to pass on knowledge, believes that getting acquainted with these remarkable chess personalities will deepen anyone’s understanding of our game.

In other words, the presentation of these unknown heroes is not only interesting, but also useful. For me, they shed some special light on the development and choices of such great players as Topalov and Kasparov that have in my view so far not been emphasized. In the chapter about Topalov’s former coach, Petko Atanasov, the choice of openings for the young Veselin is discussed. It turns out that Atanasov, rather surprisingly, taught Topalov the Old Indian Defence against 1.d4 and the French against 1.e4. Atanatov adds that at some point Topalov “refused to play it and started to play the Sicilian Defence instead.” Quite telling if you ask me.

Karolyi gives some interesting, excellently annotated examples from Atanasov’s own games, showing how his preference for exchange sacrifices influenced Topalov:

Atanasov-Ilievski
Ruse 1978

27.Rd5!! This is another lovely exchange sacrifice. White needs to play like this in order to invade.

27…Bxd5 In the long term Black cannot avoid taking the rook. For instance: 27…Qb4 28.Kc2 (White is also better after 28.Qc2 Bb8 29.Ne1) 28…Bb8 (28…a4 29.bxa4) 29.Ra1 Black cannot avoid the type of position he gets in the game.

28.Rxd5! Taking back this way really chokes Black.

28…Qc6 29.Ne1! Atanasov improves all his pieces.

29…Bb6 30.Qd1 Ke7 31.Rb5 Forcing Black to decide where to put the bishop. (…)

Despite the obvious achievements of these geniuses in the background, there’s often more than a touch of melancholy in the words of the former trainers. Asked about his current relationship with Topalov, Atanasov embarks on a somewhat bitter personal story:

“In 1991 there were big changes in Bulgaria and in my life too. Sport societies were cleared away and I was thrown out of work. At the same time I built my own appartment and the problems grew every day. Exactly at this critical moment Silvio Danailov made an offer to Vesko [Topalov] to leave for Spain. From this moment it was clear that there was no future for our partnership. (…) Unfortunately, I have not been a coach for a long time. In 1993 the sport society ‘Dunav’ was closed. Since that I have had many jobs of various types in different places. Now I’m unemployed.” (…)

Do they invest money into junior chess or just the big Sofia event?

“No one gives money for junior chess in Bulgaria! Only some people with bigger financial opportunities try to support chess, but this is unprofitable for them and they give up very soon. (…) I personally evaluate the big changes – economical and political – as negative. Thousands of Bulgarians, most of them young people, left the country. There is widespread unemployment, small salaries, corruption and criminality. This is what we have after the changes up to now. (…) I’m already 61 years old. Looking back and considering my life, I see that there are many things to regret. But most tragic is that my future promises to be very hard.”

Such extreme honesty, almost painful to read, makes for fascinating background information on both Topalov’s chess career and his country’s current efforts to promote chess and is a valuable contribution to chess literature. However, not all of the book’s interviews with former trainers, are quite so compelling. In the chapter on Alexander Shakarov, one of Kasparov’s earliest trainers, questions are often answered in such a brief way that they one raise more questions than they answer:

What does chess mean to you?
“Chess for a long time was the most important thing for me. I was a fanatic, then it became my profession.”

Can you recall when you first met Garry?
“The first time was in January 1972 when he played at the schoolboys’ championship where I was an arbiter.”

When did you start training him and how long did you train him?
“Officially in September 1976, unofficially from 1973.”

Obviously not satisfied with these short answers, the interviewer tries again, but Shakarov prefers to stay on the surface:

Could you explain it in a more detailed way?
“In the years 1973-1975 I worked with Garry unofficially, and it was not that regular. There were even some weeks when we did not do anything. There were two groups and Garry officially was in the other one. The trainer of the other section was Oleg Privorotsky who was his first trainer. However, from 1973 onwards Garry was selected for the national teams of Azerbaijan. I was senior trainer of these national teams.”

Did you follow any plan when you trained him?
“The main plan was constructed by Botvinnik.”

Once again, the interviewer feels there must be more to it than this, but he’s in for another disappointment:

Could you please say a few words about what a session was like?
“I no longer remember well what themes we worked on – you know, three decades have passed. In our sessions we usually followed Botvinnik’s and Alexander Nikitin’s plan. And in addition sometimes we analysed very tough and complicated opening positions. I recognized the ‘tracks’ of our work in Garry’s play only in the openings.”

Reading this interview, I’m left with the feeling that Shakarov didn’t exactly have a huge role in this period, and I wonder how important he actually was to Kasparov’s development. How close was he to Kasparov, anyway? According to Károlyi, he and Kasparov analysed and annotated about two dozens of games together, but I can’t help wondering whether this was perhaps Botvinnik or Nikitin delegating the analyses and Kasparov doing most of the work? When asked if he was present during the final game of the 1985 World Championship match against Karpov, Shakarov only says “No, I was not in the tournament hall during that game.” It’s all a little puzzling, if you ask me.

On the other hand, the book convincingly shows that Alexander Shakarov was a truly great chess player himself, and the games section of the chapter dedicated to him is one of the highlights of the book. Here’s an example of what Károlyi calls Shakarov’s influence on Kasparov’s ability to “execute brilliant attacking ideas on the edge of the board”.

Rubin-Shakarov
Corr. 1975

18…Rd2!! It is thematic to get to the opponent’s second rank; however, it is extraordinary to achieve it so early, especially with Black. The text also creates a strong aesthetic impression by placing the rook en prise.

19.e4 The rook is immune because of 19.Qxd2 Ne4!, with terrible mating threats along the g-file. And if 19.Rad1 Rxe2 20.Rxe2 Qxf3 Black forces mate. (…)

19…Rfd8! 20.Kh1 Nh5 21.Rab1 There are many alternatives, but Black prevails in all lines (…).

21…Qg6 22.Rg1

22…Rxe2! Black keeps playing on the second rank. The loss of the queen is a small price to pay for the wonderful attack he obtains.

23.Rxg6 hxg6 24.f4 After 24.Rg1 Rdd2 25.Bc1 Rc2 26.Qe5 Rxf2 27.Be3 Bg2+ 28.Rxg2 Rxg2 29.Bxc5 Rgd2 White’s king is caught. (…) Finally, in the event of 24.Qb3 Rxf2 25.Be5 b6 26.a4 Rdd2 27.a5 Bg2+ 28.Kg1 Rxf3 Black simply has too many pieces surrounding the enemy king.

24…Red2! This clever switchback with the rook was tough to anticipate; it looks more natural to look for a way to double on the second rank. However, upon closer inspection, White’s position is bleeding as the back rank is so weak. The damage is irreparable. It takes a little preparation but Black invariably succeeds in every variation. (…)

In this fragment, Károlyi shows his great annotation skills (the analyses are much more elaborate than they are reproduced here) and his ability to see patterns in games and player’s qualities. Károlyi is always looking for comparisons between teacher and pupil, trying to make connections between past and present and linking skills and sometimes lack thereof.

Genius in the Background isn’t about chess trainers only. It’s a much more ambitious project than that. There’s a chapter on the development of chess culture in Singapore. It features elaborate and loving portraits of endgame study composers Yochanan Afek and Karsten Müller. And indeed much, much more. One of the most fascinating chapters is about the remarkable Laszlo Lindner (1916-2004), a Hungarian chess player and endgame composer who survived the Nazi concentration camp Bor, now part of Serbia. Lindner actually recorded some chess games he played in the camp against the later Hungarian chess champion Tibor Florian.

The games were played on a small chess set Florian managed to bring inside the camp. The player hid behind their barracks and the moves were scribbled in a notebook by Lindner, a picture of which is reproduced in the book. I can’t help quoting one game in full.

Florian-Lindner
Bor 1944

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 b6 6.f3 d5 7.cxd5 exd5 8.Bg5 Nbd7 9.e3 0-0 10.Bd3 h6 11.Bh4 Re8 12.Bf2 c5

13.Ne2 The early moves tell us that the two players were quite well educated in opening theory.

13…c4 14.Bc2 Nf8 15.g4! This is a modern approach. Even today world-class grandmasters use the same idea, although nowadays Black will usually have exchanged the light-squared bishops on a6. The most famous game involving this central structure was the immortal encounter Botvinnik-Capablanca, Avro 1938.

15…Qc7 16.Ng3 Ng6 17.h4 Nh7

18.Qb1?? The presence of such a blunder indicates that our heroes were already in very bad shape.

18…Nhf8? 18…Rxe3+! wins instantly.

19.Nh5 Rb8 20.Kf1! On the other hand this is a subtle move.

20…b5? 21.e421…dxe4 22.Bxe4

22…Bxg4?? This is a bluff, but it does the trick.

23.Nxg7? After the simple 23.fxg4 Qd7 24.Bf3 Black is a piece down with no compensation.

23…Kxg7 24.fxg4 Qf4 0-1 Though White has a reasonable position, he resigned. Probably his physical state no longer allowed him to see things clearly.

Replaying these games, knowing in which circumstances they must have been played, is a weird sensation. Who knows what might have caused Florian to resign in this position? And this is only the beginning of an utterly haunting chapter on a truly extraordinary character in 20th century chess history.

Genius in the Background is a unique book, a one-of-a-kind experience in chess literature. It’s beautifully published and extremely well-researched and annotated. Sure, some chapters are more interesting than others, but the overall concept is so gripping that that’s easily forgiven. If you are interested in more than – or from time to time even a bit bored by – the constant stream of daily chess news, then this is the right book for you. Personally, I think everyone should read it.

Links

• Get yourself a copy of Genius in the Background
• Read more book reviews

Chess Stars has published: The French Defence.

This book presents a complete Black repertoire. There are many extensive analyses of concrete positions and new ideas discovered in the process of preparation for games and tournaments. It will enrich your opening knowledge and sharpen the understanding of its ideas.

Please have a look at this: engaging repertoire book.

Last weekend a number of strong chess players were active behind the chess board in team chess competitions: Bacrot, Bologan, Caruana, Giri, Ivanchuk, Jakovenko, Shirov and Vachier-Lagrave, to name just a few. We bring you a brief update and some high-level games from England, France and Italy.

French league

From last Thursday till Sunday the second weekend of the The French League Top 16 took place. Group A was in Marseille and Group B in Mulhouse. The top 4 in each group qualified for the “Poule Haute” (Top Group). The final final rounds will be played in Bretagne, June 3-6.

From group A Evry Grand Roque, Marseille Echecs, Vandoeuvre and Noyon qualified; from B Chalons en Champagne, Metz Fischer, Clichy and Mulhouse Philidor.

4NCL

This year’s 4 Nations Chess League was won by Wood Green Hilsmark Kingfisher 1 with on top boards Jon Ludvig Hammer and Luke McShane. Second came Pride and Prejudice with Adams and Howell. The competition started in October last year and ended this weekend.

Italian league

The Italian Team Championship also took place from last Thursday till Sunday. The top group consisted of 14 teams and the biggest name was Alexei Shirov, who played for the Pesaro team. GMs Paco Vallejo, Macieja and Marin played for Chieti while Hübner, Gyimesi and Godena were in the Marostica team and Caruana in the Padova team.

Obiettivo Risarcimento from Padova won the Italian Team Championship with a round to go. Second came Scavolini Punto Esclamati (Pesaro) and third Chieti.

