Report of round 4 - CCT 2008

The Azeri derby between Teimur Radjabov and Shakryar Mamedyarov featured a topical discussion in the Gruenfeld defense. Black managed to complete his development, starting with the temporary pawn sac of 8...e5. In the middlegame, Shak made another wise decision, once again giving a pawn in order to activate his entire army. Very soon pieces were traded wholesale style; the single rook ending that arose was without any winning chances whatsoever, and a draw was registered.

The Magnus Carlsen - Levon Aronian bout kept everyone on the edge of their seats. In a normal Ruy the Norwegian’s position went south after 16.Bxe6?! and 17.Nc4. Better would have been not to open the f-file, and play 16.Nc4 at once. The first crisis occurred when black rightly went for a promising exchange sacrifice with 20...Rxf3! (see diagram 1) “White is practically lost” -- Aronian. The Armenian said that “time became a factor” around move 22, and Carlsen now played very actively (26.e5!). Black was still winning, until he uncorked the faulty 30...g6? - a move that severely compromised his king’s position. What Levon missed was that his intended 33...Rxf2 would have lost at once to 34.Qh3!. Now it was white who was winning, but it was also his time to misplay his chances. 35.Qg3? was wrong, after 35...Qe2! white had nothing better than allow a perpetual check, and in view of it, peace was declared.

No less crowd-pleasing was the Peter Leko - Vassily Ivanchuk game. White said after the game that he did not expect the Caro Kann - “but then again you really never know what to expect from Chuky” -- Leko. 16...c5 was a novelty that was found over the board, but with 18.Rae1! white was in control. 20...Bc7? (see diagram 2) was a surprise for Peter, who could have now played the spectacular 21.Ng6+! fxg6 22.Bxf6 g5 23.Qh5 gxf6 24.Rxe6, where the analysis engines claim a huge attack for white. Even after 22.b4 white was still in the driver’s seat, and black’s tries to gain some counterplay with 27...Rh6 were strongly met by the powerful bishop maneuver of 28.Bc1! and 29.Bg5!. Black could not take 29...Qxg5 because of the crushing 30.Nxf7! followed by 31.Qxe6. All was going very much the Hungarian’s way, but with little time on his clock, his choice of 32.Rf5, which may well have been good enough to win, was a bad practical decision. 32.Qf4 with f3 and h4 keeps black paralyzed and in a hopeless position. In the actual game Ivanchuk came up with the strong rejoinders 34...Rhe8 and 35...Bc8! so white forced a draw by a perpetual check.

Vishy Anand was very unhappy about his play today against Michael Adams. In a Queen’s Indian that had the structure of a Stonewall Dutch, the world champion “kept missing all the tactics”. By move 20 black was already eyeing for the strong b5, and white was on the defense. Reluctantly, he had to exchange his strong light squared bishop for the menacing central knight on d5, but did not solve all of his problems. Black’s pair of bishops and strong rook gave him a promising game, and white also had to worry about his king’s fragile situation. 28.h4 was already forced in view of the threat 28...Be5! 29.Nxe5 Rd1+ 30.Kg2 Bf1+ and as any analysis engine would show, white is soon getting mated. Now black steered the game into an endgame with opposite color bishops with queens and rooks, with a much superior bishop to white’s. Vishy pitched his d pawn to open his bishop’s diagonal, but Michael was not able to convert it. Maybe instead of 54...Qc4?! , 54...Bd5 should have been played, but it is certainly not easy to win. The game was drawn on move 56.

Judit Polgar played in a feisty fashion versus Boris Gelfand. After the game she said she had prepared the specific line with 9...d3 a few years ago, and cooked up a novelty with 13...Ne4, which she thought to be a strong move. For the cost of a pawn, she got active play, and kept her strong passed d-pawn. Judit criticized her 24...Qd3- better would have been 24...Nd4 25.Qxd7 Nxf3+ 26.Bxd7. She simply missed that after her intended 25...Nc5? white would have played 26.Qd1! winning her d-pawn. Everything was fine for the Israeli GM, but for some reason he eschewed his intended (see diagram 3) 31.Rab1! which would have been his best continuation, in favor of the terrible 31.Bf3? where black’s 31...Rc1 proved decisive. Black threw in the towel on move 40.

It is always a tough task to defend the Gruenfeld defense against Vladimir Kramnik, and that was the tough task on Pavel Eljanov’s shoulders today. Pavel’s troubles might have started with 12...e5, whereas 12...Bg7 could have been more prudent. On move 16 Vlady sprung out the strong and unexpected 16.d5! (see diagram 4). White’s initiative finally lead to an endgame where his pawn structure of two pawn islands was far better than black’s three islands, with double pawns. White was temporarily down two pawns, but the black ones were falling like ripe apples. Black put up a strong defense, and managed to go into a rook and knight and three pawns versus rook knight and two on the same side. These endings are close to a draw, but take precise defending. Unfortunately for the Ukrainian, after exhausting defense tried to sacrifice his only pawn, but without success. When a loss of a piece was imminent, the score of 1-0 appeared on then audience’s television screens.

Local favorite Loek Van Wely finally managed to cash in on a winning position, beating Veselin Topalov in a Benoni. Loek was better from the start - Veselin’s set up with 7...a6 later gave him trouble because of the b6 weakness and so the Bulgarian decided to sacrifice an exchange for a pawn on move 19 to try to muddy the water. Both players didn’t play their best as time was running short, but the endgame which was played turned out tough to defend. Even after missing 56...Nf1, white was still winning, and Veselin acknowledged defeat on move 81.