Report of round 10 - CCT 2008

A very lucky round for Magnus Carlsen. In a Volga Gambit against Loek van Wely, the Norwegian was playing quite suspiciously, starting with 16...Ne8?! . After 20.Nb5! Loek was simply up a pawn with no compensation. Black now erred further with his 20...Rc8? and after 21.Bh3 f5?!, the Dutchman was winning. Unfortunately for Loek, he now had another big hurdle to pass - the clock. In serious mutual time trouble white had many ways to victory, for example taking on e7 both on moves 33 and 35, and especially the double capture on b2 on move 38 would have been very strong. White’s demise started with 39.Qe3? (39.Qe7!), where he still had a won game, 40.Kg3? (40.Kg1!), and the terrible 41.Qf2?? (see diagram 1), where 41.Qb3 would have at least not lost. In the game, despite the large material advantage, Van Wely could not hold against the assault of the entire black army, and had to resign on move 49. An incredible save by Carlsen, and a true heartbreaker for Van Wely.

“It was an interesting and complicated game”, said Vassilly Ivanchuk of his first win of the tournament, against Pavel Eljanov. He played very ambitiously early on with his 13...b5, a temporary pawn sacrifice, which gave black a very easy game - “I was trying to create complications” - Ivanchuk. After the game, the Ukrainian questioned his opponent’s plan starting with 13.Nd2 and criticized 23.Rfc1?!, thinking it was the wrong rook. He mentioned that he was struggling whether to push 23...e5 as he did in the game, or play slower, but after 26.Nh4?! black was gaining a clear edge. Vassily also wondered if he should have entered the rook endgame with 38...Bxf4, instead of his 38...a5, since he had to work hard to find 41...Re2 and especially 42...Qa4!(see diagram 2), which kept his winning chances alive. In the end, the combination of the strong passed b-pawn, along with the attacking black queen and rook decided the game.

Michael Adams - Levon Aronian was a relatively quick draw in the Ruy Lopez. After the game, Mickey candidly said that he simply forgot about 8...Nxd4, black’s best way to equality. The pawn sacrifice was prepared by black all the way to 17...Nd6 - a juncture where black was doing very well. Peace was announced only a few moves later.

Another draw out of a Ruy Lopez was the game between Vishy Anand and Peter Leko. In the post mortem the Hungarian mentioned that he likes his novelty of 9...b4 , putting to question the white set up with 9.Bd2. As a matter of fact, white had to play precisely not to get the worst of it, and Vishy did just that with his correct 12.Bc4, and 13.Re1. Black’s best was to then trade the light squared bishops, and avoid 15...bxc3?! 16.Bxc3, which would have allowed white its ideal structure. After 17...d5, the world champion had to capture, and with liquidation coming, the point was soon split.

Judit Polgar played the French defense today, against Shakhryar Mamedyarov. It was her first return to that opening in over a decade, and chose it to explore her preparation and try something new as the tournament is winding down. That proved a success, when she easily got a fine game, and was especially happy about her 11...b5! - a strong move that undermined white’s central piece control. She said she could also have played 16...Qd5, and after 17.Nxf6+ Bxf6 18.Qxd5 exd5 19.Bxc7 Ra6 the position is even. Polgar offered a draw after 17...c6, but Mamedyarov played on. When the game liquidated to a completely drawish endgame, he reciprocated the offer, which was accepted.

Veselin Topalov made a Houdini-like escape today versus Teimur Radjabov. Black in a Scotch defense, the Bulgarian was very displeased with his opening play. After the game he strongly criticised his plan of 8...d5?! and 9...g6, calling it “very dubious”. In the queenless middlegame, Veselin had no compensation for his compromised pawn structure, and was on the defense. After Radja’s strong 22.Bb5! (see diagram 3) Topalov could not play 22...gxf5? because of 23.Bxe8 Kxe8 24.Bxf4 Nxf4 25.Rg8+ with Rdd8 to follow, winning at once. He gave up an exchange for a pawn, but the Azeri was on course for a full point. One clear way would have been 27.Re2! and if Bxh4, then 28.Rd5, with a technical win. Eventually, after further mistakes, the white rooks could no longer penetrate, and his a-pawn could not advance much further - and so it was a good time to send a peace offering.

It is not an easy task to face Vladimir Kramnik with the black pieces the round after he loses, but today Boris Gelfand did that well. He kept the tension in the center for a while, and then released it at a well-timed moment with 17...cxd4 and 18...dxc4. Black’s control of the dark squares gave him a peace of mind, and even allowed for a witty passive exchange sacrifice with 29...Rc4! (see diagram 4) and 30...Nd6 - an offer Kramnik had to refuse. The game finally turned into a double minor piece endgame, where the Russian pair of bishops was well balanced by the Israeli’s agile knight and bishop - draw on move 48.

Sergey Movsesian is scorching through Grandmaster Group B, winning again, this time versus Jan Smeets. He is at 7.5/10 points, one point ahead of Nigel Short (who beat Michal Krasenkov) and Etienne Bacrot, (who drew Cheparinov).

Grandmaster group C is still led by Fabiano Caruana, who lost today to Li Shilong. Closely behind are Friso Nijboer who beat Dimitry Reinderman, to join him and Parimarjan Negi (who beat Dennis Ruigrok) in a tie for second place.

Out of the shadow and into the spotlight. After yesterday’s slugfest, Ljubomir Ljubojevic again picked up the gauntlet and took it upon himself to improve on Topalov-Kramnik from yesterday. Jan Timman is not one to avoid complications either and so we had a repeat, this time with the improvement 17…Rhg8, indicated by Topalov in his press conference. The Yugo-Spanish grandmaster was not afraid, and frankly, was surprised the Dutchman went for the line as he’d had less than twenty-four hours, as opposed to Topalov’s three years, to investigate the complexities of the variation. Under the adagio of “When I was young, tomorrow was more important than yesterday … now, yesterday was more important than tomorrow” (Ljubo), both matadors “absorbed the energy from the past” (Ljubo). When the smoke cleared, Timman’s compensation had evaporated and Ljubojevic cashed in on his extra material.

Since Viktor Kortchnoi had already beaten Lajos Portisch with white in round 1, he felt he should take some risks with black and play for an advantage. After more than half a century, Kortchnoi employed the Stonewall Defence again and was slightly worse out of the opening. However, Portisch used up quite some time and when he missed the defensive resource Ra8-a6, was unable to cope with the ever-increasing activity of the black pieces. When loss of material became inevitable, he resigned. If Kortchnoi has ever had a quota for chess on a given day, he certainly hadn’t reached it yet and spend another hour on stage observing the remaining games. In regards to Van Wely-Carlsen, his conclusion was: “No matter if you are young or old, in time trouble there are no heroes!”