Selection of games

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Links

• 4NCL
• French league
• Italian league
• Games in PGN via TWIC

Greetings to everyone around the world. Fortunately, it is sunny outside and most of us in the United States have recovered from SUPER SUNDAY! I know most people here probably would prefer chess to football (including Dave the webmaster, who is a Colts fan!) but I found the game to be extremely exciting. Having grown up in New York, I always was impressed by Sean Payton's ability as the defensive coordinator for the Giants. Overall, I felt that New Orleans won due to the many interesting and simply brilliant decisions including the onside kick to start the second half. Although I was pulling for Peyton Manning and the Colts due to the people I know in Indy, New Orleans was simply the better team last night. Alas, another football season has come and gone, but there's always next year for my Titans! Now back to chess...

Round 6: Ivanchuk-Nakamura

In the sixth round, I kept facing strong players as I was Black against GM Vasily Ivanchuk from Ukraine. Of the modern day players, I think my style most resembles his in that we are the two players who play just about any opening depending on which side of the bed we wake up on! At the same time, he is also one of the few players who can beat anyone which makes him dangerous. Having beaten Vasily in the rapid finals of Cap D'Agde in 2008, I knew that he'd be angling for revenge this time around. Therefore, I decided to play the Slav against his 1.d4 (a minor surprise!).

This was really the first surprise of the game as I have played the fairly obscure 12...0-0-0. In other top encounters, 12...Be6 was preferred. During the game, I was feeling fairly confident as I had reached this position in my analysis prior to the game. At the board, though, I began thinking to myself what if he plays 13.a5? My suspicions were confirmed shortly afterwards when he played it! Fortunately, it was not hard for me to come up with the right plan as there aren't a whole lot of logical moves. As such, I was able to force a repitition after 13...Nc5 14.Qe1 Nb3 15.Ra4 Nc5 16.Ra1 Nb3 leading to a draw. During the tournament, there were many people who asked how could I take a quick draw as it runs contrary to my style. The answer is quite simple in that if either Vasily or I chose to play on, we'd be worse. Sometimes, being practical and taking quick draws makes sense. Obviously, I had the foresight to do that here, but not against Karjakin when it mattered, D'oh! 

Round 7: Nakamura-Shirov

After the draw with Ivanchuk, I was on a very respectable 4/6 while Shirov was blazing on 5.5/6 and in the clear lead by a half point. Although neither Kris nor I came into the tournament with expectations of me winning, we decided that I should definitely go all out for glory in this game. Since I went into the game with this mindset I decided to play 1.e4 as I felt Shirov would create complications no matter which opening I chose. Despite the fact I felt Alexei made a mistake in choosing the sicilian against me, I still must respect his decision to stay true to his style despite the tournament situation. The opening was very much a seesaw battle as I felt after 15 moves I was simply better. To his credit, it was around this time that Alexei used a lot of time and came up with the right idea of exchanging his dark square bishop. Over the course of the next few moves I got careless giving away any advantage I had. The key point occurred in the following position after 19.Bf3.

In this position, I was not quite sure about the evaluation. However, I correctly judged that Alexei would go for a tactical solution in the position. In chess, there are certain positions where intuitively you feel like there has to be a way to win material. As it turns out, Black is probably better after the simple 19...Rd8, but Alexei like myself spent most of his time trying to come up with something tactical which was incorrect. After 19...Nh3 20.Kh1 Nxf2 21.Rxf2 Qxe3 22.Bxb7 I think Alexei overlooked 22...Qxf2 23.Qxd6 with a crushing threat of Bc6 mate. Once this key opportunity was missed, the position became difficult to play for Black. Although any computer program would probably draw (beat us weak humans) it without too much trouble, it was still incredibly unpleasant to play. This coupled with Alexei's impending time pressure proved to be too much as in the time pressure, he cracked and I won! Although it was not fate to win the tournament, I knew that after this win that this event was a success regardless of how I ended.

Round 8: Kramnik-Nakamura

In the eighth round, I got Black against the 14th World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik. Coming off such a high following the previous round, I knew this would be an extremely difficult task. However, as a good friend said once before, you play the games since the underdog can come out ahead.  Thanks to a certain girl, I took the French Canadien phrase, "C'est de la biere" (It's a beer which basically means it's a piece of cake) and simply tried to relax and enjoy the game. There are some days when we all just play badly. This day proved to be one of these as it got off to a bad start when I switched my opening choice at the last minute and decided to play the Dutch. In the game, we went into the Leningrad and Vladimir played the interesting 8.Rb1 line. Pretty much immediately I went off the beaten path as I started pushing pawns like a total patzer. Eventually we reached the first of two key positions after 19.Bxe3.

In this position, I calculated 19...Qe7 and thought it made the most sense only to have a finger fehler and play 19...Nxd4. In reality, the move I played was correct but it screwed with my mind. Normally this is not a problem, but almost immediately after I played Nxd4, I started thinking, "hmm, wait, why did I not go Qe7??" After 20.Qc1 White would had a big advantage, but when you have lingering doubts during a game, it can affect you adversely. After a series of more or less forced moves we reached the second and final chance I had to save the game.

In this position, Vladimir had just played 23.Rxd5. During the game, I only considered playing either 23....Bf5 or 23...Be6. As it turns out, our silicon friend thinks I am probably fine if I trade on g3 and then follow it up with Be6. However, during the game I fully intended to play Bf5 only to then start considering Be6. For some bizarre reason, I calculated 23...Be6 24.Rxd4 Qxd4 25.Nxf4 as a variation. Then, once I played 23...Be6 I immediately spotted the obvious 24.Nxf4. After this secondary blunder, the game was beyond hope and I duly lost.

This certainly was not a positive development as far as the tournament was concerned. On the positive side, it was only after the second blunder that I was losing. Nevertheless, I played badly and got punished. Alas, I only join the likes of people such as Kasparov who have gotten crushed by Kramnik. Being in such good company cannot be something to complain about!

Round 9: Nakamura-Karjakin

In the ninth round, I had White against former child prodigy, Sergey Karjakin formerly of Ukraine and now playing for Russia.Sergey and I are certainly no strangers as we have played several times in the past. Before I discuss the game, I would just like to point out that despite my sometimes controversial style and comments in the past, I have not intentionally insulted someone in public. In many ways, I found Sergey's comments on chesspro to be incredibly disgusting and insulting. One can only hope that people grow up much like I have since my younger days.

In this game, I chose to play 1.d4 as I was coming off a brutal loss and wanted to play a bit safer. Sergey surprised me almost from the start by choosing the Nimzo Indian over his preferred Slav. The opening was a bit unusual in that I had two doubled pawns on the c file. However, the diagonals certainly made up for it.

In this important position, we had repeated with 17.Ba7 Ra8 18.Be3 Rb8. Much like in my game against Ivanchuk, I had a serious decision to make here. Should I take a relatively quick draw and get ready for the following round or try to press on. Here, I thought for some time and decided to play despite the messy position and not having a lot of time. Although this was objectively fine since the position was not any worse for me, from a general standpoint it was simply wrong. The rest of the game, I did not play particularly inspiringly, and I eventually overpressed in time pressure making a horrible blunder. There really was not much positive news from this game as I once again just did not play very accurately. However, with four rounds still left, I felt that it would be possible to put up a solid plus score if i returned to form. The one big drawback at this point was that during this game, I started feeling a bit tired and hallucinating during this and the subsequent games. Alas, when you play two major tournaments back to back eventually all the energy being spent will catch up.

Stay tuned for the third and final installment from north of the border!

Cheers,

Hikaru

2.8.10

Good morning to everyone from gloomy London. I must say that having spent time in Seattle and Vancouver, I have gotten fairly used to overcast days. However, the weather here seems to be a steady forecast of clouds followed by rain and then more rain later on. Luckily, I am here to play chess which does not require nice weather, THANKFULLY! Overall, though, I do like most of the chaps I have met during the tournament thus far. The organization has been first class, and I have had a good time. Now onto what everyone is interested in- the games.

In round 1 I had White against Chinese GM Ni Hua. In a slight surprise, Ni Hua chose to play the a6 slav. This variation seems to be in fashion once again as GM Vladimir Malakhov used it with a lot of success during his deep run into the semifinals of the Fide World Cup (he should be in the final). I chose to play the ultra slow 5.Bd2. The next few moves were pretty standard until we reached the following position.

A) In the two previous times that this line was played against Ni Hua, he chose to play 7...c5 which led to razor sharp play after 8.cxd5 exd5 9.g4! which was played twice between Malakhov and Ni Hua in the Russia-China match earlier this year.

B) 7...Be7 is also playable, but White has a small edge after 8.e4 dxe4 9.Nxe4 Nxe4 10.Qxe4 c5 11.Bc3

C) 7...Bd6 8.e4 dxe4 9.Nxe4 Nxe4 10.Qxe4 c5 11.Bc3 with a similar position as in line B.

D) 7...dxc4 leads to a much different sort of middlegame struggle than the other three variations.

In the game, Ni chose to play 7...dxc4 and I had a small advantage until he went badly astray with with 18...Bf6 which allowed the nasty shot 19.Bd2-a5!

Clearly, Ni had missed this move as he started shaking his head profusely. I hardly blame him, as Black is probably very close to equal if not for this crushing move. After a forced series of moves, I had a significantly better endgame up an exchange. In a slightly dubious decision, I decided to give it back up and play a rook and pawn endgame up a pawn. Had Ni tried 36...Ke6 instead of Ke4, he probably would have had some good drawing chances. However, after 37.Rd7 I was clearly winning. Unfortunately, right before time control I completely hallucinated.

In the following position, I used up 35 of my final 40 minutes on this key position. For some odd reason, I calculated this ending correctly, but with one problem. I thought the pawn was on h5 not h6. One might wonder what difference does that make? I had foreseen 40.e6 Rc7 41.f5 Ke5 (41...b3 42.f6 b2 43.e7 b1=Q 44.e8=Q+ Kf5 45.Qh5 with a winning position.) 42.Rf7 Rc8 43.e7 Re8 (43...b3 loses to 44.Rf8) 44.f6 b3 45.Rf8 b2 46.f7! the whole point of this line. Now, with the pawn on h6 it is winning, but what did I see? I saw 46...Rxc7 47.Re8 b1=Q 48.Rxe7 Kd6 49.f8=Q Qg1+ 50.Kh3. This position is clearly winning as Black has NO CHECKS. However, if the pawn is on h5, neither Kh3/h4 are possible as Qg4 is checkmate. 50.Kf3/f4 also lose to Qf1 as I drop the queen on f8. I am not really sure what to chalk up this hallucination to, but alas it happens.

The rest of the game was not really noteable as Ni held without making any errors and it ended in a draw a few moves later. Overall, I felt it was a very good first round performance except for the ending.

In round two, I had black against British GM Michael Adams. I have only faced Adams twice with both games being way back in 2004 when I had a sensational run making it into the fourth round of the Fide World Cup in Tripoli, Libya. As the games were a very long time ago, I was unsure what to expect. Adams had been a top ten player for what seemed like an eternity. Recently, he seems to have had a few bad results which led to him falling below 2700 which seems a bit ridiculous to me.

I decided to trot out the French for the first time in a few years and Adams chose to play the Tarrasch. Shockingly, I believe this is the first time I have actually faced the Tarrasch in classical chess. I prepared the 3...Be7 variation. For some reason, I completely forgot about the game Adams-Caruana from the last olympiad. Instead of playing Nc7 followed by Nb8-c6, I chose the dubious plan of Nc7 followed by Qc8-a6. This was a rather careless choice on my part as it improves White's queen position and takes my queen completely out of the game. The other huge problem it creates is that there are no concrete plans for Black while White just brings his queen over to the kingside and harrasses me with his knights. In the end, I had to go for the hideous plan of f5 which left me with a permanently backward pawn on e6 for the rest of the game. Fortunately for me, Adams could not find a clear way to put more pressure on the pawn and I was able to create complications.

