In 2000, Sergei Movsesian who probably holds some sort of record for nationality changes, hit his career high rating of 2666 at the age of 21. In 2008, he exceeded that rating. He entered Corus on a high of 2751, which makes him no.10 Movsesian has played for Georgia, Armenia, the Czech Republic, and now represents Slovakia.
Firth seeded at Corus, he led until the ninth round when Sergei Karjakin beat him. Karjakin, Aronyan and Lenier Dominguez share the lead with 5.5 points from 9 rounds with Movsesian and Radjabov on 5. It’s very tight. Anybody in the top half could win.
The top three seeds are out of form. At the bottom is “Weird Al” Alexander Morozevich who has the horrors on 3. Vassily Ivanchuk is also on a minus score at 4. Amazingly, Carlsen has not had a decisive game (9 draws) and the Norwegian GM’s Facebook status says “This is getting ridiculous”.
Nigel Short is rocking Group B with 6 from 9. His only loss has come to the top-seeded Sasikiran, who has otherwise had a terrible tournament and is tied for last place. Tigar Hilarp Petersen leads Group C with 6.5 from 9 and here, Filipino teen Wesley So is second with 6. Abhijeet Gupta has grafted back to 5.5 and third after a poor start, logging five wins after suffering three early losses. Harika is on 50 per cent (4.5) and Anish Giri the 14-year-old Russo-Nepali prodigy has 5.
Rating stats suggest that players peak in their mid-late 30s, much like spinners. But spectacular improvement is unusual after age 25. Movsesian’s graph has a few parallels. Wolfgang Uhlmann of the erstwhile DDR and Robert Byrne (US) had their best results after 40. Viktor Korchnoy apparently got stronger as well. But Uhlmann and Korchnoy suffered systematic discrimination. Veselin Topalov hit a career high of 2750 in 1997 and shot up to 2813 in 2006 when he was 31.
The diagram, BLACK TO PLAY, (Ivanchuk Vs Movsesian, Corus 2009) illustrates that the multinational GM certainly doesn’t lack courage. It would be normal to play 19.— Nxe4 20. Nxb6 bc6 21. Nc3 Nf6, which is imbalanced and unclear. Movsesian tried 19 — Bc6, which is insane after 20. Bxb6 Bc5!? or 20. Bxb6 Qb7.
Play continued 20.c4 Nxe4 21.Nxb6 f5 22.Nc3 Qb7 23.c5 Nd3 24.Bxe4 Bxe4 25.b4 Kh8! It’s neat to slip the check rather than 25. –Nxe4 26. Qc4+ Kh8 27. Nxe4 Qxe4 28. Qxe4, which is playable. 26.Rb1 f4 27.Bg1 Bg6 28.Nc4 e4. Now the central pawn mass blows white away before the b-c passers can move. 29.Na5 Qa8 30.c6 Bxb4 31.Nb7 f3 32.gxf3 exf3 33.Qxf3 Rf8 34.Qd5 Bxc3 35.c7 Nf4 (0–1).