The 42nd Biel International saw Maxime Vachier-Lagrave notch the biggest victory of his career. The 19-year-old French GM stayed undefeated in scoring 6 points from 10 games. He was followed by Morozevich and Ivanchuk, both on 5.5. Moro was his usual unstable self with four wins and three losses including a brilliancy turned sour against Vachier-Lagrave in a key encounter.
Ivanchuk dumped a rook in time trouble against Moro but that was his only loss. Alekseev ended at 50 per cent while Gelfand and Caruana brought up the rear. If Moro hadn’t been around, the draw ratio would have been higher than 65 per cent.
In contrast, the Mainz Classic Festival's C960 “FiNet World Championship” featured no draws whatsoever until the very last game. It started as a double round-robin featuring defending champion Levon Aronyan, Hikaru Nakamura, Viktor Bologan and Sergei Movsesian.
Aronyan and Naka both scored 4 points from 6 games to qualify for the final, a four-game match. The mainz C-960 format is rapid controls from a random selection of (symmetrical) opening set ups of the 960 possible formations where the king stands on a square between the two rooks. The first three games of the final went to Nakamura, who justified his fearsome reputation as a blitz expert in becoming the C960 world champion.
The diagram WHITE TO PLAY (Morozevich Vs Vachier-Lagrave, Biel 2009) is a good place for an aspiring tactician to start calculating. White has a winning attack but it’s not simple at all. Moro avoided the very complicated 24. Be6+!! Qxe6 25. Qxc5! Qxg6 26. Rxd7 and continued with the clear 24. Qe4 Nf8 25. Rd8 Bb7 26. Rxa8? Bxa8 — the crushing 26. Rxd8+ Rxf8 27. Qxe5 with Be6+ is “almost” trivial (26. — Kxf8 27. Qf5+).
After 27. h5 Rh7 28. Re1 Bxc6 black is still surviving. The engines claim a white win after 28. Kd2 (with the threat of 29. Ra1!) Bxc6 29. gxh7+ but this is difficult to find or assess Play continued 29. Qxc6 Bd4 30. Kd2 Qxb2 31. Qc4+ Kh8 32. Kd3 a5 33. Qc8? This could be the final decisive error — either 33. Bf5 or 33. gxh7 leaves white in a somewhat superior position.
Now Black uncorked the deadly counter-attack 33 — Qa3+ 34. Ke4 b3! 35. cxb3 a4! 36. Rb1 (36. bxa4 Bf2!) Qb4 37. Qc4 Qb7+ 38. Qd5 Qb4 39. Qc4 Qd2 40. Bg4 a3! Amazingly black is now winning — he now has a devastating attack, enough defensive resources to hold off white’s attack and a strong passed pawn as well. Lines like 41. Qc8 Qf4+ 42. Kd5 a2 are convincing enough as was the actual game continuation 41. Qf7 Qc2+ 42. Kd5 Qc5+ 43. Ke4 a2 44. Rc1 a1=Q (0-1, 76 moves).