Here, I once again had a similar hallucination as in round 1.

A) 32...Rd8 was the best move in the position. After this, White has only a symbolic advantage after 33.Kh1 exd5 34.bxc5 Qxc5 35.h3.

B) 32...Rf7 33.bxc5 (33.Rxe6 is also possible, but White gets nothing after 33...Rd8! 34.Qb3 Kh8.) 33...Qxc5 34.Kf1 (34.Qd4 Qxd4 35.cxd5 Rxd5 36.Re5 Rc7! 37.Rxd5 Rc4 which is a drawn ending.) 34...Rxd5 35.Rxd5 exd5 36.Re5 h6 37.Qxd5 Qxd5 38.Rxd5 Rc7 with another drawn rook and pawn endgame.

C) 32...cxb4? Once again the incorrect decision. In fact, I thought that by trading on b4, I could reach a favourable version of line B above, but the problem is that after 33.cxb4 Rf7 White has the very strong 34.Qd4! which I completely overlooked. After 34...Rxd5 35.Rxd5 exd5 36.bxc5 Qxc5 37.Qxc5 bxc5 38.Re8 Rf8 39.Rxf8 Kxf8 40.a5! and I cannot prevent the a pawn from queening. Once I saw this disastrous line, I panicked and immediately went 33...Rd8? (33...Rf5 probably would have led to a draw after 34.Rxf5 Qxf5 35.bxc5 Rxd5 36.Qe2 [36.Qb3 bxc5 37.Qb5 Rd8 38.Qb6 Qd5 and White will eventually have to go into an endgame where I can trade the c pawn for the a pawn.] 36...Rxc5 37.Qxe6 Qxe6 38.Rxe6 Ra5 39.Re4 b5 where we reach a theoretically drawn endgame.) completely forgetting that after 34.Nxf6 gxf6 35.Qc2 fxe5 36.bxc5 that I did not have a pawn on g7 in this endgame! After this horrendous gaffe, I had to suffer in a losing rook and pawn endgame. Luckily, Adams butchered it quite severely and I got a miraculous draw.

Yesterday, I got my second White of the tournament against the olive farmer, aka Nigel Short. Short has had a resurgence over the last few years and is playing extremely well considering that he is 44 (ancient in chess years). The only other player who seems to have maintained such excellent form this late into their career is GM Boris Gelfand from Israel. Unfortunately, unlike most of the other players in this tournament, Nigel is rock solid and rarely takes risks when he is Black. Unlike the first two games, this one was much more balanced and I gained a space advantage out of the opening which was a Rubinstein Nimzo-Indian. Overall, I played pretty accurately although I did have one chance which both Nigel and I overlooked.

In this position, I chose 21.Be4, however, 21.d6! is much stronger. What we both overlooked is that after 21...Bxf3 22.dxe7 Qxe7 23.Re3 Bb7 24.Nd5! with the double threat of Nxe7 and Rxa3. Nevertheless, it is still very difficult to win after 24...Bxd5 25.Rxa3 Bc6 26.f3 b5. The rest of the game gave neither of many chances to create play. As such, a draw was a justified result. Or as Nigel would put it, "chess is a draw and the rules need to be changed."

Overall, I cannot complain with the results other than the scoring system as I would have preferred a win and a loss since it would give me one more point! Right now, three draws is not what I would have wanted, but it is better than losing three games! For now, I am going to spend the rest day exploring Soho and getting ready for the game against Magnus tomorrow. Have a great day everybody!

Cheers,

Hikaru

London, 11.12.09

7th World Chess Champion Vasily Smyslov died on Saturday of heart failure, Russian television reported. Smyslov, who turned 89 on Wednesday, was taken to a Moscow hospital earlier in the week after complaining of heart problems. He died on Saturday morning.

TV report vesti.ru

Vasily Vassilievich Smyslov (Moscow, March 24, 1921) learned the game in 1927, from his father, who himself had received chess lessons from the great Mikhail Chigorin. In 1938, at the age of 17, he won the Junior Championship of the Soviet Union, and three years later, in 1940, he scored a great result by finishing 3rd in the overall Soviet Championship, ahead of Mikhail Botvinnik. Chess was of secondary importance during the war, although Smyslov managed to play actively, winning the Moscow Championship in 1944-1945.

After the war, Smylsov didn’t score so well in a few tournaments, but his third place at the legendary Groningen 1946 tournament (which was won by Botvinnik) was a sign of what was destined to come. There followed some tremedous results, most importantly his 2nd place in the The Hague/Moscow World Championship tournament of 1948 (again finishing behind Botvinnik) and his victory in the Candidates tournament, Zürich 1953, possibly the greatest tournament ever held.

By this time, it was clear Smyslov and Botvinnik were the two strongest players in the world, and they were to play three matches for the World title in the following years. The first match, held in Moscow, 1954, ended in a 12-12 tie, which allowed Botvinnik to keep his title. After winning the Amsterdam Candidates Tournament in 1956, 1,5 point ahead of Paul Keres, he went on to play his second match against Botvinnik, held in 1957 in Moscow, and this time his play was so strong that he beat his rival with a 3 points difference: 12,5-9,5, thus gaining the title of seventh World Champion. However, Botvinnik had the right to a revanch match and regained the title just a year later, in 1958, beating Smyslov (who claimed to be ill during the match) 12,5-10,5.

After this defeat, Smyslov’s star declined somewhat, which no doubt was also due to the arrival on the scene of another great star: Mikhail Tal. In the 60s and 70s, Smyslov still played at the highest level, but he never again succeeded in seriously competing for the world title, until 1983, when to the amazement of the entire world he qualified for the World Championship Candidate final against Garry Kasparov, a match (played in 1984) which he lost only after some very interesting chess.

Garry Kasparov wrote about Smyslov in his My Great Predecessors, part II:

Because of the apparent simplicity of his style, Smyslov is rarely mentioned among the players who have made the greatest contributions to the development of the ancient game. However, his victories at the peak of his career are amazing for the lack of a clear defence for his opponents, and a careful study reveals that no one in the world could withstand Smyslov’s very fine technique. His credo was as follows: ‘I will make 40 good moves and if you are able to do the same, the game will end in a draw.’ But it was precisely this ‘doing the same’ that was the most difficult: Smyslov’s technique was ahead of his time. (…)

I think that it is this innate sense of harmony which has helped Smyslov to break all records for chess longevity. (…) This phenomenon was wittily explained by Spassky: ‘Vasily Vassilievich has an incredible intuition, and I would call it his “hand” – that is, his hand knows on which square to place every piece, and he does not need to calculate anything with his head.’

The great Dutch writer/grandmaster J.H. Donner liked to philosophize about Smyslov’s magic touch:

Smyslov is the great magician who masters all problems, but in the way of an elegant animal. His play has something incomprehsibly superficial, opportunistic. And this is typical for the talent: it is only interested in the surface of things, for all deep problems are human, and talent is in fact ’super’-human. Therefore we must admire players like Smyslov, but it is always admiration mixed with a touch of jealousy. It is admiration for something we do not have, and cannot have.

Smyslov’s played his last tournament in Amsterdam, 2001, in the so-called ‘Klompendans’ tournament. In the 6th round, I watched him play Alisa Galliamova. Smyslov was already almost completely blind at the time. He exchanged queens on move 7 and went to win the endgame in impressive, typical Smyslovian style. Smsylov made an even bigger impression on me in 1994, when I was a board boy at the Donner Memorial tournament, also in Amsterdam. During the first round, I happened to be sitting next to Smyslov’s board for the entire game. Against Svetozar Gligoric, he played a quiet line of the French Winawer and manoeuvred his way to victory in immaculate fashion. I realized that this was indeed chess from another world, and in retrospect I think Donner was absolutely right in his assessment of Smyslov.

Vasily Smyslov loved music and was a gifted baritone singer, auditioning for the famous Bolshoi Opera in 1950. He was a fine endgame composer and various chess opening variations bear his name, among others, in the King’s Indian 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Nf3 followed by Bc1-g5 and, of course, in the Grünfeld Indian, 3…d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Qb3 dxc4 6.Qxc4 0-0 7.e4 Bg4, which he first played in 1945 (against Kotov, a game that he lost) and which was also played by Bobby Fischer in his famous game against Botvinnik at the 1962 Varna Olympiad.

With Smyslov’s death, the chess world has lost one of its greatest living legends.

• Tournament crosstables
  
• MSA ratings report
• Photos by Kirshner
  

Greetings to everyone around the world. Fortunately, it is sunny outside and most of us in the United States have recovered from SUPER SUNDAY! I know most people here probably would prefer chess to football (including Dave the webmaster, who is a Colts fan!) but I found the game to be extremely exciting. Having grown up in New York, I always was impressed by Sean Payton's ability as the defensive coordinator for the Giants. Overall, I felt that New Orleans won due to the many interesting and simply brilliant decisions including the onside kick to start the second half. Although I was pulling for Peyton Manning and the Colts due to the people I know in Indy, New Orleans was simply the better team last night. Alas, another football season has come and gone, but there's always next year for my Titans! Now back to chess...

Round 6: Ivanchuk-Nakamura

In the sixth round, I kept facing strong players as I was Black against GM Vasily Ivanchuk from Ukraine. Of the modern day players, I think my style most resembles his in that we are the two players who play just about any opening depending on which side of the bed we wake up on! At the same time, he is also one of the few players who can beat anyone which makes him dangerous. Having beaten Vasily in the rapid finals of Cap D'Agde in 2008, I knew that he'd be angling for revenge this time around. Therefore, I decided to play the Slav against his 1.d4 (a minor surprise!).

This was really the first surprise of the game as I have played the fairly obscure 12...0-0-0. In other top encounters, 12...Be6 was preferred. During the game, I was feeling fairly confident as I had reached this position in my analysis prior to the game. At the board, though, I began thinking to myself what if he plays 13.a5? My suspicions were confirmed shortly afterwards when he played it! Fortunately, it was not hard for me to come up with the right plan as there aren't a whole lot of logical moves. As such, I was able to force a repitition after 13...Nc5 14.Qe1 Nb3 15.Ra4 Nc5 16.Ra1 Nb3 leading to a draw. During the tournament, there were many people who asked how could I take a quick draw as it runs contrary to my style. The answer is quite simple in that if either Vasily or I chose to play on, we'd be worse. Sometimes, being practical and taking quick draws makes sense. Obviously, I had the foresight to do that here, but not against Karjakin when it mattered, D'oh! 

Round 7: Nakamura-Shirov

After the draw with Ivanchuk, I was on a very respectable 4/6 while Shirov was blazing on 5.5/6 and in the clear lead by a half point. Although neither Kris nor I came into the tournament with expectations of me winning, we decided that I should definitely go all out for glory in this game. Since I went into the game with this mindset I decided to play 1.e4 as I felt Shirov would create complications no matter which opening I chose. Despite the fact I felt Alexei made a mistake in choosing the sicilian against me, I still must respect his decision to stay true to his style despite the tournament situation. The opening was very much a seesaw battle as I felt after 15 moves I was simply better. To his credit, it was around this time that Alexei used a lot of time and came up with the right idea of exchanging his dark square bishop. Over the course of the next few moves I got careless giving away any advantage I had. The key point occurred in the following position after 19.Bf3.

