W trakcie arcymistrzowskiego turnieju w Wijk aan Zee odbył się konkurs w rozwiązywaniu studiów szachowych „4th Tata Steel Studies Solving Competition”.

W znakomitej formie okazał się angielski arcymistrz John Nunn, który uzyskał 43 punktów z 45  możliwych.

Końcowe wyniki

Źródło

Dear chess friends,

Below you can find the official Round 5 Report on the GRENKE Chess Classic in Baden-Baden. Please feel free to use this report and the accompanying photos on your own websites, but please link to the official website (http://www.grenkechessclassic.com) and credit Georgios Souleidis for the photos and myself (Colin McGourty) for the text.

If you’d prefer not to receive press releases from the GRENKE Chess Classic please reply to this mail with „UNSUBSCRIBE” as the subject.

Best wishes,

Colin McGourty, GRENKE Chess Classic press team

—-

Note: the full version of this report including diagrams will shortly appear on the official website

Round 5: Anand makes his move in Baden-Baden

The GRENKE Chess Classic reached the mid-way point on Rosenmontag, the highlight of the German Carnival season, and a day when paupers can traditionally trade places with kings. It seemed the same might happen on the stage, as tournament underdogs Georg Meier and Daniel Fridman had Mickey Adams and Fabiano Caruana on the ropes, while Arkadij Naiditsch had a full-blooded game against Vishy Anand. In the end, however, the aristocrats of world chess drew, while the king upheld the social order with a win that saw him move into outright second place.

The win felt long overdue, though the criticism the World Champion had received in some quarters for his previous four draws (with White only once) was absurdly overblown. It clearly wasn’t for the lack of trying, and in round 5 the dam finally burst. Of course that also had a lot to do with his opponent – Arkadij Naiditsch continued his record of providing the day’s only decisive game.

The game wasn’t, at least on the surface, about the opening. Anand rejected the Berlin Defence and went for a complex Ruy Lopez that looked playable for both players. He noted afterwards that Naiditsch’s pieces were somewhat tied up on the queenside, but the whole game essentially revolved around Naiditsch’s strange neglect of his kingside cavalry. 25…h5?! was welcomed by Anand as it already left the f4-knight with no squares to which it could retreat. When the World Champion played 27.Nf1 his plans were crystal clear – as he told IM Lawrence Trent afterwards in the post-game interview, he had other options, but “if you see a piece then you want to get it!” Naiditsch attempted to solve his problems with the pseudo-aggressive 27…Bh6?, which may objectively have been the losing move.

Anand responded with the quiet but deadly 28.Re1!, when not only does the knight have no squares, it’s pinned to the h6-bishop. It was somewhat astonishing, therefore, that Naiditsch almost blitzed out 28…Kh7?. He could have put up more resistance by solving the key problem with his counterplay – that 28…Qc8 immediately runs into the 29.Nxd6! fork – and sure enough the computer recommends three moves that defend d6: 28…Bf8, 28…Ne8, 28…Rd8 (in that order).

The game saw 29.g3 Qc8 30.f3 (Vishy: “a cold-blooded move. I did it with some trepidation, but I couldn’t see a way for him.”) 30…Qh3 31.gxf4 Qxf3

Here Anand had the luxury of a choice and a comfortable 40 minutes on his clock. His first intention was to play the nice 32.b4! to allow the distant a3-rook to control matters on the kingside, but he didn’t like the idea of Black getting some decent squares for his pieces. In the end he ruled out any counterplay based on the g4-square with 32.Qd1! and after 32…Qh3 33.fxe5 Naiditsch’s Rxb3 was little more than desperation, and he resigned on move 38. It was a puzzling sequence of play from the German no. 1, but today was all about the World Champion. You could feel what it meant to him: “I was trying very hard not to screw this one up. I’ve been tossing away too many of these.”

