Dear chess friends,

Below you can find the official Round 10 Report on the GRENKE Chess Classic in Baden-Baden. Please feel free to use this report and the accompanying photos and videos on your own websites, but please link to the official website (http://www.grenkechessclassic.com) and credit Georgios Souleidis for the photos, Macauley Peterson for the videos and myself (Colin McGourty) for the text.

Thank you for all your coverage of the 2013 GRENKE Chess Classic!

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 10: Anand wins the GRENKE Chess Classic

The World Champion has won his first classical tournament in almost five years after an enthralling final day’s play in Baden-Baden. It started fast with Anand and Naiditsch blitzing out a rook ending that might have been drawn but ended in the German’s resignation on move 49. That left Caruana needing to beat Fridman to force a play-off, but he missed a gilt-edged chance in what fittingly became the longest game of the tournament.

Final rounds are sometimes dull, but there was every reason to hope for action at the GRENKE Chess Classic. No round had yet finished in three draws, and that was largely due to Arkadij Naiditsch’s seven decisive games in only nine rounds. He had the white pieces against Anand, and the players didn’t disappoint. Anand went for the Sicilian and followed the remarkable 1999 Kasparov vs. the World internet game, where „the world” played the Sicilian novelty 10…Qe6. Anand said he’d looked at the line and that particular game just before this tournament. Naiditsch deviated from Kasparov’s play with 14.Nc3, and after 14…Rxa8 15.Bg5 e6 16.Re1 he played 16…Nd5:

Anand: “Nd5 is a pretty ugly move to make, but I simply didn’t want to keep calculating with the queens on the board”. After 17.Nxd5 Qxd5 18.Qxd5 exd5 19.Rad1 h6 20.Bc1 d4 Black had doubled pawns, but they controlled the position, with the d4-pawn taking the c3- and e3-squares away from white rook and preventing the bishop dropping back to e3. Vishy thought his position was very good, but heaped condemnation on 24…a5?!, calling it a “terrible”, “horrible”, “embarrassing” and even “insane” move.

He preferred simply 24…Rc7. Although the move in the game is actually Houdini’s first choice it allowed Naiditsch to bail out into a rook ending with 25.b4! Rc2 26.bxa5 bxa5 27.Rxa5 Nd3 28.Ra7+ Kc6 29.Rxf7 Nxe1 30.Kxe1 Rxc1+ 31.Kd2 Rg1 32.Rxg7 Rxg2:

It seemed, at least from the speed with which Naiditsch was playing, that he had a draw worked out, but Anand thought his opponent, “really underestimated the position”, later commenting that “these rook endings are very, very tricky. You have to play them incredibly precisely”. Here Naiditsch quickly played 33. Ke1? and once again Anand didn’t mince his words, describing it as “a lemon” and “wrong on so many levels”. He thought his opponent had panicked about d3+ after the correct 33.Ke2!, but saw nothing to worry White in that line. In contrast to the game Naiditsch might have managed to queen his a-pawn.

33.Ke1? instead allowed Vishy to gain tempi for the pawn race by giving check – 33…Rxh2 34. Rxg6 Rh1+ 35. Kd2 – and he said he had the winning plan worked out around here. The moves continued to come at almost blitz pace until a shell-shocked Naiditsch resigned: 35…h5 36. Rh6 h4 37. a4 h3 38. a5 h2 39. a6 Kc7 40. Rh7+ Kb8 41. Ke2 d3+ 42. Kd2 Ka8 43. Rh5 Ka7 44. Rh6 d5 45. Rh8 Kxa6 46.Rh6+ Kb5 47. Rh8 Kc4 48. Rc8+ Kd4 49. Rh8 Ke4 0-1

Afterwards Anand reflected on his improved form this year, remarking that his last reasonably successful tournament before 2013 was Wijk aan Zee 2011, where he finished clear second behind Nakamura on +4. “After that basically I went over a cliff and the next five tournaments were pretty awful”. Wijk aan Zee this year also went well until the last round, with the champion commenting, “I was hoping I wouldn’t do a Wang Hao today!”

Anand added later in the press centre: “After Bilbao 2011 my big problem was getting interesting positions where I had chances. This year the new problem has been exploiting those chances – against Fridman here, Hou Yifan in Wijk aan Zee or last year against Nakamura and Adams at the London Chess Classic I’ve been gifting people half points. If it wasn’t for that my results would be much better. Still, it’s a hundred times better to have the second problem! I need to work on my technique.”

The second game of the day to finish was Adams-Meier. The players came into the final round level and with mathematical chances of winning the GRENKE Chess Classic, but they ended up playing a somewhat disjointed game. Meier’s openings have been impressive here in Baden-Baden, and although Adams noted “it’s not easy to play creatively in the final round” he tried to sidestep any preparation with 1.e4 e6 2.d3!?. Instead Meier relished the chance to sharpen play, with Adams summing things up: “I just wanted to get a kind of position where we both needed to think, but it didn’t really work as I was the only one thinking!”