In this position, I was not quite sure about the evaluation. However, I correctly judged that Alexei would go for a tactical solution in the position. In chess, there are certain positions where intuitively you feel like there has to be a way to win material. As it turns out, Black is probably better after the simple 19...Rd8, but Alexei like myself spent most of his time trying to come up with something tactical which was incorrect. After 19...Nh3 20.Kh1 Nxf2 21.Rxf2 Qxe3 22.Bxb7 I think Alexei overlooked 22...Qxf2 23.Qxd6 with a crushing threat of Bc6 mate. Once this key opportunity was missed, the position became difficult to play for Black. Although any computer program would probably draw (beat us weak humans) it without too much trouble, it was still incredibly unpleasant to play. This coupled with Alexei's impending time pressure proved to be too much as in the time pressure, he cracked and I won! Although it was not fate to win the tournament, I knew that after this win that this event was a success regardless of how I ended.

Round 8: Kramnik-Nakamura

In the eighth round, I got Black against the 14th World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik. Coming off such a high following the previous round, I knew this would be an extremely difficult task. However, as a good friend said once before, you play the games since the underdog can come out ahead.  Thanks to a certain girl, I took the French Canadien phrase, "C'est de la biere" (It's a beer which basically means it's a piece of cake) and simply tried to relax and enjoy the game. There are some days when we all just play badly. This day proved to be one of these as it got off to a bad start when I switched my opening choice at the last minute and decided to play the Dutch. In the game, we went into the Leningrad and Vladimir played the interesting 8.Rb1 line. Pretty much immediately I went off the beaten path as I started pushing pawns like a total patzer. Eventually we reached the first of two key positions after 19.Bxe3.

In this position, I calculated 19...Qe7 and thought it made the most sense only to have a finger fehler and play 19...Nxd4. In reality, the move I played was correct but it screwed with my mind. Normally this is not a problem, but almost immediately after I played Nxd4, I started thinking, "hmm, wait, why did I not go Qe7??" After 20.Qc1 White would had a big advantage, but when you have lingering doubts during a game, it can affect you adversely. After a series of more or less forced moves we reached the second and final chance I had to save the game.

In this position, Vladimir had just played 23.Rxd5. During the game, I only considered playing either 23....Bf5 or 23...Be6. As it turns out, our silicon friend thinks I am probably fine if I trade on g3 and then follow it up with Be6. However, during the game I fully intended to play Bf5 only to then start considering Be6. For some bizarre reason, I calculated 23...Be6 24.Rxd4 Qxd4 25.Nxf4 as a variation. Then, once I played 23...Be6 I immediately spotted the obvious 24.Nxf4. After this secondary blunder, the game was beyond hope and I duly lost.

This certainly was not a positive development as far as the tournament was concerned. On the positive side, it was only after the second blunder that I was losing. Nevertheless, I played badly and got punished. Alas, I only join the likes of people such as Kasparov who have gotten crushed by Kramnik. Being in such good company cannot be something to complain about!

Round 9: Nakamura-Karjakin

In the ninth round, I had White against former child prodigy, Sergey Karjakin formerly of Ukraine and now playing for Russia.Sergey and I are certainly no strangers as we have played several times in the past. Before I discuss the game, I would just like to point out that despite my sometimes controversial style and comments in the past, I have not intentionally insulted someone in public. In many ways, I found Sergey's comments on chesspro to be incredibly disgusting and insulting. One can only hope that people grow up much like I have since my younger days.

In this game, I chose to play 1.d4 as I was coming off a brutal loss and wanted to play a bit safer. Sergey surprised me almost from the start by choosing the Nimzo Indian over his preferred Slav. The opening was a bit unusual in that I had two doubled pawns on the c file. However, the diagonals certainly made up for it.

In this important position, we had repeated with 17.Ba7 Ra8 18.Be3 Rb8. Much like in my game against Ivanchuk, I had a serious decision to make here. Should I take a relatively quick draw and get ready for the following round or try to press on. Here, I thought for some time and decided to play despite the messy position and not having a lot of time. Although this was objectively fine since the position was not any worse for me, from a general standpoint it was simply wrong. The rest of the game, I did not play particularly inspiringly, and I eventually overpressed in time pressure making a horrible blunder. There really was not much positive news from this game as I once again just did not play very accurately. However, with four rounds still left, I felt that it would be possible to put up a solid plus score if i returned to form. The one big drawback at this point was that during this game, I started feeling a bit tired and hallucinating during this and the subsequent games. Alas, when you play two major tournaments back to back eventually all the energy being spent will catch up.

Stay tuned for the third and final installment from north of the border!

Cheers,

Hikaru

2.8.10

Good morning to everyone from gloomy London. I must say that having spent time in Seattle and Vancouver, I have gotten fairly used to overcast days. However, the weather here seems to be a steady forecast of clouds followed by rain and then more rain later on. Luckily, I am here to play chess which does not require nice weather, THANKFULLY! Overall, though, I do like most of the chaps I have met during the tournament thus far. The organization has been first class, and I have had a good time. Now onto what everyone is interested in- the games.

In round 1 I had White against Chinese GM Ni Hua. In a slight surprise, Ni Hua chose to play the a6 slav. This variation seems to be in fashion once again as GM Vladimir Malakhov used it with a lot of success during his deep run into the semifinals of the Fide World Cup (he should be in the final). I chose to play the ultra slow 5.Bd2. The next few moves were pretty standard until we reached the following position.

A) In the two previous times that this line was played against Ni Hua, he chose to play 7...c5 which led to razor sharp play after 8.cxd5 exd5 9.g4! which was played twice between Malakhov and Ni Hua in the Russia-China match earlier this year.

B) 7...Be7 is also playable, but White has a small edge after 8.e4 dxe4 9.Nxe4 Nxe4 10.Qxe4 c5 11.Bc3

C) 7...Bd6 8.e4 dxe4 9.Nxe4 Nxe4 10.Qxe4 c5 11.Bc3 with a similar position as in line B.

D) 7...dxc4 leads to a much different sort of middlegame struggle than the other three variations.

In the game, Ni chose to play 7...dxc4 and I had a small advantage until he went badly astray with with 18...Bf6 which allowed the nasty shot 19.Bd2-a5!

Clearly, Ni had missed this move as he started shaking his head profusely. I hardly blame him, as Black is probably very close to equal if not for this crushing move. After a forced series of moves, I had a significantly better endgame up an exchange. In a slightly dubious decision, I decided to give it back up and play a rook and pawn endgame up a pawn. Had Ni tried 36...Ke6 instead of Ke4, he probably would have had some good drawing chances. However, after 37.Rd7 I was clearly winning. Unfortunately, right before time control I completely hallucinated.

In the following position, I used up 35 of my final 40 minutes on this key position. For some odd reason, I calculated this ending correctly, but with one problem. I thought the pawn was on h5 not h6. One might wonder what difference does that make? I had foreseen 40.e6 Rc7 41.f5 Ke5 (41...b3 42.f6 b2 43.e7 b1=Q 44.e8=Q+ Kf5 45.Qh5 with a winning position.) 42.Rf7 Rc8 43.e7 Re8 (43...b3 loses to 44.Rf8) 44.f6 b3 45.Rf8 b2 46.f7! the whole point of this line. Now, with the pawn on h6 it is winning, but what did I see? I saw 46...Rxc7 47.Re8 b1=Q 48.Rxe7 Kd6 49.f8=Q Qg1+ 50.Kh3. This position is clearly winning as Black has NO CHECKS. However, if the pawn is on h5, neither Kh3/h4 are possible as Qg4 is checkmate. 50.Kf3/f4 also lose to Qf1 as I drop the queen on f8. I am not really sure what to chalk up this hallucination to, but alas it happens.

The rest of the game was not really noteable as Ni held without making any errors and it ended in a draw a few moves later. Overall, I felt it was a very good first round performance except for the ending.

In round two, I had black against British GM Michael Adams. I have only faced Adams twice with both games being way back in 2004 when I had a sensational run making it into the fourth round of the Fide World Cup in Tripoli, Libya. As the games were a very long time ago, I was unsure what to expect. Adams had been a top ten player for what seemed like an eternity. Recently, he seems to have had a few bad results which led to him falling below 2700 which seems a bit ridiculous to me.

I decided to trot out the French for the first time in a few years and Adams chose to play the Tarrasch. Shockingly, I believe this is the first time I have actually faced the Tarrasch in classical chess. I prepared the 3...Be7 variation. For some reason, I completely forgot about the game Adams-Caruana from the last olympiad. Instead of playing Nc7 followed by Nb8-c6, I chose the dubious plan of Nc7 followed by Qc8-a6. This was a rather careless choice on my part as it improves White's queen position and takes my queen completely out of the game. The other huge problem it creates is that there are no concrete plans for Black while White just brings his queen over to the kingside and harrasses me with his knights. In the end, I had to go for the hideous plan of f5 which left me with a permanently backward pawn on e6 for the rest of the game. Fortunately for me, Adams could not find a clear way to put more pressure on the pawn and I was able to create complications.

Here, I once again had a similar hallucination as in round 1.

A) 32...Rd8 was the best move in the position. After this, White has only a symbolic advantage after 33.Kh1 exd5 34.bxc5 Qxc5 35.h3.

B) 32...Rf7 33.bxc5 (33.Rxe6 is also possible, but White gets nothing after 33...Rd8! 34.Qb3 Kh8.) 33...Qxc5 34.Kf1 (34.Qd4 Qxd4 35.cxd5 Rxd5 36.Re5 Rc7! 37.Rxd5 Rc4 which is a drawn ending.) 34...Rxd5 35.Rxd5 exd5 36.Re5 h6 37.Qxd5 Qxd5 38.Rxd5 Rc7 with another drawn rook and pawn endgame.

C) 32...cxb4? Once again the incorrect decision. In fact, I thought that by trading on b4, I could reach a favourable version of line B above, but the problem is that after 33.cxb4 Rf7 White has the very strong 34.Qd4! which I completely overlooked. After 34...Rxd5 35.Rxd5 exd5 36.bxc5 Qxc5 37.Qxc5 bxc5 38.Re8 Rf8 39.Rxf8 Kxf8 40.a5! and I cannot prevent the a pawn from queening. Once I saw this disastrous line, I panicked and immediately went 33...Rd8? (33...Rf5 probably would have led to a draw after 34.Rxf5 Qxf5 35.bxc5 Rxd5 36.Qe2 [36.Qb3 bxc5 37.Qb5 Rd8 38.Qb6 Qd5 and White will eventually have to go into an endgame where I can trade the c pawn for the a pawn.] 36...Rxc5 37.Qxe6 Qxe6 38.Rxe6 Ra5 39.Re4 b5 where we reach a theoretically drawn endgame.) completely forgetting that after 34.Nxf6 gxf6 35.Qc2 fxe5 36.bxc5 that I did not have a pawn on g7 in this endgame! After this horrendous gaffe, I had to suffer in a losing rook and pawn endgame. Luckily, Adams butchered it quite severely and I got a miraculous draw.

Yesterday, I got my second White of the tournament against the olive farmer, aka Nigel Short. Short has had a resurgence over the last few years and is playing extremely well considering that he is 44 (ancient in chess years). The only other player who seems to have maintained such excellent form this late into their career is GM Boris Gelfand from Israel. Unfortunately, unlike most of the other players in this tournament, Nigel is rock solid and rarely takes risks when he is Black. Unlike the first two games, this one was much more balanced and I gained a space advantage out of the opening which was a Rubinstein Nimzo-Indian. Overall, I played pretty accurately although I did have one chance which both Nigel and I overlooked.

In this position, I chose 21.Be4, however, 21.d6! is much stronger. What we both overlooked is that after 21...Bxf3 22.dxe7 Qxe7 23.Re3 Bb7 24.Nd5! with the double threat of Nxe7 and Rxa3. Nevertheless, it is still very difficult to win after 24...Bxd5 25.Rxa3 Bc6 26.f3 b5. The rest of the game gave neither of many chances to create play. As such, a draw was a justified result. Or as Nigel would put it, "chess is a draw and the rules need to be changed."