For much of the round it had seemed more likely we’d see decisive action elsewhere. Georg Meier has been struggling in Baden-Baden and remains in bottom place, but he pulled off the rare feat of leaving Mickey Adams in dire straits by move 12. Adams explained, “I think I was a bit casual in the opening and Black was on the edge for a long time”. He also credited his opponent, however, noting the direct plan with 6.Nc3 is rarer than the quieter 6.Qc2, while Meier said his 7.Bg5 was a novelty. Adams said “I saw it coming” of White’s expansion with e4, but he couldn’t devise a way to stop it, and the return of the bishop with 12.Bd2 provoked the Englishman into desperate measures with 12…e5!? Adams: “What else could I play? I had to try something.” Suddenly the computers were proclaiming Meier had a close to winning edge, but the chances of an upset were all but extinguished a couple of moves later.

13.a3! Bxc3 14.Bxc3 Qa6 15.Nxe5? After the game both players agreed that 15.0-0! was the move, with the problem for Black being that his queen is in real danger of getting stuck after the move Adams was planning to play 15…Qxc4, then 16.dxe5 Nd5 17.Bd4! with Rac1 to follow. Instead they soon reached an ending via 15…Nxe5 16.dxe5 Qxc4 17.Qd4 Qxd4 18.Bxd4 and after the single accurate move 18…Rd8! (Meier was relishing his small edge after 18…Nd5 19.Bxd5 cxd5 with White planting a rook on c7) they were left with a position which Adams quietly noted was drawish after every single alternative proposed. They shook hands after a repetition on move 35.

At the end of the press conference Adams and Meier were asked about the almost empty board in the latter stages of Caruana – Fridman, and Adams joked: “All three results possible, but one seems more likely than the other two. Under 18 minutes to make 1 move, so it’s in the balance!” What went before, however, was a fascinating struggle that threatened to explode into tactical fireworks. Daniel Fridman played the Petroff, but that opening has by now almost lost its drawish reputation, largely due to the variation we saw today where White castles queenside. Sergey Karjakin memorably once crushed Vladimir Kramnik with the white pieces, but on this occasion the German grandmaster knew exactly what he was doing.

Caruana regretted his 17.a4 (instead of 17.a3), but he played it because he hadn’t seen the cunning trap Fridman and his second Konstantin Landa had cooked up on the morning before the game. After 17…Rb8 the natural 18.axb5 was met by a pawn sacrifice: 18…a4! Actually sacrifice is perhaps the wrong word, as the pawn could hardly be more poisoned – 19.Bxa4 Qa7! and the bishop is lost after 20.b3 cxb5, while 20.Bb3 Ra8! leads to a quick mate. Caruana was on the back foot, but once again the real tension didn’t last long. After the sequence 19.Bc4 cxb5 20.Ba2 b4 21.cxb4 Rxb4 22.Qd6 Black was left with a choice.

Fridman played the perfectly good 22…Qxd6, but ultimately Caruana’s defence of the ending was painless. Instead the other option was 22…Qxb7!? and the board is on fire – a possible line begins 23.Qxe5 (not Houdini’s top move, but the move the players had considered during the game) 23…a3! 24.h5 Bf5! (the queen can’t take the bishop as it’s stopping mate on b2) and it’s hard to fathom what might happen next. The best recommendation is to watch the post-game press conference and marvel at the amount of tactics the players, and especially Caruana, saw throughout the whole game. And some would call it a quiet draw.

It’s impossible to end this Carnival report without mentioning the 6-round GRENKE Chess Classic Carnival (“Fasching” in German) Tournament that was played over the last three days here in the same venue in Baden-Baden. This time there was a minor overturning of the status quo as WGM Vera Nebolsina beat her male colleagues to the trophy, though admittedly the young Russian was the second seed in the capacity 79-player event. She started with 5 wins then drew her final game against GM Mikhail Ivanov, who took silver. Jonas Reimold took bronze. You can find full details on the Chess-Results website (http://www.chess-results.com/tnr87513.aspx).