After a confusing middlegame where Adams chose 13.Ne4?! instead of the natural 13.Nd5! and Meier then spent 40 minutes convincing himself not to play the obvious 13…Bf5!? the crisis came on move 19, when Adams blundered an exchange with 19.Nd2? His pieces apparently had plenty of room, and he half-joked afterwards, “how could my rooks possibly get trapped?”

Georg Meier was so happy that his opponent had blundered that he overlooked he could play 19…Nc2! and only then 20…Bd3. Instead his 19…Bd3?! allowed 20.Be4!, which discouraged his opponent to the extent that Meier didn’t take the exchange and played 20…Bxe4, after which the game soon fizzled out to a draw. Meier explained his thought processes: “I thought Mickey blundered and instead of winning I blundered straight back. I realised immediately what I’d just done so I tried to be solid.”

Adams described today’s game as his worst of the tournament, but ultimately didn’t feel he’d played badly in Baden-Baden: “I had very few opportunities when I had the advantage. When you play good players and they play well it’s not easy to win.” Meier joked that the spectators probably thought a new player had entered the tournament for the second half, in which he said he could have scored 4.5/5. He noted he’d perhaps made three mistakes in five games in the latter stages, while he was averaging 10 a game at the beginning.

That left only Fridman-Caruana, which kept the audience on tenterhooks for over seven hours. Fridman played the Exchange Slav, which doesn’t have the most combative of reputations, even if Jan Gustafsson in the commentary box noted that its “street cred” has improved since Alexander Morozevich and Vladimir Kramnik adopted the “weapon”, with the latter using it to beat Levon Aronian in one of the games of the 2012 Olympiad. On this occasion, however, the opening lived up to its reputation, with Fridman nursing a small edge deep into the middlegame. It was only in the run-up to the time control that the ice began to shift. Caruana now knew he needed a win, and his 32…Bg5 provoked his opponent into pushing his pawn to h4. Under normal circumstances that would have changed little, but Fridman was coming off a run of three losses in four games, and short of time he overlooked a simple pawn-winning tactic:

36.Bxd6? Qxd6+ 37.f4 Bxh4 An ending soon arose where Black was the clear favourite, but with both players exhausted and a play-off place up for grabs anything could still happen. Fridman had had a disappointing tournament overall, but he at least managed to demonstrate some endgame wizardry at the close with 54.f5+!.

After 54…exf5 (54…Kf7!? was another try) 55.Ne2 Kf7 56.Nf4 g5 57.Nxd5 Ke6 58.Nc7+ Kf7 59.Nd5 Bb4 60.Nxb6 pawns were suddenly level, although the Italian still had chances of disturbing Vishy Anand’s evening. The final chance came after 65.Ke2.

The 65…f4! break (or 65…g2 and then 66…f4) would have allowed the black king to rush towards the white pawns on b3 and a4. Caruana still had almost twenty minutes to think at this point, but his slow 65…Ke4? allowed 66.d5!. He still had a long time to contemplate the ruins of his position, but there was no longer any way to avoid an inevitable draw.

Caruana cut a disconsolate figure after the game, but retained his objectivity. Although his result couldn’t be called bad – he actually gained rating points – he was unhappy with his overall play and felt that his form had finally come back to haunt him in the last two games.

So World Champion Viswanathan Anand remained undefeated and took clear first place at the 2013 GRENKE Chess Classic.

Final standings:

1. Anand: 6.5
2. Caruana: 6
3. Meier: 5 (2 wins)
4. Adams: 5 (1 win)
5. Naiditsch: 4
6. Fridman: 3.5

Report: Colin McGourty  Photos: Georgios Souleidis Videos: Macauley Peterson

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NOTE ON VIDEOS:

You’re encouraged to embed Macauley Peterson’s 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/10th-round )

Anand post-game:

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Adams and Meier:

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Round 10:

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Dear chess friends,

Below you can find the official Round 9 Report on the GRENKE Chess Classic in Baden-Baden. Please feel free to use this report and the accompanying photos and videos on your own websites, but please link to the official website (http://www.grenkechessclassic.com) and credit Georgios Souleidis for the photos, Macauley Peterson for the videos 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 9: Anand catches Caruana

The script of the GRENKE Chess Classic had seemed to be carved in stone – a single decisive game a day, the World Champion struggling to win and Caruana surviving scares on his way to an inevitable first place – but in the penultimate round the script was tossed out of the window. Caruana fell to defeat against Adams, Anand joined him in the lead by beating Fridman, and Naiditsch was tamed by Meier.

The tiger from Madras has at times exhibited the frustration of a caged animal here in Baden-Baden, but he remains unbeaten and today chose the perfect moment to pounce. Although Anand was giving little away in the press conference, his victory over Daniel Fridman was obviously cooked up in his home laboratory.

