CHESS (#665)

Two national championships of contrasting format concluded with two new champions. In Delhi, Parimarjan Negi finished a disappointing year on a strong note by scoring 9.5 points from 13 games (=6,=7) to win the national title for the first time.

Negi was followed by Gopal, Adhiban, and Kunte with 8.5 each. The Delhi-based teenager who spent most of the year swotting for school-leaving exams, bagged Rs 1.5 lakh and a spot in the World Cup. The Indianm championship is now a full zonal — reasonable since the premier featured 44 players, including 12 GMs despite the absence of the “A” team of Anand, Sasikiran, Harikrishna, SS Ganguly, Chanda, Humpy, Abhijeet Gupta and others .

Meanwhile in freezing Moscow, at the historic Central Chess Club, Ian Nepomniachtchi won the incredibly strong Russian Superfinals. The 12-player field had an average rating of 2705 though Kramnik and Morozevich opted out.

Nepomniachtchi tied with Karjakin for first. They both scored 7 points, ahead of top seed Grischuk (the only unbeaten player) and Peter Svidler (both 6.5). The 20-year-old Russian beat the 20-year-old Ukrainian emigre in an Armageddon game after they drew rapid tie-breakers.

Karjakin is likely to be number five on the next rating list while Nepomniachtchi alsos break into the top 20. Incidentally there is a superb video recording of the Armageddon. It’s well worth watching for both interplay of emotions as well as an understanding of high-stakes blitz.

The women’s world championship final goes into tiebreaks at 2-2 with each player having won once. Hou Yifan is the favourite against her compatriot Lufei Ruan. Hou (Born Feb 27, 1994) would be the youngest-ever world champion, if she can win. She would supersede Maia Chiburdonidze (Born Jan 17, 1961) who won the title in 1978. Sadly for India, Koneru Humpy lost in the semis to Hou while Harika lost to Lufei.

Diagram, BLACK TO PLAY (Nepomniachtchi Vs Svidler, Russian Superfinal 2010), is a critical moment from a key game. White has an obvious advantage due to the clean pawn structure and the plan of K-a3-a4xa5. How does black defend optimally ?

Not by 30...Ng7? which is what Svidler played. Alternate counter-play by Kh5, is met by g3. After 30-- Ng7, white shouldn't waste time on 31. Nxc7 Nf5 which may have been what black was counting on. But instead of Ng7, the active 30.-- g5! 31.hxg5+ Kxg5 32.g3 Ng7 33.f4+ Kh6 34.Nxc7 Nh5 seems to hold on.

White found the immediate 31.Ka3! Nf5 32.Ka4 Nxh4 33.Bf1 Nf5 34.Kxa5 Ne3 35.Nxc7! Nxf1 - The a-pawn is just too fast. 36.Kb6 Bd7 37.Nd5 Kg7 38.a4 Bc8 39.Ne7 (1-0.). This is a bread-and butter endgame, where things can be seen to the end. It just shows how difficult such “simple” positions can be.

Devangshu Datta is an internationally-rated chess and correspondence chess player