So at the half-way stage of the GRENKE Chess Classic Fabiano Caruana continues to lead on 3.5/5, though Viswanathan Anand is back in the running only half a point behind. The full standings are:

1. Caruana: 3.5/5
2. Anand: 3/5
3. Naiditsch, Fridman: 2.5/5
5. Adams: 2
6. Meier: 1.5

Tuesday 12 February is the tournament’s only rest day, while the pairings for Round 6 on Wednesday are:

Fridman – Naiditsch
Anand – Adams
Meier – Caruana

Follow the live coverage on the GRENKE Chess Classic website from 15:00 CET: http://live.grenkechessclassic.com

Report: Colin McGourty  Photos: Georgios Souleidis

——————————————————

NOTE ON VIDEOS:

You’re encouraged to embed the livestream video of the post-game interviews on your websites. Simply copy and paste the following code: (the videos can also be found at: http://grenkechessclassic.com/en/videos-en/5th-round )

Anand:

<iframe src=”http://new.livestream.com/accounts/2700783/events/1873468/videos/11454613/player?autoPlay=false&height=360&mute=false&width=640” width=”640″ height=”360″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”></iframe>

Meier-Adams:

<iframe src=”http://new.livestream.com/accounts/2700783/events/1873468/videos/11454938/player?autoPlay=false&height=360&mute=false&width=640” width=”640″ height=”360″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”></iframe>

Caruana-Fridman:

<iframe src=”http://new.livestream.com/accounts/2700783/events/1873468/videos/11401758/player?autoPlay=false&height=360&mute=false&width=640” width=”640″ height=”360″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”></iframe>

Full video of the round:

<iframe src=”http://new.livestream.com/accounts/2700783/events/1873468/videos/11382349/player?autoPlay=false&height=360&mute=false&width=640” width=”640″ height=”360″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”></iframe>

Link 1

Krzysztof Pańczyk nadesłał ciekawy materiał o Szymonie Winawerze.

“Szymon Winawer – kupiec z Warszawy”

Taką tabliczkę zawsze stawiał na stoliku, przy którym zasiadał do gry w szachy w najróżniejszych miejscach Europy.

Swe sukcesy zawsze traktował jako osiągnięcia szachisty – Polaka.

Zaznaczał nieustannie swą przynależność do narodu polskiego, a występując za granicą z paszportem rosyjskim, niezmiennie stawiał na stoliku podczas gry wspomnianą na wstępie tabliczkę!

Argumentując, że jest Polakiem, odmówił udziału we wszechrosyjskim turnieju w Petersburgu w 1878/1879 r., do którego był oficjalnie, jako obywatel rosyjskiego imperium, zaproszony.

Karierę szachową rozpoczął w sposób niezwykły. Szachami pasjonował się od dziecka. W 1867 r. pojechał w charakterze kupca  na światową wystawę do Paryża, mając zamiar załatwienia wielu zawodowych interesów.

Po przybyciu do Paryża dowiedział się o mającym mieć miejsce wielkim międzynarodowym turnieju szachowym.

Dzięki swym wpływom (czytaj: pieniądzom) został do turnieju dopuszczony. Co więcej: w czasach gdy na ówczesnej mapie politycznej nazwa “Polska” nie istniała – “załatwił”, że przy Jego nazwisku pisano “Polska”!

W turnieju, co stanowiło sensację, Szymon Winawer był drugi za I. Kolischem, a przed W. Steinitzem i G. Neumannem.

Od tego momentu, przez kilka kolejnych lat, zaczyna uczestniczyć w rozmaitych turniejach, stając sią niekwestionowanym drugim/trzecim szachistą świata końca XIX stulecia.

Po odejściu, z końcem wieku, z publicznego życia szachowego, staje się regularnym bywalcem  warszawskiej “szachowej cukierni” Semadeniego [przy ul.Królewskiej-admin], gdzie wspiera młodych adeptów szachów (przeciwnikiem jego, między innymi, bywał…Bolesław Prus).

Był honorowym członkiem licznych europejskich stowarzyszeń.

Szymon Winawer (ur. 6 marca 1838 w Warszawie, zm. 29 listopada 1919 w Warszawie) – polski szachista pochodzenia żydowskiego.