Fridman had out-prepared Fabiano Caruana in the fashionable 5.Nc3 line of the Petroff in Round 5, but this time it was Anand who sprang a surprise in the classical main line. 20.Ra2 was a deviation on a 2009 game between Vladimir Akopian and one of Anand’s current seconds, Rustam Kasimdzhanov (who back then was seconded by Fridman himself!). After 20…b6 21.Rae2 Fridman took the bait, noting that capturing the pawn was the point of his 20…b6, so it was a little late to turn back now.

21…Bxa3!? Vishy’s venomous response was 22.Bg4!! which Fridman said he’d “blundered”, although GM Jan Gustafsson on the live commentary said such a quiet move was far from an obvious follow-up to the pawn sacrifice. The natural 22…Bxg4? loses instantly to 23.Nf6+! Houdini recommends the madness of 22…Be6! 23.Bxh6! Bxg4 24.Nf6+!… and at least initially claims a draw. Fridman’s 22…Rf8 was a decent human response, but after 23.Bxf5 Qxf5 24.Bxc7 Anand had re-established material equality while retaining an attack on Black’s uncoordinated forces. It was only after 24…Rd7 25.Be5 f6 26.Ng3 Qe6 27.Qa4, however, that the outcome of the game was determined.

27…fxe5! would have left Black only a pawn down, but Fridman’s 27…Nc4? ran into 28.Bd6! (he was only expecting 28.Bxf6). If 28…Qxd6 29.Qxc4+ Kh7 Black’s problem is that 30.Ra2 (and countless other moves) win the homeless a3-bishop – yet another reason to regret taking the poisoned pawn! In the game after 28…b5 Black was simply an exchange down, and things could have ended very quickly.

Fridman turned interviewer in the post-game press conference: “My main question about the game is why didn’t you just play 33.Rxb6! axb6 34. Ne2! and resigns?” Anand had a good rejoinder – “I never know what’s going to make my opponents resign,” but then admitted he’d simply missed that trick to trap the bishop. It made precious little difference. Anand played 33.Ra6, saying his plan was just “to sit there and hold it tight,” and he did, with Fridman eventually resigning on move 47.

Georg Meier probably wants this tournament to go on and on as his play, and especially his preparation, is improving by the round. He said Naiditsch had wanted to surprise him, but he was ready with the novelty 11.b3 (improving on a game Le Quang Liem had won after playing 11.Qf4 against Mickey Adams at the 2012 Olympiad) and had prepared the position up to 12.Ne5. Visually it looked nothing much for White, but Meier afterwards kept emphasising his long-term pressure, adding, “Black doesn’t have a clear plan and I have a ton of moves to improve my position”. The crisis came after 25…Na8?!

White was finally able to play 26.e4! and Naiditsch lashed out with 26…g5!? (a move he manages to make in most of his games with Black!), although here it was born of desperation. Meier explained there was little else Black could do about White advancing his f-pawn. Naiditsch’s brief flurry of activity on the kingside only resulted in his having to sacrifice an exchange to avoid positional strangulation. Meier summed it up: “I got everything I could dream of and just had to calculate a straightforward win”.

The finishing touch to Meier’s strategic triumph came just after the time control with 42.Rd1! White threatens mate after either white rook goes to d8, and Naiditsch could only avoid the mate by entering a trivially lost rook vs. knight ending. Meier was of course happy to claim his second win, but he had some slight regrets: “I’m a little bit sad – I’d prefer to take points off Fabiano than off my friends”.

The last game to finish was a fiendishly complex Catalan battle between Fabiano Caruana and Michael Adams. In terms of the tournament standings the young tournament leader really only needed a draw. When he avoided a possible repetition guest commentator Jan Gustafsson joked, “there’s something in the code of a 2750 GM forbidding early repetitions with the white pieces”. As the game went on it became clear Fabiano wanted to win, and his 25.g4!? was already double-edged.

Mickey Adams said afterwards that 31.f3-f4?! was a strategic error. He felt Caruana was hoping to win the d5-pawn but had underestimated 31…Qe6! when the focus switches to the e3-pawn and it’s White on the defensive. Adams later played Bf6-h4-f2 to up the pressure, and although Caruana managed to hold things together until the time control his draw offer after 41.Nxe4 was a little optimistic. Adams saw that he was running no risks by continuing 41…dxe4 42.Qd1 Qf7! (a multi-purpose move that stops Qh5, hits b3 and prevents d5) 43.Rg1 Kh7 Adams played this last move because, in his words, “it’s very hard for White to make a move that doesn’t lose material”. Sure enough, Caruana went wrong immediately with 44.Qe1?

It was a tense moment for the audience watching both in the hall and on-line, but Adams had actually been contemplating the winning 44…Ne5! for a few moves now. White’s position collapsed like a house of cards: 45.Qb1 Ng4 46.h3 Nf2+ 47.Kh2 Qh5 48. Kg3. Black had all kinds of ways to take home the full point, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with Adams’ 48…Nxh3! 49. Bxh3 Rg6+. As he said after the game: “After so many rounds without a win I was very happy when I saw a safe continuation.”

