Chess (#665)

The newly-christened Tata Steel kicks off today at Wijk An Zee. The premier “A” is of course, one of the oldest (1938-2011) and strongest of tournaments and it sets the benchmark for chess festivals with three strong round-robins and a monster open Swiss.

The top section features five Top Tenners in Magnus Carlsen (number 1), Viswanathan Anand (2), Levon Aronian (3), Vladimir Kramnik (4) and Alexander Grischuk (7) as well as Ponomariov (11), Shirov (12), Nakamura (15). The rating average is formidable at 2736. Apart from the battle for top honours, there’s always interest in the B and C sections because each qualifies the winner for the higher section of the next year.

The B has an average rating of 2657 and features three 2700+ players in Navarra, Fressinet and Wojtaszek. Along with Wojtaszek, another Anand second Surya Sekhar Ganguly is also in the B. The C features Tania Sachdev as part of another strong field.

The Ninth Parsvnath Open is heading for a tight finish in Delhi. On Thursday, after eight rounds, national champion and local star Parimarjan Negi shared the lead with and S Kidambi, Luka Lenic, Alexander Areshchenko, Yuri Kuzubov and Mikhail Oleksienko. They all have 7 points. Negi started with 6/6 before he dropped two draws. Eight players including Abhijeet Gupta and Sahej Grover were on 6.5 points. A good finish in the last three rounds could propel any of them into first.

The diagram WHITE TO PLAY (Short Vs Movsesian, Reggio 2010-11) is from one of the oddest games I’ve ever seen — note that both players are very strong practitioners at a normal time control.

Play started 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.g3 b6 4.Bg2 Bb7 5.Qe2 d6 6.d4 Nf6 7.e5 Nfd7 8.Bg5 Qc8 9.d5 Bxd5 10.Nc3 Bc6 11.exd6 h6 leading to the diagram. This position is unique in GM practice, which is unusual at move 11. White “obviously” must move Bg5 and after say, 12. Be7 Bxe7 13. dxe7 Kxe7 the position is very unbalanced but probably equal.

However Short decided to go 12.0–0–0 !? and now after 12. – hxg5 13. Nxg5 Bxg2 14. Nb5, the threat of Nc7 makes things absolutely unclear with weird possibilities like 14.--Na6 15.Nxe6! Or 14.--Qc6 15. Rhe1 Rh6 16. Nc7+ Kd8 17. Nxf7+.

Movsesian responded sensibly with 12. – Qa6 and white can head into a very dynamic position with 13. Qxa6 Nxa6 14. Bf4 g5 15. Be3. If the d6 pawn stays on board, it could cause much grief.

Instead white played 13.Qe3? hxg5! Now black wins a piece or three after the “programmed” 14.Nxg5 Bxg2 15.Nxe6 fxe6 16.Qxe6+ Kd8 17.Rhe1 Kc8. No mate — no shadow of compensation. 18.Nd5 Kb7 19.Nc7 Rh6 20.Qg8 Qa4 (0–1).