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szymon_Winawer

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=16049

Krzysztof Pytel

Inni wybitni polscy szachiści pochodzenia żydowskiego to m.in. Akiba Rubinstein (1882-1961), Ksawery Tartakower (1887-1956), Mieczysław Najdorf (1910-1997).

//////////////////////////////////////

Szymon Winawer jest pochowany na cmentarzu żydowskim w Warszawie przy ulicy Okopowej. Autorem zdjęć jest Tomasz Lissowski.

Dear chess friends,

Below you can find the official Round 4 Report on the GRENKE Chess Classic in Baden-Baden. Please feel free to use this report and the accompanying photos on your own websites, but please link to the official website (http://www.grenkechessclassic.com) and credit Georgios Souleidis for the photos and myself (Colin McGourty) for the text.

If you’d prefer not to receive press releases from the GRENKE Chess Classic please reply to this mail with „UNSUBSCRIBE” as the subject.

Best wishes,

Colin McGourty, GRENKE Chess Classic press team

—-

Note: the full version of this report including diagrams will shortly appear on the official website

Round 4: Naiditsch bounces straight back

Where would we be without Arkadij Naiditsch? For the third day in a row his game saw a dramatic time scramble and the only decisive result on the stage of the GRENKE Chess Classic. On this occasion he emerged victorious, while Mickey Adams and Fabiano Caruana played a sharp and hard-fought draw. World Champion Viswanathan Anand was agonisingly close to a first win, but an endgame slip allowed Daniel Fridman to escape.

Fridman was mildly sceptical about Anand’s claim in the post-game press conference that he’d played the novelty 13…e5 after 5 minutes’ thought at the board. That was a deviation from a game from the recent Tashkent Grand Prix where Peter Leko played the logical 13…a4 against Alexander Morozevich only to find himself swept off the board by a ferocious kingside attack. Here Anand smothered his opponent’s play to force what he described as a “very comfortable ending”. Although the ending is Fridman’s forte time trouble and minor inaccuracies led to a position where both players acknowledged he was lost (after 48.Kb3).

The winning line was 48…Be8 49.Nf1 Ba4+ 50.Kb2 Bd1 51.Ne3 Bf3 52.Nd5 Bxe4 53.Nxf6 Bxf5 54.Kb3 bxa3 55.Kxa3 e4 56.Kb3 e3 57.Kc3 e2 58.Kd2 Bd3! and the rest is easy… Needless to say that’s still fiendishly difficult for mere mortals, but Fridman said in the press conference, “I saw it, but what can I do, it’s just only moves…”.Vishy instead played 48…Bh5? and said after Fridman’s 49.Ka2 he immediately realised the difference – White now has the d7-square. After 49…Ka4 50.Nb3 bxa3 51.Nxc5+ Kb4 White has the saving 52.Nd7! and all roads lead to a draw. It was a huge disappointment for the World Champion, who may have hoped his performance in Wijk aan Zee had put an end to the aggravating discussion about a lack of decisive results in his games.

That’s the last thing Arkadij Naiditsch has to worry about, of course. The German no. 1 has gone hell-for-leather in all his games, with unpredictable but always entertaining results. Today’s opponent Georg Meier was finally undone by his terrible handling of the clock – at one stage he had 51 seconds for 13 moves – although Naiditsch also failed to play the smoothest game of his life.

It all started with historical overtones. In 1925 Baden-Baden was the venue for one of the greatest tournament triumphs of the fourth World Champion, Alexander Alekhine, who scored 12 wins, 8 draws and no losses against a world-class field. Three years earlier in Vienna he won a fine game against Hans Kmoch by following the line Meier played today right up until move 10.

Alekhine took the white knight with his pawn – a move Houdini still approves of – while Meier went for the novelty 10…Bxe4. Alekhine followed up with 11…h5 and 12…g5 and won a crushing game, but while Meier eventually did play …h5 and even showed …h5 in combination with …g5 in the press conference (much to Naiditsch’s bewilderment), things didn’t follow the same scenario in 2013.