Round 9 wreaked havoc on the tournament situation. Not only are Anand and Caruana now locked together on 5.5 points, but the only other players with a chance of catching them on the final day are Adams and Meier – something you would have given long odds against just a round or two ago.

1-2. Anand, Caruana: 5.5/9
3-4. Adams, Meier: 4.5
5. Naiditsch: 4
6. Fridman: 3

As you can see, Naiditsch and Fridman have no winning chances, but they still have an absolutely crucial role to play. Fridman, known for his solidity, has the white pieces against Caruana, while Naiditsch, whose fighting chess has made him the man of the tournament, has White against the World Champion. In case of a tie for first place a play-off will be played.

Fridman – Caruana
Adams – Meier
Naiditsch – Anand

Don’t miss our live coverage of the final games on Sunday 17 February. Play starts TWO HOURS EARLIER THAN USUAL at 13:00 CET! http://live.grenkechessclassic.com

Report: Colin McGourty  Photos: Georgios Souleidis Videos: Macauley Peterson

——————————————————

NOTE ON VIDEOS:

You’re encouraged to embed Macauley Peterson’s 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/9th-round )

Anand and Fridman:

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Meier and Naiditsch:

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Caruana and Adams:

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Round 9 in full:

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Dear chess friends,

Below you can find the official Round 8 Report on the GRENKE Chess Classic in Baden-Baden. Please feel free to use this report and the accompanying photos and videos on your own websites, but please link to the official website (http://www.grenkechessclassic.com) and credit Georgios Souleidis for the photos, Macauley Peterson for the videos 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 8: History repeats itself

Fabiano Caruana has taken a huge stride towards winning the inaugural GRENKE Chess Classic by once again defeating Arkadij Naiditsch from a lost position. Viswanathan Anand was unable to match the young Italian as he failed to convert an advantage against Georg Meier, while birthday boy Daniel Fridman was happy to stop the rot with a solid draw against Michael Adams.

Fridman had suffered two tough losses in rounds 6 and 7 and clearly had few Napoleonic plans for his game against Adams. Until move 12 they were following the game Gawain Jones played against Adams on top board in Round 4 of the recent tournament in Gibraltar. Jones tweeted, “Fridman using an old line against the Nimzo that I played against Mickey in Gibraltar. I managed an edge so Mickey deviated with 12…Qe5”. In that earlier game Adams had castled queenside immediately and ended up worse, though he eventually drew. The most curious moment of today’s game came on move 14.

Kramnik and Gelfand are among those who’ve played 14…Qa5+, but Adams saw some ghosts after 15.b4?! and instead came up with 14.Bc6?! Fridman was very puzzled: “The whole idea of this 11.Ne2, 14.Nd4 line is to prevent Bc6, which is why it was surprising that after 20 minutes Mickey played it anyway!” It certainly looked strange, but after queens were swapped off any outcome other than a draw looked improbable. Fridman wasn’t complaining: “After two losses in a row you want such a position – not a big risk and if Black makes some inaccuracies…” IM Lawrence Trent offered to commentate in his underpants for Round 9 if the game ended decisively, but fortunately that was avoided (with meteors and asteroids the world has been shaken enough for one day!). Fridman did show an amusing line at the end where he walks his king into mate: “I could have played 35.Kb5 Kd7 36.Ka6 Nc7 mate, but that would be Mickey’s birthday not mine”.

World Champion Viswanathan Anand was downhearted in today’s post-game press conference, lamenting that he’d “blown his game” and spoiled an ending that “must be technically winning, somehow”. In the end he’d been the one who had to find only moves to force a perpetual in a pawn race he described as “a mess – I had no idea what was going on”.

In had all started off very differently. Meier’s pet 7…Nd5 line in the Rubinstein French had been dealt a powerful blow in his first round game against Caruana (GM Dmitry Kryakvin wrote a fine article about that in Russian for the Russian Chess Federation website), so he varied today with 7…Bd6. The opening seemed to go fine for the German except that the World Champion was obviously well-prepared. 16…Kg8 (instead of 16…f5!?) was flagged as an inaccuracy by Meier, who’d missed Anand’s later zwischenzug 20.Qg3!

After 20…Kh7 21.Bd2 Qa4 (maybe 21…Qa6 was better) 22.b3 White was on top, and there were flashes of the Anand of old as he moved quickly and confidently, for instance playing 29.Ba5 instantly and with a flourish. It was clear the champion felt it would just be a matter of time before he picked up one or more of Black’s pawns and converted a full point. The curious thing for this observer, at least, was that Meier was also playing quickly, with the players reaching the time control with 30 minutes to spare each. He explained afterwards that it wasn’t a case of confidence in his position but simply that it was relatively straightforward to play, and his one idea was to push his h-pawn as he did in the game. Anand regretted playing 40.Bxc5.