Overall, I cannot complain with the results other than the scoring system as I would have preferred a win and a loss since it would give me one more point! Right now, three draws is not what I would have wanted, but it is better than losing three games! For now, I am going to spend the rest day exploring Soho and getting ready for the game against Magnus tomorrow. Have a great day everybody!

Cheers,

Hikaru

London, 11.12.09

It is not a particularly imaginative line. ... Although the Exchange Variation appeals to players who are trying to draw against stronger players, allowing equality on the third move as White may not be the way to go about that. Be aware that it's a strategy that has failed miserably throughout the years.
John Watson, Play the French, 3rd ed., 70

What do a game of chess and a nude decending a staircase have in common? To answer such questions, you must be prepared to leave your conventional ways of thinking at home and then fall down Marcel Duchamp’s rabbit-hole of chess and art.

A few weeks ago I visited an exhibition in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, Spain. The exhibition featured some very explicit classic Japanese erotic paintings (there was actually a warning sign at the entrance of the exhibition, prohibiting visitors below 18 years of age) which served as a source of inspiration for Picasso and his contemporaries. Though I had seen some of these paintings before, I was amazed how deeply such works from a competely different culture had influenced some of Picasso’s works. For me it was yet another proof that what makes a true artist is his ability to be inspired by literally everything around him.

A contemporary of Picasso’s, Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) is without a doubt the most famous chess-playing painter of all time. In fact, apart from being obsessed by it, he was a rather strong chess player, who played in the French Championship (in 1924) and scored real results against some of the world’s chess playing sub-top of the 1920s and 1930s. It was Duchamp who famously said that, “while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.” A new book by Francis Naumann, Bradley Bailey and Jennifer Shahade focuses on Duchamp’s artistic life as a chess player and his chess life as an artist. Marcel Duchamp – The Art of Chess, published last year by Readymade Press, is an inspiring little book, beautifully illustrated and beautifully printed, which made me realize Duchamp is not only my hero but also an example and a teacher with an important lesson.

The Chess Game (1910)

The three authors focus on different aspects of Duchamp’s chess-art life. Francis Naumann, an art scholar and curator in New York, describes the development of Duchamps artistic works as if it were a game of chess, starting with the learning of the rules (1902-1912) and the opening (1912-1918) and so on, until the endgame which ended in Duchamp’s death in 1968. My first impression of this method was that it was hardly original, life being described as a game of chess having been tried from medieval storytellers to Garry Kasparov. But when I read on, I found out that this method actually fits Duchamp’s life quite well, and there are several others who have noted the parallels.

In 1951, [art collector Walter Arensberg] wrote to Duchamp: “It’s curious how I get an impression when I look at our paintings of yours from the point of view of their chronological sequence of the successive moves in a game of chess.” Duchamp responded: “Your comparison between the chronological order of the paintings and a game of chess is absolutely right… but when will I administer checkmate or will I be mated?”

Here we already see the way Duchamp looks at things: from a broken angle, taking the common analogy somehow literally to the domain of chess and giving it quite an original twist at the end. Naumann himself drily notes that serious chess games (such as Duchamps played regularly), “rarely progresses to such a dramatic terminal point; the losing player usually resigns first.” It shows Naumann’s no-nonsense approach to his subject and he goes on to describe in great detail the various aspects of chess as a major influence on Duchamp’s work.

Portrait of Chess Players (1911)

From the well-known post-impressionist The Chess Game (1910) and the Cubist Portait of Chess Players (1911), Naumann takes us to the infamous Nude Descending a Staircase No.2 (1912) and he prepares our mind for this work with the following quote from Duchamp:

In chess there are some extremely beautiful things in the domain of movement, but not in the visual domain. It’s the imaginging of the movement or the gesture that makes the beauty, in this case. It’s completely in one’s gray matter.

Again, we see how relevant chess is as a metaphor to describe Duchamp’s artistic works: what chess player wouldn’t recognize what Duchamp is hinting at here? In chess, it’s not about the beauty of the wooden pieces but about the potential movement of the pieces. And so it is in Nude Descending a Staircase, which is not a painting of a nude descending a staircase, but rather, as Duchamps put it:

Painted as it was in severe wood colors, the anatomical nude does not exist, or at least cannot be seen, since I discarded completely the naturalistic appearance of a nude, keeping only the abstract lines of some twenty different static positions in the successive action of descending.

Nude descending a Staircase No. 2 (1912)

Naumann coins the possibility that, since The Nude is restricted to wood colorings, “tracing its origin to a chess piece is not entirely implausible, particularly when we consider the fact that the queen is the most mobile piece on the board, a feature reinforced by her rendition in multiple form.” Again, to his credit, Naumann is not forcing his ideas upon the reader in order to fit the analogy of chess and art too rigorously, but merely suggesting possibilities and ways of thinking to enhance aesthetic pleasure. Reading Naumann’s essay, I increasingly felt drawn into Duchamp’s world where one thing can so easily be linked to another that you really feel like you’ve entered Wonderland or went Through the Looking-Glass, where a slightly puzzled but intrigued Alice remarks:

Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas-only I don’t exactly know what they are!

An even more ambitious approach is taken by art professor Bradley Bailey, who makes the case for the idea that in Duchamp’s huge The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even – also known as The Large Glass – (1915-23), “chess is a critical and largely unrecognized thematic element.”

The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915-1923

Bailey, it seems to me, makes more bold assumptions than Naumann. In his description, for instance, of the famous photograph (taken in 1963) of Duchamp and nude model Eve Babitz playing chess, he writes:

Duchamp and Eve Babitz playing chess (taken by Julian Wasser, 1963)

The chess table – complete with a double-faced chess clock for authenticity – was set up in front of [a replica of] the Large Glass, such that the board seems almost a continuation of the Large Glass beyond the frame at its bottom. (…) The brilliance of this photograph lies in the fact that it incorporates three of the major themes of Duchamp’s art and life in a single image: art, eroticism, and strategy. Achille Bonita Oliva reads the image as an erotic stalemate, which echoes the theme of sexual frustration in the Large Glass.

Such statements can, of course, be read with rigorous skepticism, but that would be missing the point of art in the first place. Art – and modern art in particular – is associative by definition, and Bailey’s essay is one long associative excercise, obviously backed by solid research, references and a vast amount of art experience. I did find his writing slightly more academic than Naumann’s, and I suspect readers unfamiliar with the way art conaisseurs tend to talk about their passion will probably be put off a little by all this erudition and huge display of knowledge, ranging from medieval manuscript to World War architecture. All the same, Bailey makes a convincing case that The Large Glass does indeed contain more than a haunting hint of chess and it more or less proves the work is so rich that such a lenghty essay can be written about this work alone.

A final, not unimportant question is how good a chess player Duchamp was, anyway? Edward Lasker (not to be confused with Emanual Lasker) called him a “master among amateurs” and said that “it there were official rankings of United States chess players in the 1920s and 1930s, Duchamp have certainly ranked among the top twenty-five.” WGM Jennifer Shahade, who analysed Duchamp’s games and picked 15 for the book (chosen for “their quality and their importance to Duchamp himself”), takes a more nuanced position on the question:

In analyzing dozens of his games, I saw flashes of tactical brilliance as well as deep understanding of strategic concepts, such as open files and pawn structure. Duchamp also had weaknesses. He sometimes played too passively against strong players and he occasionally lacked precision, especially towards the end of the game. Yet it was clear to me in annotating the fifteen games to follow that this artist, who excelled in so many styles, also mastered the ultimate in conceptual art: chess.

Shahade’s analyses are accurate and easy to follow, with a focus on weaker players. This is perfectly reasonable as it is the only way of presenting Duchamp’s chess games to a broad audience. The game layout and diagrams are somewhat tougher to follow, since they are based on Duchamps own Design for Chessmen (Buenos Aires 1918). It’s an interesting concept, but still one that doesn’t exactly help following the game from the book only. Especially the king is a strange piece in Duchamp’s design: it looks more like a pigeon with a crown to me – but then again this probably shows I’m still in Wonderland where Duchamp wants me to be anyway.

Here’s an example of Shahade’s game comments, combining general statements and concrete analysis:

F. Michel [sic; in my database, his name is listed as 'Edmond Michel' - AWM] - Duchamp
Strasbourg 1924

13…c5

The American Bobby Fischer famously said, “You gotta give squares to get squares,” but in this case Duchamp gives more than he receives. The d5-square is now available to White’s knight, which gives White a recurring, simplified motif. The d5-square is a quasi-outpost. Although the pawn on e7 can slide to e6 to force the knight away, the advance would weaken Black’s dark squares and his d6-pawn.

Shahade refrains from mentioning the stronger alternative 13…a5! as indicated by D. Primel in the ChesBase MegaBase and prefers to talk about general ideas. As said, this can easily defended, but the chess player in me sometimes wished for just a little more depth. What I found impressive in both Shahade’s and Naumann’s part of the book, though, is their restraint in hinein-interpreting: they do not indulge in far-fetched and hard-to-prove pseudo-theories of how Duchamp was magically inspired by chess and art respectively; instead, they take the rational approach and describe his efforts in a cool yet sympathizing way. The effect? The focus is on Duchamp’s creations themselves and not on their interpretation – or their interpretors.

The beauty of many Duchamp paintings, and indeed in his chess games, for Duchamp the chess player was in some respects quite ahead of his time, the beauty of all this is in the eye the beholder: Duchamp is providing the rough material and the spectactor is invited to let his head “be filled with ideas”. I find this to be an important general lesson: art and indeed all creative effort is not about making things accurate or even reasonable – that’s the realm of science. It’s about generating ideas, now matter how wild or far-fetched, and enabling new associations to be made in one’s gray matter. This is also how chess can become art: when it transcends the completely rational.

Reading about Duchamp inspires me to try and do the same, to achieve something more than just chess prose or good journalism. The stuff in The Art of Chess provides an excellent playground for this, both to Duchamp fans and to chess players who had never heard of him. If you’re interested in having your chess mind turned upside down in an artistic way (or your artistic mind in a chessy way!), this is the book for you.

Links

• Get yourself a copy of Marcel Duchamp – The Art of Chess
• Read more book reviews

Contrary to what we reported earlier, the Masters section of the Gibtelecom Festival runs 10 rounds, not 9. With two rounds to go, GM Jan ‘Gusty’ Gustafsson from Germany is in sole lead with 6.5/8. John Saunders reports.

Photo © John Saunders

The 2010 Gibtelecom International Chess Festival takes place January 26-February 4 at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar. The rate of play in this 10-round Swiss is 40 moves in 100 minutes plus 20 moves in 50 minutes plus 15 minutes for all remaining moves with 30 seconds per move added from the start. Draws by mutual agreement in under 30 moves are not allowed, but genuine draws by repetition or stalemate are acceptable.

Round 8 report by John Saunders

The presence of a chess legend has added an extra frisson to life at the Gibtelecom Chess Festival. One day I was waiting for the lift when I noticed a white-haired gentleman in his seventies move swiftly past me and put me to shame by using the stairs. Another day I was about to step into what I thought was an unoccupied lift only to notice at the last minute that it was occupied by the same man, who blinked at me in surprise as my rotundity briefly threatened to collide with his rather more svelte figure.

Yesterday I had my closest encounter yet with said gentleman, whom I’m sure you will already have guessed is the tenth World Chess Champion, Boris Spassky. I noticed him sitting in the bar with Stewart Reuben and Ruben Felgaer. At the time I was having difficulty finding somewhere to sit down and enjoy my chicken baguette and I was quite pleased to see them get up and depart, giving me an ideal place to sit down and have lunch.