Naiditsch used an unprintable exclamation to express his emotions after spending 30 minutes mulling the consequences of 14.c6 Nb8!? only to see Georg Meier instantly respond 14…Nf6. That seemed to be a good practical choice, but after 15.Qxb5 a6 16.Qa4 Meier spoiled an apparently sound position with the terrible 16…Ne4?, admitting he’d “completely failed to realise” that he couldn’t follow exchanges on e4 with …f5 as d5 simply wins – Black can’t survive when White opens the d-file with a pawn on c6.

By this stage Meier was already in desperate time trouble and logically the game should simply have ended in a straightforward strategic victory, but perhaps some of the spirit of Alekhine returned as Meier seized his last chance with 20…Qh4. After 21.f4 White would be well on top, as Naiditsch realised, but he saw a “better” move:  “I thought 21.h3?! was just winning the game”. He admitted he’d simply blundered that he loses the a3-bishop after 21…a5 22.Qxb5 Qg3 23.fxe4 Qxe3+ 24.Kh1 Qxa3, and was lucky that he still had 25.Qb7!

Here Meier was down to seconds and understandably missed the stunning drawing line 25…Qd6!! 26.Qxa8 Ke7 27. e5 Qxd4 28.Qxh8 (28.Rad1 Qxd1!) Qxe5! and Black’s queen and bishop give perpetual check. It still wasn’t over, as a bad case of moving the wrong rook on move 29 gave Meier much more prosaic chances of holding a draw with 29…Qxd4! but after 29.Rxd6?? 30.Rxc3 Rxd4 31.c7! the fat lady was well and truly singing. Meier said he considered resigning on the spot but then decided to show the spectators the neat 31…Rc8 32.Rb1 Rb4 33.Rd1.

The last game to finish was surely the best game of the round in terms of quality. Fabiano Caruana was back at his imperious best when it came to preparation. After 16…Bg4 Adams was on the edge of what he knew, but said he decided to be “very ambitious” and play 17.Nd5!? Caruana confirmed that novelty was a very good move, but that confirmation was the whole problem! He was prepared for the line, even if he said he hadn’t looked at it for a year. After 17…Bxf3 18.Nxb6 Bxg2 19.Kxg2 Rxb6 20.f4 Adams said it “wasn’t a very pleasant surprise” that the paradoxical 20…d5 came instantly.

 Only White’s 22nd move made the young Italian stop to think, but from that point on it was a very even struggle. Adams identified 26…Rfg8 as the moment at which Caruana slipped, and thought 26…Qg5! would have been critical. After 27.Rf6! White was clearly on top, but although Adams felt White might have a win (34.h4! is the computer’s suggested improvement, though Adams wasn’t convinced when he was shown it after the game) it was very hard to prove anything. It was a game neither player deserved to lose and was eventually agreed drawn on move 50.

That leaves Caruana in the outright lead on 3/4, while Adams has mixed emotions. He’s played some of the most enterprising chess in Baden-Baden, but has only three draws and a loss to his name. As he jokingly summed it up in the press room: „A slight lack of points has been the problem. Not much has been going my way”

Full standings after 4 rounds of the GRENKE Chess Classic:

1. Caruana: 3
2. Naiditsch: 2.5
3. Anand, Fridman: 2
5. Adams: 1.5
6. Meier: 1

The key showdown in Monday’s round 5 looks set to be Anand – Naiditsch.

The full pairings are:

Caruana – Fridman
Meier – Adams
Anand – Naiditsch

Follow the live coverage on the GRENKE Chess Classic website from 15:00 CET: http://live.grenkechessclassic.com

Report: Colin McGourty Photos: Georgios Souleidis

W dniach 2-10 lutego odbył się „Moscow Open”. W turnieju „G” – Arcymistrzowskim Studenckim Kobiecym Turnieju Kołowym uczestniczyła nasza szachistka Karina Szczepkowska-Horowska.