That allowed Meier to play 40…Rd1! and use his rook to harass White’s kingside pawns, but it seems Meier was correct to point out that 40.Kc1 wouldn’t be a huge improvement after 40…Be4!. In fact, despite Anand’s disappointment it’s not clear that either player went far wrong in the ending. When Adams and Fridman discussed the game in their press conference they realised it was White who had to be careful as the h-pawn couldn’t be stopped. It looked daunting, but both players had seen the drawing lines. 51.Rd5! ensured White also queened and Meier was unable to prevent the white queen and bishop from delivering perpetual check. All in all, despite the misgivings of the participants, it seems it was objectively a well-played game.

Not for the first time here in Baden-Baden it was Arkadij Naiditsch who ensured the spectators wouldn’t be deprived of spectacular attacking chess, though Fabiano Caruana is fast becoming his nemesis. First Naiditsch only managed to draw an overwhelming position against the Italian in last year’s Dortmund tournament, and now Caruana has twice actually won when all the odds have been stacked against him.

Naiditsch started the game by playing the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez, which Caruana admitted he hadn’t looked at despite having lost to Naiditsch in the same line back at the 2009 European Championship. The Italian knew he was in for a hard day when he realised that after 16.Kh1 his intended 16…Bc5 runs into 17.Nd5!. He was forced to allow 16…Qc6 17.Nd4! Qb6 18.Ndf5! Bc5 19.Qe1!, and Caruana could find nothing better than inviting the onslaught with 19…g6!?, though he had no illusions about the solidity of Black’s position. Indeed, after 20.Nh6+ Kg7 21.g4 Bb7 22.g5 Nh5 23.Be5+ f6 24.gxf6+ Nxf6 it turned out White had a clear win.

25.Rd1!!, leaving both white knights en prise, was the move. The main line is 25…Bxe3 26. Rd7+! Kxh6 (26…Kh8 27. Ng4!) 27. Qh4+ Nh5 28.Bg7 mate. Adams commented that the rook move was something that might have been played on general principles, as it’s obviously good to include another piece in the attack. Naiditsch still had a whirlwind attack after 25.Neg4, however, and it was only after 25…Bd4 26.Bxd4 Qxd4 27.Rd1 Qxb2 that the game was turned on its head.

After the game a dejected Naiditsch was asked about missed wins and exclaimed, “I think there were 10 – I counted 8, but maybe I missed some!” This was the moment when he felt at least two of them slipped. 28.c3!, blocking the queen, was the move Naiditsch was originally planning to play and was also apparently suggested by Hikara Nakamura, an interested observer of the live commentary. The players also noted 28.Qg3! and despite Houdini’s evaluations Caruana said after the game that he hadn’t seen a defence against either move (by this stage he also had well under a minute a move).

Instead Arkadij played 28.Nxf6????? (the question marks are his own), when after 28…Qxf6 29.Ng4 Qf4! it was Black who was in the driving seat. Naiditsch’s best bet was perhaps to exchange off queens and try to survive an ending a pawn down, but he decided his best chances were in complications. Caruana didn’t see everything (for instance, 36…Bxg4! 37.hxg4 b4! wins on the spot as White can’t defend f3), but he saw enough. The last truly tense moment came when Caruana had 30 seconds left to make the time control.

Caruana saw the spectacular 40…Rd8!, though he was worried he’d missed something after 40…Nd7 c5! (he hadn’t!). All his good work could have been undone with 40…Qh6?, but he kept his full advantage with 40…Qf5! Caruana felt afterwards that he’d made things difficult for himself at the end, but not for the first time in this tournament when you check the moves with a computer it turns out he played with computer-like precision. He may be living dangerously, but don’t believe anyone who suggests the Italian’s success is down to luck.

So with only two rounds to go Fabiano Caruana now leads World Champion Viswanathan Anand by a full point.

1. Caruana: 5.5/8
2. Anand: 4.5
3. Naiditsch: 4
4-5. Adams, Meier: 3.5
6. Fridman: 3

Anand will have to go all out to beat Fridman in Saturday’s Round 9 and hope that Caruana can’t beat Adams. The full pairings for the penultimate round are:

Anand – Fridman
Meier – Naiditsch
Caruana – Adams

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

While the GRENKE Chess Classic is just about to reach its climax the Elo Open accompanying the main event ended today. Draws on the top four boards saw French top-seed Etienne Bacrot claim first with 7/9. There was a three-way tie on 6.5, with India’s Parimarjan Negi taking silver and Argentina’s Ruben Felgaer bronze. Tornike Sanikidze from Georgia was unlucky to miss out on a prize on tiebreaks. You can play through games from the tournament at the GRENKE Chess Classic website: http://grenkechessclassic.de/en/grenke-chess-classic/games and find the full results at Chess-Results: http://www.chess-results.com/tnr87512.aspx?lan=1