About 20 minutes later a slightly perplexed Spassky returned to the same place. To my surprise, he bore down on me and asked “have you seen my glasses? I was sitting here before”. I was galvanised into action. Lifting the cushion on the chair, I caught sight of the great man’s spectacles on the floor under the chair. I fished them out and handed them to him. A trivial enough thing to do, of course, but Boris’s reaction was as if I had just given him a fully-worked, cast-iron refutation of the Benoni. Lifting his arms to the skies for added effect, he exclaimed: “This is a miracle! How did you do it?”

Trifling though the favour was, it was extremely pleasurable to have been of service to one of the greatest players who has ever lived. My life is now complete and my epitaph will surely read “here lies the man who once helped Boris Spassky find his specs”.

Now to business: 30-year-old German grandmaster Jan ‘Gusty’ Gustafsson moved into the sole lead in round eight of the Gibtelecom Masters, blowing away Natalia Zhukova with some ease though he has thirteen players still breathing down his neck as the tournament reaches its penultimate round. (I’ve been racking my brains for some more meteorological metaphors but I think I’ll call it a day at three. I don’t want a reputation as a windbag.)

Natalia Zhukova had so far been the surprise package of this year’s festival but her streak came to an end when she faced the Hamburg-born grandmaster. Despite having the white pieces, she soon found herself in a passive position and Gustafsson found a powerful tactical coup to end the game on move 33.

Other games between the eleven overnight leaders started brightly but gradually subsided into draws. Kamsky-Adams was a heavyweight encounter and promised a good struggle but after a number of exchanges the game reduced to a level endgame.

Five players in the next score group took the opportunity to move close to the leading score. Top seed Etienne Bacrot moved back into contention by defeating Alex Lenderman of the USA in a long, fluctuating struggle. Georgian International Master Lela Javakhishvili became one of two women players to reach the group in second equal place when she won impressively against Spanish grandmaster Josep Manuel Lopez Martinez.

The game of the day was almost certainly the one between Argentinian grandmaster Damian Lemos and French International Master Clovis Vernay. The Frenchman, playing Black, attempted to extract himself from difficulties with a remarkable tactical combination involving an eye-catching queen sacrifice. Many a player would have succumbed to such a dangerous attack but the Argentinian found an equally astonishing defence to neutralise the Black counterattack and convert the material advantage into victory. Great credit must go to both players for providing this feast of chess.

Leaders after Round 8: 1st Jan Gustafsson (Germany) 6½ points out of 8; 2nd= Etienne Bacrot (France), Sergei Movsesian (Slovakia), Paco Vallejo Pons (Spain), Michael Adams (England), Gata Kamsky (USA), Laurent Fressinet (France), Chand Sandipan (India), Humpy Koneru (India), Stelios Halkias (Greece), Damian Lemos (Argentina), Alexander Naumann (Germany), Lela Javakhishvili (Georgia), Drasko Boskovic (Serbia) 6 points.

Selection of games, let’s start with Lemos-Vernay

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Photos © John Saunders, more here

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

World champion Viswanathan Anand ended his long chain of draws with a lucky victory over Spaniard Alexei Shirov in the tenth round of the ‘A’ group of the Corus chess tournament.

Having drawn the first nine games, Anand yet again tried hard to be back on his winning ways but missed a simple tactic which might have seen him on the receiving end.

However, Shirov missed the opportunity at the fag end of the first time control and instead landed in a lost position which the Indian ace converted without much ado.

Ahead of the third and final rest day, this welcome break for Anand saw him jump to joint fourth spot with just three rounds remaining in this category-19 event.

Russian Vladimir Kramnik emerged as the new sole leader on seven points after Shirov’s disastrous loss. The Russian played drew with Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine on a day that also saw Magnus Carlsen uncork the French defense and winning a fine game against defending champion Sergey Karjakin.

Carlsen and Shirov are joint second with 6.5 points each while Anand shares the next position along with Hikaru Nakamura of United States, Leinier Dominguez of Cuba, Vassily ivanchuk of Ukraine and Karjakin who all have 5.5 points each.

In the ‘B’ group, P Harikrishna suffered a shocking loss against Dmitri Reinderman of Holland, while Parimarjan Negi played out a draw with Ni Hua of China.

Harikrishna was outdone in an English opening by Reinderman who stuck form. Harikrishna lost a couple of Queen side pawns in the middle game and his counter play bid did not really materialise as Reinderman won in 58 moves.

Parimarjan Negi yet again held a higher ranked opponent to an easy draw. Playing the black side of a Queen’s gambit declined, Parimarjan had no difficulties in equalizing out of the opening and timely exchanges forced the game in a level ending. The peace was signed in 51 moves.

Anish Giri of Holland remained at the top of the tables in this section after taking a draw with top seed German Arkadij Naiditsch. The 15-year old now has seven points and Erwin l’Ami of Holland and Ni Hua are still on his toes a half point behind. Parimarjan is joint fifth on 5.5 points while Hari slipped to joint seventh spot on 5 points.

Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta suffered his second reversal in as many days in the ‘C’ group as the Indian could not find an adequate method to combat Norwegian Lie Kjetil and sacrificed a pawn early in the opening. Kjetil played the ensuing middle game quite well to romp home in 53 moves.

World junior girls’ champion Soumya Swaminathan scored her first victory in the event at the expense of Swede Nils Grandelius. The Pune-based got an attacking position early in the opening and she was a treat to watch in tactical complications. Grandelius resigned in 36 moves.

Chinese Li Chao increased his lead to a whopping 1.5 points after beating Robin Swinkles and took his tally to 7.5 points in all and a group of four follow him with six points each. Abhijeet with 5.5 points is joint fifth here while Soumya stands 13th in the 14-players competition.

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

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

Corus Chess Daily News

Corus Chess Newsflashes

Games round 10

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Round 10

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C

Corus 2010 | Round 10 Standings Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Round 10 Standings Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Round 10 Standings Grandmaster Group C

Links

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

In Joueuse a housemaid sees two people playing chess, and then falls in love with the royal game. Starring Sandrine Bonnaire and Kevin Kline, Queen to Play (English title) opened in German cinemas yesterday, where it’s called Die Schachspielerin. Has anyone seen it already?

The French/German film Joueuse was directed and written by Caroline Bottaro, together with Caroline Maly and Jeanne Le Guillou. It’s based on Bertina Henrichs’ 2005 novel The Chess Player. It’s distributed by StudioCanal in France and Concorde Filmverleih in Germany, and from the German Chessbase site we learn that it opened in cinemas yesterday.

The Palm Springs Film Festival described the movie as follows:

Sandrine Bonnaire and Kevin Kline (in his first French-speaking role) shine in this sophisticated feel-good comedy set in idyllic Corsica. Middle-aged chambermaid Hélène’s newfound obsession with the game of chess leads her to seek the tutelage of a reclusive American expat, transforming both of their ho-hum lives in the process.

French trailer: Joueuse

English trailer: Queen to Play

Has anyone of our readers seen the movie already? Do share your opinion in the comments!

Links

• Official website
• Joueuse at IMDB

• Donaldson's review is now available on Silman Chess. I suspect it has already been published somewhere (possibly in print) a couple of months ago, as Gambit's infopage has already quoted it for some time.
• In Dansk Skak Union's 'Skakbladet' (available as a pdf-file for download) there is a review (in Danish) by Peter Heine Nielsen.

• Against the Grunfeld, he recommends a delayed e4 advance that is parallel to a Black line that typically emerges from the Benoni -- compare Garnett - Littlewood, British Championship 2009 to Schlosser - Alburt, Arco di Trento 1981.
  
  
• Against the annoying Nb4 idea of the classical main line, he recommends exchanging in the center and playing a3! -- compare Bruzon - Anand, Ciudad de Leon 2006 to Commons - Reshevsky, US Championship 1975.
  
  
• As a way of reviving the traditional Colle, he recommends playing it like a reversed Semi-Slav -- compare Persson - Karlsson, Sweden 2006 to Jankovic - Kaplan, Dresden 2007.
  

Games 3 and 4 both ended in a draw and so Viktor Korchnoi still has a small lead in his match against Boris Spassky. The match in Elista will consist of eight games in total, and after four games the score is 2.5-1.5 for the oldest of the two legends.

Photo © Official site

The match between 10th World Champion Boris Spassky and former World Championship contender Viktor Korchnoi is the final event in the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the union between Kalmykia and Russia. The two play a total of eight games in Elista from December 17th until 27th, for a prize fund of US$ 20,000. The time control seems to be 90 minutes + 30 seconds per move.

The third game was a Nimzo/Queen’s Indian hybrid where the players left theory at an early stage. Spassky’s positional a5-a4 move was an attempt to refute White’s Qb3, but he might have regretted it later when Korchnoi had regrouped his king’s knight to c3. After Korchnoi missed an opportunity to reach a favourable rook ending, Spassky easily drew the resulting rook ending.

Yesterday in game 4 Korchnoi again employed the French Defence, just like in game 2 and in their famous match in Belgrade in 1977. Then he only went for the Winawer with 3…Bb4, but 32 years later his preferred move is 3…Nf6. At the press conference Korchnoi explained that he’s working on a book on the French Defence (great news, in our opinion – how can it be anything else than an instant classic, like Uhlmann’s Ein Leben Lang Französisch?) and therefore at the moment plays it without exception.

Spassky didn’t follow the current main line (4.e5) but chose 4.Bg5, and then seemed caught by surprise by Korchnoi’s plan which delayed the thematical …c5 pawn break. He played the new move 10.a4, which allowed the Black queen to b4. About ten moves later it was clear that White was not better, and so Spassky decided to repeat moves. Today is a rest day in Elista.

Games 3 & 4

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Links

• Our first report on the match
• Official website
• Games in PGN

All games in the 4th round of the London Chess Classic ended in a draw. after three rounds. With three rounds to go, Magnus Carlsen leads with 8 points out of 4, followed by Vladimir Kramnik with one point less. Round 4 report with many photos this time.

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

Round 4 by John Saunders

In many ways the star of today’s round were the chess fans themselves. They came in their droves. Tournament director Malcolm Pein warned us to brace ourselves for a bumper crowd on the Saturday and he wasn’t wrong. The first three days of the congress were very well attended but the chess audience today was awesome. The auditorium was packed with fans, as was the commentary room, and it was just as well that the organisers had thoughtfully planned further commentary in the foyer of the Olympia Conference Centre as it was definitely needed.

The commentary room was full at some point...

...and so GM Jonathan Rowson was asked...

...to do commentary in the foyer

Even more people were busy playing the game. Blitz and rapidplays events were being played in the foyer and a weekend tournament got underway besides the festival events that started on Tuesday. As an old-timer who has attended chess tournaments in England’s capital for more than forty years, I’ve not seen anything quite like this since the Fischer boom of the mid-1970s. In addition, we were visited by some more continental chess organisers and journalists and they were heard to comment in very favourable terms about the variety of chess entertainments available at Olympia.

The huge tournament hall with all the side events...

...where many kids can be found playing...

...but also for example a Women's Invitational

WFM Olivia Smith vs WFM Sabrina Chevannes

WIM Arlette van Weersel, who defeated...

...IM Susan Lalic in round 6

Arianne Caoili is playing here as well, and leads after 6 rounds

Magnus' friend Jon-Ludvig Hammer is top seed in the open and leads with 5.5/6

Mark Hebden has half a point less...

...just like GM Simon Williams...

