Noticed that Gelfand drew with Black against Giri, which has been a difficult opponent to him lately. And Caruana lost to Vachier-Legrave with White. Obviously there is a long way to go, but at the moment it looks to me as if Gelfand is leading the Grand Prix!
I continue to believe that age is less important than motivation and that the fact that people lose motivation as they age is what people usually speak about. Chess does not look younger to me than 50 years ago. And will probably look quite old by 2019!
Mamedyarov’s endgame technique is by the way under criticism after today’s game. What a shocker!
It is with great pleasure that we can announce that Quality Chess author and National Coach of the Danish elite GM Lars Schandorff is coming to Edinburgh to give a 15 hour lecture on aggressive positional chess, with a starting point in the games of Bobby Fischer.
The lectures will take place in Edinburgh Chess Club on 1 Alva Street in the heart of Edinburgh. Attendance costs £80 for the full session and £50 for those aged 24 or less. Also those travelling from outside Scotland will get this discount.
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On my way to winning the Largs congress this past weekend, I twice faced the Chigorin Defence against the Queen’s Gambit. I haven’t faced this too often, but I could remember the basics of Avrukh’s repertoire in Grandmaster Repertoire 1.
1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nc3 dxc4
In the first round my opponent played rather passively with: 3…Nf6 4.Nf3 e6?! (4…dxc4 transposes to Greet – Wynarczyk) 5.Bg5 Be7 6.e3 White has a comfortable version of a QGD, as the knight on c6 is misplaced. 6…h6 7.Bf4!? (7.Bh4) 7…Bd6 8.c5N This logical move is a novelty, although it soon transposes to another game. (8.Bxd6 Qxd6 9.c5 Qe7 10.Bb5 Bd7 didn’t seem too bad for Black.) 8…Bxf4 9.exf4 The doubled pawns are not weak, and the f4-pawn helps to clamp down on the centre. 9…Ne4 10.Qc2 f5? A positional blunder. (10…Nxc3 11.Qxc3 leaves White with a pleasant space advantage and the better bishop, but Black is solid.) 11.Bb5 Bd7 12.Bxc6 Bxc6 13.Ne5
White is already strategically winning. 13…0–0 14.f3 Nxc3 (14…Qh4+? 15.g3 Nxg3 16.Qf2+–; 14…Nf6 15.b4 White dominates the entire board.) 15.Qxc3 Be8 16.0–0 g5 17.Qd2 Kh7 18.Kf2 Rg8 19.g3 gxf4 20.Qxf4 Qg5 21.Qxg5 hxg5 22.h4 g4 23.fxg4 fxg4 24.Ke3 Bg6 25.Nxg4 Kg7 26.Ne5 Raf8 27.g4 b6 28.c6 a5 29.Nd7 Rxf1 30.Rxf1 Be8 31.Ne5 b5 32.h5 Kh7 33.Rf6 1–0 Greet – Parks, Largs 2014.
4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Bg5
Avrukh’s recommendation. White makes a useful developing move before taking action in the centre.
After the game my opponent said he knew what to do against 5.d5 and 5.e4, but that he had not encountered the bishop move.
5…Bg4?!
Black immediately goes wrong, but it is easily done, as this is a standard move in the Chigorin.
5…h6 6.Bh4 (Schandorff recommends 6.Bxf6) 6…a6 is the main line, with the point that after 7.e4 Bg4 8.d5 the black knight can go to e5. I couldn’t remember much more of Avrukh’s coverage, other than the fact that White continues with Be2 and takes back on f3 with the g-pawn. I reckon this is about as much theory as you need to know, unless you are facing a real specialist.
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The Tromso Olympiad ended earlier today. I will start with a photo from earlier this week of the television in the house the Scottish men stayed in.
What’s the point? That is a snapshot of the five hours of live coverage the main Norwegian TV channel had of the Olympiad each day. Magnus Carlsen is watching his teammate Agdestein. Norway has gone chess mad, or maybe it’s Carlsenmania. If the BBC in the UK had five hours of live chess every day for over a week, there would be rioting in the streets.
For me, the chess in Tromso went surprisingly well,
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Round 10 was another disappointment. Davor held a draw against a good player on board one, while Mads and I had winning chances on boards 3 and 4. At some point Mads entirely lost control and went from winning to entirely lost. A draw was a lucky result.
I had the advantage when I mixed something up in my head and repeated the position for the third time! I was perplexed when my opponent explained it to me, but there was nothing that could be done. The PC says I have some advantage, but I am not really sure the result would have been different had we played on. Still a weird experience.
Allan had a very bad day at the office, losing his third game with White in the tournament. Bummer.
On the rest day I went home. It took 14 hours (three planes), so sorry I did not update the blog before now. To be honest, I am still very very tired.
In the last round we won 3-0. Not a great tournament for us. Jakob won rating and Davor did well until the end. Allan, Mads and I have nothing to be happy about. I lost 3 rating points, but really showed no great chess. I have already decided that I will not annotate a game for the Danish magazine. I just did not play a single good game!
China won the men’s event. It is only the second big title to go to China (outside Women’s chess). The first being Yu Yangyi’s win in the World Junior last year. Again he was the hero with the highest performance of the whole tournament.
On a positive note a good friend of mine made a medal, though he could not care less, as the team did badly…
Round 9
What a horrible day. Jakob has just resigned in what looks like a drawn ending. How easy it is to hold, I don’t know, but this is not what we deserved. I will see what FinalGen says.
The game plan was three draws and then Jakob win on board 3 against David Howell. A big ask, but you cannot go into a match without a winning strategy.
Nikos prepped me really well and I could throw it out at move 2! Luckily Gawain Jones could not remember where he should damage me and ended up allowing me to liquidate to an opposite coloured bishop ending. There were a few details and at some point he over-pressed, but I missed it. Draw.
Davor just neutralised Adams as planned. He was a bit worse at some point, but held it together.
Mads got his prep in and was solid as anything. Sadler went too far in his efforts to get something going and at some point Mads was even better. It required a bit of calculation. Three moves later he resigned.
Jakob’s game was very complicated and it looks like he just beat the guy at some point. But at the end he made some horrific decisions in the ending, allowing his opponent first to hold, then to even take the initiative. It was still a draw when Jakob resigned. Maybe even not so difficult to hold, though it looked hard optically.
So, 3-1 for England. A big disappointment.
On good news – Andrew won against Lubomir Ftacnik. He has played really well here.
4-0 against Norway 3.
Everything was going well for me, when I blundered badly in move 22, completely missing …f5. After this it was sort of even, maybe with a slight plus for me. Eventually I got a better ending, which he defended badly (…f3 helps me immensely).
The rest of the team had to work hard for their wins as well. A good day, but very tiring.
Finally I got a rest day! Which also means (thinking of the playing hall) that I did not go there. But I did follow the games a bit on the Internet.
Davor Palo got a slightly worse position and was ground down. Chess is hard sometimes.
Allan Stig Rasmussen got what he had prepared and a big advantage. He also played really well and won a good game.
Jakob Vang Glud’s position early on looked risky as far as we could tell, but apparently it was preparation and Jakob got out of the opening with a nice position with lots of options. His opponent could not contain all the tactical threats and was torn to pieces.
Mads Andersen got an advantage – I think he was following Negi actually. But at an important moment he realised that a draw was a good outcome and forced it.
A great match for us. Tomorrow we will play Norway3, which has not performed greatly (unlike Norway2!).
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