Report: Colin McGourty  Photos: Georgios Souleidis Videos: Macauley Peterson

——————————————————

NOTE ON VIDEOS:

You’re encouraged to embed Macauley Peterson’s 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/8th-round )

Round 8:

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Fridman and Adams:

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Anand and Meier:

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Naiditsch and Caruana:

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Dear chess friends,

Below you can find the official Round 7 Report on the GRENKE Chess Classic in Baden-Baden. Please feel free to use this report and the accompanying photos and videos on your own websites, but please link to the official website (http://www.grenkechessclassic.com) and credit Georgios Souleidis for the photos, Macauley Peterson for the videos 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 7: Caruana leads as Meier claims first win

There was no love lost between the GRENKE Chess Classic players on Valentine’s Day, with tense fights on all three boards. It was only long after the first time control that Caruana-Anand and Adams-Naiditsch were agreed drawn, leaving Meier and Fridman to uphold the tradition of each round featuring a decisive game. Sure enough, after six hours Georg Meier banked his first win.

If you were going to bet on a decisive result in Round 7 you’d be unlikely to look much further than Arkadij Naiditsch. The German firebrand seemed well on his way to prolonging his streak of five decisive games in a row when he played the provocative 9…g5!? against Michael Adams (Magnus Carlsen once lost a pre-Biel blitz game to Etienne Bacrot after 9…Qa5). It looked close to madness against a positional master like Adams, although the Englishman told Naiditsch afterwards in the press conference that after 10.Be5 Bg7 11.Bd6 he’d expected the mayhem of 11…Nb6!? 12.Nb5 Nc4 13.Nc7+  – “more in your style!”. After the 11…Nb8?! retreat White seemed to have an almost dream position, but when queens were exchanged Naiditsch felt the worst was over. Adams summed the game up: “I had a very nice position and then I gradually made it worse, steadily move by move, but not quite enough to lose.” Adams grip evaporated when he went for a tactical sequence on move 24. Although he was able to eliminate Black’s queenside pawns he ended up living dangerously in time trouble.

Adams said he’d “for some reason” assumed Naiditsch had to play 36…Kg6 and that “it starts to become a bit unpleasant for White” after 36…Kg4! The white king ended up boxed in the corner, but the ensuing position was one where even Naiditsch was forced to acknowledge a draw was inevitable.

The other draw between Viswanathan Anand and Fabiano Caruana involved even more subtle manoeuvring, and there was more at stake – any decisive outcome was likely to determine the fate of the tournament. Anand admitted afterwards he’d been on the ropes, identifying 16…Rab8?! and 24…Rb6?! as mistakes: “The rook just gets in the way. It’s already unpleasant for Black. He may objectively be ok, but it’s not a fun position to play.” Anand had thought the white knight was never going to get to d5, but when it did with 41.Nd5 he explained the time the players were taking with, “White is very close to winning”.

Caruana’s domination of the light squares makes a nice impression, but as with the Adams-Naiditsch game neither the players nor the computer could come up with a convincing way for White to exploit his domination. Anand was pleased with some accurate moves at around this stage, starting with 41…Ba5!, though it’s worth noting as a curiosity that after 42.Kf4 h6 43.Re4 Bd8 44.Kg3 h5, when Caruana accepted Anand’s draw offer, Houdini rates the line with 45.h4 as better for White than any other position that occurred in the game.

The one win of the round saw Georg Meier leapfrog Daniel Fridman out of bottom place. Meier finally converted a good position resulting from some more fine preparation with White – he mentioned 12.Nbd2 had been a novelty when he checked it – but it was in many ways a self-inflicted defeat for Fridman. When the two players met in Round 2 Fridman took a pragmatic decision, commenting, “If I started to calculate all the variations I might play the same but without time on the clock.” That was exactly his problem in Round 7:

Fridman spent 40 minutes weighing the merits of 17…Qxb6, 17…Rxd1+ and the move he eventually played, 17…Qxc2. Then after 18.Rxd8+ he burned more time choosing between 18…Bxd8 and 18…Rxd8, eventually leaving himself under ten minutes for fifteen moves. Some fantastic lines were aired in the post-game press conference, but as Daniel explained, “the best solution was just to play something, but quicker!” The end result was Fridman overlooking that a long sequence of play simply ended with the b4-pawn dropping, although even the ending a pawn down left him with chances. As it happened, it was mainly a chance to commit another classical psychological error.

Fridman described 41…Nd6?! as a typical 41st move, where a chess player is so relieved to make the time control with seconds to spare that he rushes and blunders on the next move. Both Fridman and Meier thought 41…Ne4! would offer more chances, with Georg noting his pieces were poorly coordinated. After that Meier’s pawns advanced inexorably, with some help from his opponent, but that wasn’t quite the end. The players continued even after Meier queened a pawn (at the second time of asking). Fridman was drawn to the idea of positions where a pawn and knight can compete with a queen, but Meier kept his cool and took home the full point: “I was seeing some ghosts, but not so many”.