Skład turnieju

1 Girya, Olga WGM Rosja 2467
2 Szczepkowska-Horowska, Karina WGM Polska 2378
3 Vasilevich, Irina IM Rosja 2370
4 Ziaziulkina, Nastassia WGM Białoruś 2367
5 Savina, Anastasia IM Rosja 2323
6 Saduakassova, Dinara WGM Kazachstan 2312
7 Drozdova, Dina Rosja 2286
8 Saulina, Varvara WF Rosja 2272
9 Pustovoitova, Daria FM Rosja 2257
10 Enkhtuul, Altanulzii WIM Mongolia 2153

Niestety nasza arcymistrzyni zawiodła nas wszystkich!

Końcowe wyniki

Strona turnieju

Wyniki

ChessBase News 1 (wersja niemiecka)
ChessBase News 2 (wersja niemiecka)

ChessBase News 1 (wersja angielska)

Dear chess friends,

Below you can find the official Round 3 Report on the GRENKE Chess Classic in Baden-Baden. Please feel free to use this report and the accompanying photos on your own websites, but please link to the official website (http://www.grenkechessclassic.com) and credit Georgios Souleidis for the photos and myself (Colin McGourty) for the text.

If you’d prefer not to receive press releases from the GRENKE Chess Classic please reply to this mail with „UNSUBSCRIBE” as the subject.

Best wishes,

Colin McGourty, GRENKE Chess Classic press team

—-

Note: the full version of this report including diagrams will shortly appear on the official website

Round 3: Bloodshed and violence

For the second day in a row Arkadij Naiditsch lit up the stage of the GRENKE Chess Classic, but on this occasion it was his opponent Fabiano Caruana who was the last man standing after a brutal time scramble. Elsewhere Viswanathan Anand failed to make headway against Georg Meier and Michael Adams’ long grind brought no dividends against Daniel Fridman, though it did at least prove his painful loss in round two hadn’t lessened his appetite for chess.

Meier began the press conference of his game against the World Champion by reusing Fridman’s line from the day before: “You didn’t fall asleep during my game?” It was the World Champion Anand who did most of the talking, however, and it was evident he was frustrated with his failure to get any sort of real play against an opponent he outrated by 140 points. It wasn’t for a lack of trying – Vishy explained he wanted unbalanced play and went for a “slightly unpredictable opening” where Black makes concessions in the centre to post a strong knight on b4. Meier in turn was dreaming of pushing his f-pawn to generate play on the kingside and leave the b4-knight far from the action. Neither plan materialised. Among all the subtleties discussed in the press conference it was the position after 20…Nd7 that provoked the strongest emotions.

Georg Meier played 21.Bf1, but Anand described 21.e4!? as “very complicated” and “the only way we could have got anything. I don’t know if White’s better but it seemed like the move to play”. A possible line would be 21…exd4 22. Nxe4 e5 23.Nd6 exd4 24.Re7 and suddenly both sides have chances. Vishy’s less technical description of the positions after 21.e4 was “a mess”, but instead we got a tidy and bloodless draw.

That was a plus for the GRENKE Chess Classic’s live broadcast, however, as the players were happy to comment on the state of play in the other games. They assessed Adams – Fridman as comfortable for White, with Vishy noting that “maybe 26.f5 was allowed too easily”. Meier, a Catalan expert himself, added that what was nice for White was that “you don’t need to think too much”. Nevertheless, it seemed Fridman had everything under control until he nearly became another victim to fall into Adams’ quietly woven webs: “The problem was I thought it was a completely equal rook ending. Then I relaxed for a while and played some inaccurate move and the position became quite unpleasant in time trouble.” In the end he escaped with a slight scare and a much-delayed dinner.

Saturday’s real action, however, came in the showdown between the early leaders, Fabiano Caruana and Arkadij Naiditsch. Caruana has made a habit of surprising his opponents with deep opening preparation in Baden-Baden, but in Round 3 the shoe was on the other foot. Naiditsch’s 8th move took him out of book, and 10…a5 provoked Caruana into 11.Kb1?, a move Naiditsch described as a “big positional mistake”. The problem was 11…a4! 12.Nc1 a3! and White’s king was open to the elements.

