The Fifth Grand Prix event is underway at Jermuk, Armenia. Jermuk is a mountain resort which the training HQ of the Armenian chess squad. It apparently has extremely good facilities. Certainly the Net coverage and press releases have been decent so far.
GP V has the usual format; 14 players, round-robin, Category 19, with 11 participants rated over 2700. It is “co-branded” the Tigran Petrosian Memorial in honour of “Iron Tigran”, the late Armenian world champion who would have turned 80 this month. Local hero and world no. 6, Levon Aronyan is the top seed and also one of the leaders in the GP circuit.
After round 4, Aronyan shares the lead with third-seeded Peter Leko. Both are on 3 points. Ivan Cheparinov and Vssily Ivanchuk are on 2.5 and everybody else is 50 per cent or less. There have been just 8 decisive games — the ratio is less than 30 percent. This gels with earlier GPs where low decision ratios in hard-fought, evenly balanced fields have led to close finishes. GP-IV in Nalchik saw Aronyan beat Leko in the key last round game to seal first, with Leko running out second.
Aronyan has had a good year (Monaco, GP-IV, Mainz) though his creative style is and lends itself to a certain unpredictability in terms of results. He’s also under “home-pressure” due to the high expectations of fans in a chess-mad nation. Armenians expect Aronyan who has led the team to two successive gold medals at the Olympiads, to seal the GP circuit with a win here.
Earlier this week, the Zurich Chess Club’s 2006th anniversary tournament started. That’s an open featuring several Indian GMs such as Harikrishna, Gopal, Sandipan Chanda, etc, in a 272-player field that is led by Morozevich. “Weird Al” shares the lead with 10 others who have scored 5 points from 6 games.
The Diagram, WHITE TO PLAY, (Ivanchuk Vs Alekseev, Jermuk 2009) is a highly unusual combination. For a while, it seems white has made a succession of blunders. It is actually a positional sacrifice of the highest class — as far as defence is concerned, the black Kts don’t exist.
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White played 18.f5! gxf5 19.g4 f4 20.Bxf4 Na6 21.Nd5! exd5 22.Bxd5+ Kg7. Apparently the only defence because 22.__ Kh8 loses to 23. Qf3 (with the threat of Ng6+) Qe8 24. Re2 Nc6 25. Rbe1 hitting Be7.
White continues with the stunning 23.Kh1!! The actual response 23.__Re8? Kh8 25.Qh5 Rg8 26.Bxg8 Kxg8 27.g6 Bc6+ 28.Re4 Bxe4+ 29.dxe4 hxg6 30.Qxg6+ Kh8 31.Qh5+ (1-0.) was obviously inadequate. But 23. _Nc6 24. Nf5+ seems to leave white on top since he will recover material after 24. _Kh8 25. Bh6 while 24.— Bxf5 25. gxf5 is the point of Kh1 clearing the file for a deadly Rg1+.