Although that game transformed the standings at the bottom Fabiano Caruana continues to lead:

1. Caruana: 4.5
2-3. Anand, Naiditsch: 4
4-5. Adams, Meier: 3
6. Fridman: 2.5

The pairings for Friday’s Round 8 mean Meier has no time to rest on his laurels. He said after today’s game that it’s been a recent trend for him to do well with White and terribly with Black (before it was the opposite) – so facing the World Champion with the black pieces could be tricky. The full pairings are:

Fridman – Adams
Naiditsch – Caruana
Anand – Meier

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

Report: Colin McGourty  Photos: Georgios Souleidis Videos: Macauley Peterson

——————————————————

NOTE ON VIDEOS:

You’re encouraged to embed Macauley Peterson’s 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/7th-round )

Caruana – Anand:

<iframe src=”http://new.livestream.com/accounts/2700783/events/1873481/videos/11603365/player?autoPlay=false&height=360&mute=false&width=640” width=”640″ height=”360″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”></iframe>

Adams – Naiditsch:

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Meier-Fridman

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Round 7 in full:

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Dear chess friends,

Below you can find the official Round 6 Report on the GRENKE Chess Classic in Baden-Baden. Please feel free to use this report and the accompanying photos and videos on your own websites, but please link to the official website (http://www.grenkechessclassic.com) and credit Georgios Souleidis for the photos, Macauley Peterson for the videos 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 6: Naiditsch wins a stunning game

“The guy’s on fire – he’s been like this for weeks!” That was World Champion Viswanathan Anand on Arkadij Naiditsch, who today overwhelmed Daniel Fridman with a brilliant sacrificial attack to move into second place at the GRENKE Chess Classic. Elsewhere Georg Meier missed a nice win against Fabiano Caruana, while Vishy and Mickey Adams drew a well-played game.

The other games in Round 6 were totally overshadowed by the goings on in Fridman – Naiditsch. When IM Lawrence Trent welcomed Adams and Anand into the live broadcast room with, “we were getting distracted,” Anand immediately flashed back, “so were we!” The players then spent the next ten minutes analysing that game before getting to their own, although their game was actually only dull in comparative terms.

Anand managed to surprise his English opponent with the early 9.Nc3 in a Ruy Lopez, but Adams held his own in the strategic wrestling that ensued. Black’s knight on b7 looked awkward, but Anand noted, “Black can live with that weakness until the queenside is opened up”. He thought the bishop on e7 was holding Black’s position together and decided to swap it off with 17.Bg5, and after 17…Rae8 18.a4! it seemed Anand was applying pressure. He identified the moment he went wrong as coming after 21…axb5. He played 22.Qd2?! and commented: “Usually when you make sophisticated moves like this it means you’ve lost track somewhere” (the blunt 22.Rc1 may be better). After that Adams equalised with energetic play in the centre, where he pushed his e-pawn and found the nice geometric 29…Rxe3!

Anand had seen a clear way to stifle any black initiative, however, with the precise 30…Qb6. The players showed some nice lines they’d been considering in the latter stages (e.g. 35. Rc1 Rc8 36. Nd4 Nd6 37. Nc6 and Black has the only move 37…Ra8! to equalise, as 38. Rxc5 Ra1+! 39. Kf2 Ne4+ loses a rook). Essentially, though, they had other things on their minds. Adams: “39.Rc5 immediately was no good because we have to wait to move 40 to offer a draw!”.

We can’t put off the Fridman – Naiditsch game any longer! After his fifth draw in a row in Round 5 Fridman had joked that he was now “the only solid player left in the tournament”, while Naiditsch’s results in Baden-Baden could be mistaken for binary notation. Something had to give, and it was Naiditsch who continued his streak of decisive games with a mind-blowing effort. His intentions were clear from the moment he played the King’s Indian Defence. Perhaps 13…Kh8!? was a novelty (Naiditsch and his friend Etienne Bacrot just burst into laughter when asked about theory after the game), but Pandora’s Box was only opened when Fridman played 21.Bd3!? (he was considering 21.Qd3 and later deeply regretted not playing it). Naiditsch unleashed 21…Ndf3+!! It took even Houdini a while to realise that this brilliant knight sacrifice is absolutely sound.

There followed 22.gxf3 Qd7 23.Be2 Rf6 and Naiditsch thought he was winning almost immediately as he’d missed the move his opponent found here: 24.Nd5! Fridman explained his problem was that this move took him too much time. He’d thought he could defend with 24.Ne3 Qh3 25.Ng4 Bxg4 26.fxg4, which even wins against every move other than the problem he discovered: 26…Raf8! (with …Rfh6 to follow).