Naiditsch summed it up: “the bishop pair, the dark squares, you can’t get more in the Najdorf!” Chess is seldom easy, however, and from the press conference you got the impression that it was a question of what would triumph – Naiditsch’s optimism and belief in his position or Caruana’s objectivity? A case in point was the discussion of 17…Nd4, which Caruana apparently rightly flagged as an inaccuracy. Naiditsch’s response: “I thought I’m just winning!” Another view on the situation was provided by the World Champion, who liked White: “My hand is itching to take on d4, and it’s just very pleasant for White. Black’s pieces look uncoordinated and he has a very bad bishop on h6”. Anand would already have played the exchange sacrifice on move 19, but it was even better when Caruana played it on move 22.

That was only the prelude to the drama, and Caruana and eventually Naiditsch were left with perilously little time to navigate the hair-raising position that arose. They’d been there before, and Caruana told the press team afterwards that he’d drawn some comfort from the fact that Naiditsch had failed to win a similarly wild game in their last meeting in Dortmund. Back then Houdini assessed Naiditsch’s edge as over -7 while here his edge “only” reached -2, but Georg Meier, who was a fine co-commentator for IM Lawrence Trent, explained that you shouldn’t pay too much attention to the computer: “The problem is Black’s position is so close to strategically lost he needs to make the correct move every time”. Sure enough, Naiditsch faltered with 32…Qg2? instead of 32…Qxg3! and collapsed after 36.Ne7.

Meier greeted Naiditsch’s resignation after 36…g5? 37.fxg5 Bf8 38.Nf4! with: “It’s over. That’s why I came – to see some bloodshed and violence!” Trying to keep hold of the material with 38…Qf3 fails to the simple 39.Qxf3 Bxf3 40.Neg6+. „Blunder” perhaps isn’t the correct word for 36.g5?, however, as neither player had much faith in Black’s chances of survival after the only move, 36…g6! Again, computer evaluations are of little help when you’re on the stage with your clock’s flag about to fall.

That dramatic reversal of fortune put Fabiano Caruana back in the world Top 10 and leaves him in the driving seat of the inaugural GRENKE Chess Classic on 2.5/3. Anand, Naiditsch and Fridman are a point behind on 1.5, while Adams and Meier have 1 point each.

Round 4 pairings:

Fridman – Anand
Naiditsch – Meier
Adams – Caruana

The game of the day on paper will be Adams – Caruana. Can the multiple English Champion hold back the rising Italian star? Find out by following the live coverage on the GRENKE Chess website from 15:00 CET: http://live.grenkechessclassic.com

Report: Colin McGourty Photos: Georgios Souleidis

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4
Link 5
Link 6
Link 7

Dear chess friends,

Below you can find the official Round 2 Report on the GRENKE Chess Classic in Baden-Baden. Please feel free to use this report and the accompanying photos on your own websites, but please link to the official website (http://www.grenkechessclassic.com) and credit Georgios Souleidis for the photos and myself (Colin McGourty) for the text.

If you’d prefer not to receive press releases from the GRENKE Chess Classic please reply to this mail with „UNSUBSCRIBE” as the subject.

Best wishes,

Colin McGourty, GRENKE Chess Classic press team

—-

Note: the full version of this report including diagrams will later appear on the official website

Round 2: Naiditsch beats Adams after epic battle

Arkadij Naiditsch emerged victorious after a rollercoaster 7-hour game that saw the German no. 1 and Mickey Adams jockey for the initiative. That game overshadowed the sharp contest between Viswanathan Anand and Fabiano Caruana, where the young apprentice unleashed some more deep preparation to hold the champion at bay.

The game of the round sparked into life on move 26, when Adams attacked Naiditsch’s queen. The German responded with the spectacular 27.Rxd5! which Adams admitted he’d simply blundered. The minor problem is that taking the queen sees Black mated: 27…Rxf4?? 28.Rd8+ Kh7 29.Ng5+ Kh6 30.exf4!. However, the position was surprisingly still balanced, and after a passage of play in which both players rejected a draw by repetition it was Black who emerged with an extra pawn.