...but GM Stuart Conquest has only 3.5 after he lost to a 2100 player in the first round

To the chess… Michael Adams has a pretty good record against Vladimir Kramnik. They have met nearly 40 times over the board (including blitz and less serious encounters) and Adams is +1 overall. One of their most important meetings was in the 1999 FIDE World Knock-Out Championship in Las Vegas when Adams eliminated Kramnik in the quarter-final via a rapidplay play-off. The following year Adams beat Kramnik at the Russian’s favourite tournament, Dortmund, thereby ending Kramnik’s 82-game unbeaten run which had lasted well over a year. Adams beat him again in 2004 and 2005 and in fact has not lost a significant game to him for more than nine years. So Vladimir Kramnik would have been keen to take his revenge. But Adams was in very good form today. Playing Black, he gave up the two bishops and then a pawn to neutralise the ex-world champion’s pressure and steered the game towards a sterile opposite-coloured bishops endgame. Admittedly, a draw was probably not what the big crowd wanted to see but it was subtly played and a valuable lesson in how to keep a formidable player at bay.

Appearances can be deceptive in chess. All the pieces other than pawns disappeared from the board in McShane-Howell in double quick time and I suppose some spectators might have thought this was a cunning ruse to get the game over with and agree a draw. But I think this is most unlikely. Most experienced chessplayers know that a king and pawn endgame, even with symmetrical pawn structures, can be a very dangerous animal. One slip, or a faint positional weakness, and it can be curtains. You don’t swap off your last minor or major piece without doing a lot of checking and double-checking in case there is some little nuance which you may have overlooked. It was something of a gamble on David Howell’s part as he had the disadvantage of a pair of doubled pawns – just the sort of problem that can be fatal in a king and pawn endgame – but it paid off. McShane probed and prodded in expert fashion but Howell’s defence stood firm.

Once again a lot of attention focused on Magnus Carlsen’s game. The last time he met Hikaru Nakamura was in a four-game rapidplay match in Oslo only two weeks ago, when the American won 3-1 so that must have been in the back of his mind. Carlsen played White and managed to isolate Hikaru Nakamura’s e6 pawn but it transpired his position was not as good as it appeared. Carlsen even found himself obliged to surrender a pawn. The game came down a queen ending and Carlsen secured a perpetual check.

(Peter Doggers:) Nigel Short played an interesting pawn sacrifice in the French Rubinstein, which might have looked like preparation, but it wasn’t. “I’ve played a number of interesting novelties lately. Mostly that’s because I haven’t got a clue what I am doing in the opening.” According to the former World Championship contender the move 12…a6 was critical: 13.Bd3 dxc3 14.Nxc3 Bg7 15.0-0 f5 and now after 16.Bxf5 exf5 he had seen the idea 17.Rad1 Qa5 18.b4! and White wins the queen, but after 16…Bxc3! 17.Qxc3 exf5 18.Rad1 Qg8 there’s no mate.

The way Ni Hua played it, White could have reached an ending with a healthy pawn up by 20.cxd4 Bd6 21.Ne2, but Short’s natural urge to exchange pieces was unsound in this game. As he said himself, he over-estimated the value of the d-file and with excellent moves such as 22…h5! Black got strong counterplay. The way the Chinese GM liquidated to a drawn pawn ending was pretty nice as well.

Short, Ni Hua and Rowson in the commentary room after the game

Today you can follow IM Jan-Willem de Jong’s live commentary of the 5th round in London and the 4th game betwen Gelfand and Ponomariov. We’re covering the World Cup and the London Chess Classic for free; starting from 2010 our live commentary will be subscription-based. You’ll find more info here.

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Games round 4

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After Karjakin, Mamedyarov and Svidler, today five more players qualified for the World Cup’s quarter-finals: Gashimov, Gelfand, Jakovenko, Malakhov and Ponomariov. Pairings for tomorrow’s 6th round: Karjakin-Mamedyarov, Gelfand-Jakovenko, Ponomariov-Gashimov and Svidler-Malakhov.

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

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

Tiebreaks round 4

The biggest surprise perhaps on this last day of round 4 was the elimination of Alexander Grischuk by his compatriot Dmitry Jakovenko. The reason is that this elimination took place in a (dramatic!) blitz phase, where Grischuk, as an ex-World Blitz Champion, should be considered the favourite. (Last month he finished shared 5th at the World Blitz together with Svidler and Ponomariov, who are still in the race in Khanty-Mansiysk.)

After their two very quick draws in the classical games, the four rapid games all were fairly equal as well. But then the fireworks began In the first blitz game, Grischuk was clearly less concentrated than Jakovenko, probably missing both the Nd7-b6-d5 manoeuvre and the Qd3+Rb1 idea. Although he missed a mate in three on move 42, Jakovenko had no trouble winning the ending two pawns up.

Dmitry Jakovenko is through

However, in the second game Grischuk came close to levelling the score. 55.Re3? was a big mistake that allowed 55…Bd3!, locking up the rook.

58…Kf2 is curtains here, but instead Grischuk collapsed and created a self-mate a problem composer would be proud of. An unfortunate anti-climax of this match between two very strong Russian players.

Not in best blitz shape today: Alexander Grischuk

Of the other tiebreak matches, only Gelfand-Vachier-Lagrave reached the blitz games too, and these were no less dramatic. It’s hard to say why the young French grandmaster refrained from the obvious 55.c6 in the first one, which would have given excellent winning chances. Instead, Gelfand grabbed his chance to activate his king and save the game. In the second blitz game Vachier-Lagrave simply got crushed.

The third rapid game between Vachier-Lagrave and Gelfand

Caruana started strongly against his Gashimov; his bishop sacrifice was entirely correct.

However, here he missed the strong follow-up 21.Qf5+! Rf6 22.Qd3! after which 22….Re6 is forced. White can win the piece back with a drawn position or continue attacking with 23.Rd1 Be7 24.Qxh7. In the game the Black king just walked away; 25…Qe8! was nice though 25…Qg8 is the same. In game 2 Caruana was outplayed while in game 3 Gashimov drew a pawn ending, showing his knowledge of the theory of corresponding squares.

Vugar Gashimov sends Fabiano Caruana home

To our surprise, Wesley So lost all three rapid games against Malakhov, and so the three youngest players left the World Cup today. The first was simply a very strong game by Malakhov, but in the second So got a promising position out of the opening. Perhaps 13.e6 was a bit too much however, and far in the endgame the Philippine avoided move repetition to even lose a drawn position. Winning with Black against Malakhov’s ultra-solid 1.d4 game was too much to ask.

The story is over for Wesley So; Vladimir Malakhov is through

After some missed chances yesterday, Ponomariov did knock out Bacrot today. The match was decided in the 4th rapid game, which started fine for the French GM. Black is at least equal after 30…axb4, and 39…h5? was unnecessary. 43.Ke3! would have won quicker but when Bacrot missed 45…Ra5 it was over anyway.

Ruslan Ponomariov eliminates Etienne Bacrot

The pairings for tomorrow’s 6th round are Karjakin-Mamedyarov, Gelfand-Jakovenko, Ponomariov-Gashimov and Svidler-Malakhov. These quarter-finals, as well as the semis, will still be played over two classical games only. The final will consist of four.

All photos by Galina Popova | courtesy of FIDE

Tiebreak games round 4

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On the first day of the World Cup’s third round, especially Gelfand and Vachier-Lagrave won very nice and instructive games with White against Polgar and Yu Yangyi respectively. Wesley So slayed another giant: Gata Kamsky. David Navara defeated Sergei Karjakin while Vugar Gashimov was incredibly lucky to escape with a draw against Li Chao.

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

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

Round 3, day 1

After sending Vassily Ivanchuk home, Wesley So impressed again today: he defeated World Cup 2007 winner Gata Kamsky with the Black pieces. The 16-year-old Philippine grandmaster is doing very well so far in Khanty-Mansiysk, but he’s still very realistic about his play: “Honestly I was lucky when playing against Ivanchuk. I admire this chess player and I know that he plays far better than me. In the first game he was in time trouble and maybe that is why I was lucky. The second game was a draw, but Vassily had a real chance to win at some point during the game.”

Like against Ivanchuk, So defeated Kamsky using the French Defence. However, this time So wasn’t lucky; he simply played a very good game. He already surprised Kamsky in the opening (15…Qb5 was new) and when the American didn’t go for 22.Nxa4, 23.Ra1 and 24.Rxa7, So got the upper hand. 24…f6! was very strong and 31…d4! killing.

David Navara was the only other player resonsible for a small upset in today’s round. He beat Sergei Karjakin from a Ruy Lopez ending that didn’t look that terrible for Black, but in reality White’s advantage was considerable. The way Navara continued to play actively in the endgame reminded a bit of some of Kasparov’s games. However, it was a big mistake by Karjakin that decided the game: 36…f4, where 36…cxd4 wasn’t that terrible for Black. Navara could have forced instant resignation with 39.Nf7+ but the way he did it was also winning.

Polgar really needs to check her Queen’s Indian, because the way Gelfand reached a nice advantage out of the opening wasn’t exactly hocus pocus. 16.Qd1! was a deeply calculated exchange sacrifice that Polgar probably shouldn’t even have taken (18.Ne5 instead of 18.Ng5 is also strong). 23.Rd1! was nice and 26.Rb1!! brilliant – White has time to threaten b4-b5! The technical phase was a pleasure to watch as well.

But also Vachier-Lagrave played a true model game today in our opinion, against Yu Yangyi. Not 11.c3 but 11.c4 is the move in the 9.Nxd5 Svesh these days, and White soon had a technical position with a backward d-pawn in the Black camp as the only weakness, which meant a second target had to be created on the kingside. White’s miniplan on moves 27-29 eventually weakened the g6 square which became useful later in the game. The position after move 47 is a textbook example of the difference between active and passive pieces, and a small combination was hanging in the air.

Sakaev seems to have been caught by Vitiugov’s preparation; after sacrificing a small exchange he soon dropped a normal exchange. Jakovenko had a very easy day too against Areshchenko – Black didn’t resign too early; it’s absolutely hopeless already (e.g. 29…Rg7 30.a4!). Mamedyarov nicely outplayed Wang Hao and in the last decisive game, Ponomariov defeated Motylev. The Ukrainian seemed to be avoiding theory a little (not a bad idea against super-theoretician Motylev, a former second of Ponomariov) and got a slightly better ending, but giving the pawn on b5 that easily was a surprising choice by Motylev.

Bacrot was in a good mood today and went all or nothing against the solid Wang Yue (and his solid Petroff). The Frenchman took a lot of risks (what about 25…f6?) and sacrificed a bishop on g7, which Rybka doesn’t believe because of 28…Nd6. In the end Bacrot didn’t get all and not nothing either, because his attack was enough for a perpetual.

Gashimov had an angel on his shoulder today. At several points the world’s number 6 player was cleaely lost. First, the Azeri GM went for a known to be dangerous pawn grab against the nowadays rare 6.f4 Najdorf. But Li Chao missed 25.Qd8.

Then a slip of the finger allowed 45.Bxf5!, but Li Chao missed 47.Qxh5. And then later on in the game Li Chao missed 72.h7, and perhaps even still 73.Rc2 might be winning. The Chinese must be having trouble sleeping tonight…

All photos by Galina Popova | courtesy of FIDE

Tiebreak games round 3

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Players in bold have reached the third round; players in italics have been eliminated.

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MANILA -- Filipino chess prodigy Wesley So scored another shocking upset, this time against “chess heavyweight” and defending champion Gata Kamsky of the US, in the ongoing 2009 World Chess Cup at the Khanty-Mansiysk Festival of Arts in Russia.

The 16-year-old Pinoy grandmaster defeated Kamsky, a super GM with an ELO rating of 2695, in Game 1 of the Round 3 match up using the French defense.