Adams confessed afterwards (for the second day in a row!), “I had no idea what was going on”. At first it seemed as though Naiditsch, angry at letting his earlier edge slip, was making the classic mistake of pushing too hard for a win, but towards the second time control Adams found himself in a tough situation. He thought it was already tough for a human to hold and considered himself practically lost after 50…fxe5. That explained his decided to jettison the exchange on move 56.

It was still all to play for, but Adams now had to tread a tightrope while Naiditsch was scenting blood. Exhaustion and time pressure finally had their way, and Mickey offered his hand on move 79. The players somehow found the energy to appear for a post-game press conference with IM Lawrence Trent hours after the other games had finished drawn.

Fabiano Caruana’s difficulties in last month’s Wijk aan Zee started with an early loss with the black pieces against Vishy Anand. Although that could of course happen to anyone, things soon went from bad to worse. When the dust had settled the young Italian had lost five games and almost 25 rating points, dropping not only out of the world Top 5 but also the Top 10. Caruana told the GRENKE Chess Classic press team that his performance there was the result of a whole combination of factors. One was that he was unwell for most of the event, but he was also without his coach Vladimir Chuchelov, who was focussing on one of his other students, Anish Giri.

Here in Baden-Baden Vladimir is accompanying Fabiano, and a repetition of the Wijk aan Zee scenario doesn’t seem to be on the cards. For the second day in a row Caruana demonstrated deep preparation and surprised the World Champion with 20…a5!?, a move Vladimir had recommended the night before instead of the previous grandmaster choice of 20…Nxg4. Vishy at first continued to play relatively quickly, but he lived to regret it – lamenting his “careless” 22.Ne3, which allowed Caruana to equalise with 23…d5! (Anand in the press conference: “I should have at least thought about this”) In the play that followed Caruana emphasised that both sides had a lot of options and he’d barely looked at Anand’s 25.Qb1. He thought his 26…Rad8 “maybe wasn’t the best” but after the crucial 28…e4! he was visibly confident in his position as he left the stage.

For a while it seemed as though the Italian might have a strong initiative against the white king, but the champion used all his experience to bring the game to a rock-solid draw. Anand joked about the near-symmetrical final position, “I thought here I was pushing him back, but it’s not up to much”.

The second game to finish was the 26-move draw between German grandmasters Daniel Fridman and Georg Meier. Fridman is a very funny man, and greeted IM Lawrence Trent in the press conference with, “you didn’t fall asleep?” True, it wasn’t spectacular chess to watch, but what emerged from the press conference was an insight into the subtleties that decide matters in the higher echelons of world chess. Meier revealed that “a lot happened in the early moves”, as Fridman managed to use a move-order trick to play a line of the Nimzo-Indian that Meier had successfully avoided in last year’s Dortmund tournament. Meier was left struggling to remember the analysis he’d done as a junior, while Fridman… claimed he hadn’t expected to succeed and also couldn’t remember the line!

The turning point in the game perhaps came on move 14. Fridman wasn’t yet low on time, but he explained his reasoning for playing 14.Bb4 instead of potentially more promising moves: “In some ways I just believed him. If I started to calculate all the variations I might play the same Bb4 but without time on the clock.” After that there was a lively tactical sequence featuring the nice zwischenzug 15.Qd4, but the game never left the bounds of equality and finished in a logical repetition of moves. Georg Meier is off the mark in Baden-Baden.

The highlight of Saturday’s Round 3 looks set to be Caruana – Naiditsch. Will Naiditsch’s satisfaction at winning be enough to overcome the exhaustion of today’s game? In the same fixture in Dortmund last year the Italian only escaped by the skin of his teeth. Full pairings:

Adams – Fridman
Caruana – Naiditsch
Meier – Anand

The games can be watched live with video commentary by IM Lawrence Trent on the GRENKE Chess website from 15:00 CET: http://live.grenkechessclassic.com

Report: Colin McGourty Photos: Georgios Souleidis

Źródło: Polska Wikipedia

Rafał Marszałek napisał: Zbyszek Doda przegrał dwuletnią walkę z nowotworem gardła. Odszedł we śnie.

Cześć Jego pamięci!