So (ELO 2640) only needs to pull off a draw against Kamsky in Game 2 to advance to the next round of the biennial event.

Kamsky, a Soviet-born American chess player, reportedly offered So to split the point after 19 moves but the Filipino politely declined.

Kamsky is the defending champion, having won the 2007 World Chess Cup by defeating Spain’s Alexei Shirov in the 7th and final round. He is currently rated World’s No. 41 based on FIDE’s rankings.

So, rated No. 7 Junior player in the world, earlier toppled chess giant Vassily Ivanchuk after outplaying the Ukrainian GM, 1.5-05, in Round 3.

Ivanchuk, a super GM with an ELO rating of 2739, was upset with the loss to So that he has already considered retiring from the sport.

Manny Pacquiao of chess
National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) president Prospero “Butch” Pichay, Jr. lauded So’s performance in the World Chess Cup.

“Anuman ang mangyari kay Wesley sa third round kontra kay Kamsky ay malaking karangalan na ang hatid niya sa bayan,” said Pichay.

Former Olympian national master (NM) Glenn Bordonada remarked: “As a friend commented, this is a historic day for Philippine chess. It recalls to mind Torre's win over Mikhail Tal in Leningrad.”

International arbiter and national master Erwin Carag also praised So.

“Wesley So beating Vassily Ivanchuk is just like Manny Pacquiao beating Oscar de la Hoya, a legend.”

“Now, Wesley against Gata, will be like Pacquiao vs Hatton or Pacquiao vs Cotto? My feeling is Wesley can topple Kamsky,” commented Carag.

The winner of the 2009 World Chess Cup will qualify for the Candidates stage of the World Chess Championship in 2011.

So is one of the biggest names in the Philippine chess scene. He achieved his GM status at the age of 14, becoming the 7th youngest person in the world to receive such title. With a report from Chessgames.com

Chess news from Susan Polgar

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave from France won the U20 World Youth Championship after a dramatic last round, in which he caught Sergei Zhigalko in the standings. The two finished on 10.5/13, but Vachier-Lagrave won the title due to a higher sum of the ratings of the opponents. WGM Swaminathan Soumya from India took gold in the girls section.

The World Youth Championship 2009 took place October 21 – November 4 in Puerto Madryn, Argentina. Originally it was supposed to be held in Mar del Plata but just a few weeks ago FIDE communicated the switch to Puerto Madryn, a city in the province of Chubut in the Argentine Patagonia.

It was a big Swiss of 13 rounds and 84 participants in the boys section and 45 in the girls section. The rate of play was 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

The tournament ended dramatically for Sergei Zhigalko (2646, Belarus), who had been leading the standings throughout the event. In the last round he drew with Ivan Popov (2582, Russia) and in doing so he allowed top seed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2718) to finish on the same number of points – the Frenchman beat Dmitry Andreikin (2659, Russia) in round 13.

As it turned out, the first tiebreak rule, the sum of the ratings of the opponents, was in favour of Vachier-Lagrave. Michal Olszewski (2544, Poland) won bronze on tiebreak after finishing shared 3rd with Popov and IM Alex Lenderman (2542, USA).

The girls section was won by WGM Swaminathan Soumya (2297, India) while the silver medal went to WIM Deysi Cori Tello (2361, Peru). Cemre Betul Yildiz (2224, Turkey) who recently played in the 2nd FIDE Women Grand Prix in Nanjing, took the bronze medal. All three ended on 9.5/13.

Selection of games rounds 6-13

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Pune based Woman Grandmaster Soumya Swaminathan (9.5) has done the country and herself proud winning the World Junior Champion title in the Girls section in the 48th world junior chess championship at Puerto Mandryn, Argentina. With a well crafted final round win over Kubra Ozturk of Turkey, Soumya tied for the top spot with WIMs Yildiz Betul Cemre of Turkey and Cori Tello Deysi of Peru. In the end, 9.5 points just got the Indian girl through for the world junior champion title, albeit on tie-breaks.

Soumya becomes the third Indian to win the girls title, after Harika Dronavalli, who won the event last year and Koneru Humpy in the year 2001. Orissa duo Padmini Rout and Kiran Monisha Mohanty tied for the 6-10 spots securing 8.0 points. Top seed Mary Ann Gomes wound up her performance with 7.0 points tying for the 16-20 places.

Top seed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France emerged the World Junior Champion with 10.5 points after thirteen rounds. Vachier-Lagrave caught with overnight tournament leader Grandmaster Sergei Zhigalko of Belarus defeating second seeded Russian Dmitry Andreikin. GM Zhigalko, who led the later half of the event, drew with Ivan Popov, and was trifle unlucky to finish runner-up on tie-breaks. With the World Junior title coming on the heels of Vachier-Lagrave’s spectacular triumph at Biel Grandmasters tourney, the stage is well set for the Frenchman to scale greater heights.

The contingent of Indian boys had a relatively subdued show, with Lalith Babu finishing on top of the heap with 7.5 points, tying for the 18-25 places. Also on 7.5 points were IMs Pandian Karthikeyan and Ashwin Jayaram. IMs Adhiban Baskaran, Shyam Sundar along with FM Vishnu Prasanna logged in 6.5 points finishing for the 36-48 places.

Official Site :

http://www.ajedrez.com.ar/

Results :

http://chess-results.info/tnr26636.aspx?art=2&rd=13&lan=1&fed=RUS&flag=30&m=-1&wi=1000

Soumya, Swaminathan (2297) – Ozturk, Kubra (2176)

1.e4 e5 2.Cf3 Cc6 3.Ab5 a6 4.Aa4 Cf6 5.O-O b5 6.Ab3 Ab7 7.d3 Ae7 8.a4 O-O 9.Te1 d6 10.Cbd2 Ca5 11.Aa2 c5 12.Cf1 h6 13.Ce3 Te8 14.Ad2 Cc6 15.c3 Af8 16.axb5 axb5 17.Db3 Dd7 18.Dxb5 Aa6 19.Axf7+ Dxf7 20.Txa6 Txa6 21.Dxa6 Dc7 22.b4 Rh7 23.b5 Cb8 24.Da4 Cbd7 25.Ta1 Tb8 26.c4 Cb6 27.Aa5 Ta8 28.Dd1 Ta7 29.Ta4 Ae7 30.Cf5 Af8 31.Axb6 Dxb6 32.Da1 Tf7 33.Ta8 Ch5 34.Da6 Dc7 35.b6 Dd7 36.Ta7  Black Resigns.

Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime (2718) – Andreikin, Dmitry (2659)

1.e4 c5 2.Cf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Cxd4 a6 5.Ad3 Ce7 6.O-O Cbc6 7.c3 e5 8.Cf3 d6 9.Ae3 h6 10.c4 g5 11.Cc3 Ag7 12.Cd5 O-O 13.Ab6 Dd7 14.Tc1 Cg6 15.c5 dxc5 16.Axc5 Td8 17.Ab6 Tf8 18.Ac4 Cf4 19.Ce3 Te8 20.Dxd7 Axd7 21.Tfd1 Ae6 22.Rf1 Tac8 23.Axe6 Cxe6 24.Cf5 Af8 25.g3 g4 26.Cd2 Cb4 27.Txc8 Txc8 28.Ce3 h5 29.Cdc4 Ac5 30.Cf5 Cd4 31.Cxe5 Cxf5 32.Tc1 Cd6 33.Txc5 Te8 34.Cd7 Cxe4 35.Txh5 Cd3 36.Ad4 f6 37.Cxf6+ Cxf6 38.Axf6 Te1+ 39.Rg2 Rf7 40.Ac3 Te2 41.Td5 Txf2+ 42.Rg1 Tf3 43.Tg5 Cf2 44.Rg2 Ce4 45.Txg4 Tf2+ 46.Rg1 Te2 47.Ad4 Cd2 48.Tf4+ Re6 49.Tf2 Te1+ 50.Rg2 Cc4 51.h4 Te4 52.Ac3 b5 53.h5 b4 54.Axb4 Ce5 55.Ac3 Cd3 56.h6 Te2 57.Txe2+ Black Resigns.

Final Ranking after 13 Rounds

Rk.			Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	Rp
1		GM	VACHIER-LAGRAVE Maxime	FRA	2718	10,5	30764	74,5	2799
2		GM	ZHIGALKO Sergei	BLR	2646	10,5	30663	75,5	2787
3		GM	OLSZEWSKI Michal	POL	2544	9,0	30456	64,5	2661
4		GM	POPOV Ivan	RUS	2582	9,0	30351	64,0	2653
5		IM	LENDERMAN Alex	USA	2542	9,0	29713	61,0	2598
6		GM	ANDREIKIN Dmitry	RUS	2659	8,5	30700	63,5	2653
7		GM	YU Yangyi	CHN	2509	8,5	30445	62,5	2618
8		GM	GRIGORYAN Avetik	ARM	2515	8,5	30221	62,5	2604
9		IM	MARGVELASHVILI Giorgi	GEO	2509	8,5	30209	63,0	2594
10		GM	ITURRIZAGA Eduardo	VEN	2605	8,0	30804	66,0	2635
11		GM	RODSHTEIN Maxim	ISR	2623	8,0	30567	63,5	2618
12		GM	LI Chao B	CHN	2617	8,0	30442	62,5	2607
13		GM	HOWELL David W L	ENG	2624	8,0	30122	60,0	2582
14		GM	BINDRICH Falko	GER	2516	8,0	29898	60,0	2558
15		IM	VOCATURO Daniele	ITA	2510	8,0	29399	57,0	2517
16		GM	CHIRILA Ioan-Cristian	ROU	2504	8,0	28876	54,0	2401
17		IM	CAN Emre	TUR	2455	8,0	27740	49,0	2375
18		IM	ROBSON Ray	USA	2527	7,5	30163	59,0	2552
19		GM	JUMABAYEV Rinat	KAZ	2548	7,5	29842	57,5	2530
20		IM	LALITH Babu M R	IND	2477	7,5	29791	55,0	2508
21		IM	IBARRA CHAMI Luis Fernando	MEX	2393	7,5	29614	53,0	2478
22		IM	KARTHIKEYAN P	IND	2449	7,5	28528	51,0	2405
23		IM	POTAPOV Pavel	RUS	2429	7,5	27965	50,5	2362
24		IM	ASHWIN Jayaram	IND	2451	7,5	27848	49,5	2354
25			GALLEGO ALCARAZ Andres Felipe	COL	2404	7,5	27581	48,0	2328
26		GM	DIAMANT Andre	BRA	2526	7,0	29870	57,0	2500
27		GM	LEON HOYOS Manuel	MEX	2516	7,0	29546	55,0	2456
28		FM	SCHIENDORFER Emanuel	SUI	2311	7,0	29379	48,5	2443
29			GUNDAVAA Bayarsaikhan	MGL	2477	7,0	29196	53,0	2434
30		FM	CORI Jorge	PER	2445	7,0	29153	54,5	2426
31		IM	BRUNELLO Sabino	ITA	2533	7,0	28696	51,0	2395
32		GM	SWIERCZ Dariusz	POL	2492	7,0	28614	50,5	2394
33		FM	Max Weiss plays with Mikhail Chigorin Pre-historic Caro-Kann Looking back over a 100 years, I decided to dig into the history of who in their right minds would play the Caro-Kann. As the story goes, back in 1886 Horatio Caro printed an analysis that he and Marcus Kann did on the move order 1.e4 c6 and it’s merits. This came at a time when the swashbuckling era of the romantic age of chess was being tempered by the dawn of the classical era known more for it’s positional style. Stei