For a computer White’s position still holds, but it’s hard for a human to avoid all the beautiful mates – for instance, after 24…Rh6 25.f4 Nh3+ 26.Kg2 Lawrence Trent in the commentary box showed the fantastic line: 26…Nxf4+ 27.Kf3 Rh2!! (Fridman: “If you find Rh2 you get disqualified immediately”) 28.Bxh2 (objectively the king should flee to the queenside, but few would bet on it surviving…) 28…Qh3+ 29.Bg3 Ng2!! and mate can’t be stopped. In the game Naiditsch played the equally good 26…exf4.

Fridman understandably retreated the bishop with 27.Bh2. Although Houdini claims 27.Nd4! should hold the super-GM commentators couldn’t work out why and as Fridman explained: “It’s not a blunder. There are too many moves and I only had 4 minutes”. Naiditsch played a very strong sequence of moves: 27…f3! 28.Bxf3 Ng5 29.Nf4 Rxh2+! 30.Kxh2 Be5 (here and on the next move the computer recommends …Qf7!, as after the moves in the game White is still hanging on) 31.Kg2 Bxf4 32.Rh1 Qg7 33.Kf1 Be6 34.Nd4 Bc4+ 35.Be2 Nxe4! 36. Bxc4 This was ultimately the losing move. After the game Fridman suggested 36.Nf3, although here that solidifying try fails to 36…Nxf2!, but he could have prepared it first with 36.Rg1! and Black may end up only slightly better. Still, that would have deprived us of perhaps the moment of the game after 36…Nd2+ 37. Ke2:

Black should be doing well after simply taking the bishop with 37…Nxc4, but he needs to avoid the cunning trap Fridman had seen during the game: 37…Qxd4?! 38.Rxh7!! Kxh7 39.Qh1+ when the black king is suddenly also in danger. The computer, however, was showing the remarkable 37…d5!! as by far the best move. It turns out that diabolical jab renders White totally helpless – there’s no way to save material and 38.Bxd5 is mate after 38…Re8+ 39. Kd3 Qg6+. Still, the consensus in the press room, which included some very strong kibitzers, was that it was unlikely the move would be played. After Naiditsch made it World Champion Vishy Anand simply uttered, “very impressive”.

Fridman found the best move in response, but the forced sequence that followed led to an ending that White had no chances of saving. Resignation came on move 45, but it was noticeable that Fridman was far from downhearted after the game – in chess you still need two players to compose a masterpiece.

For the sixth day in a row one game – no more and no less – finished decisively at the GRENKE Chess Classic, but that’s something of a statistical anomaly. Georg Meier was one move away from pulling off a sensation in his game against the tournament leader Fabiano Caruana. It wouldn’t have been against the run of play, as the Italian was unhappy with how he played the opening. He said his plan with 13…g5 and 14…g4, “was probably a bit ambitious – the pawn on g4 just turned out to be a little weak”, and added, “the position looks normal but I just didn’t see any plan”. He explained the concrete problems for Black with an “attacking” line where he wins the h2-pawn but is going to get crushed in the centre after 15…Qa5?! 16. Bd2 dxc4 17. bxc4 Qh5 18. c5 Qxh2+ 19. Kf1.

In the play that followed Black was always living on the edge (Caruana regretted not including a well-timed …a6) but ultimately the Italian solved his problems… with a blunder! 29…Bxd4?

The win is surprising and pretty, but also forced and relatively simple: 30. Qf4!! Qc8 (30…Qxf4 loses a piece) 31. Bxf5 Bxb2 32.Rxd7 Rxd7 33.Rxd7 Qxd7 and after everything has been traded off there’s the final blow 34. Qb8+, and mate. The players explained afterwards that they’d missed that line because they were both calculating another much more complicated forced line: 30.Bxf5 Bxb2 31.b6 axb6 32.cxb6 Qc8 33.Bxe6 Rxd3 34.Bxc8 Rxd1+ 35.Kg2 R1d4 36.Qe2 Rxc8 37.Qxb2 Rxa4 and the position’s equal. In the game everything was exchanged on d4, but even the nice finesse 33.Bh7+! couldn’t bring Meier anything more than a drawn queen ending.

That draw means that Fabiano Caruana continues to lead on 4/6, while Arkadij Naiditsch joins Viswanathan Anand in second place on 3.5. The full standings are:

1. Caruana: 4/6
2-3. Anand, Naiditsch: 3.5
4-5. Adams, Fridman: 2.5
6. Meier: 2

In the same venue as the GRENKE Chess Classic a strong 9-round open tournament is also being played. With two rounds to go we finally have a sole leader – Argentina’s Ruben Felgaer, who today defeated Tornike Sanikidze. He face a tough challenge in Round 8 as he’s drawn against top seed Etienne Bacrot, who’s currently clear second only half a point behind. You can find all the tournament results at Chess-Results (http://www.chess-results.com/tnr87512.aspx) and also play through a selection of games at the GRENKE Chess Classic website (http://grenkechessclassic.de/en/grenke-chess-classic/games – take a look at some of Felgaer’s final moves!).

The pairings for Thursday’s Round 7 could prove crucial for the final tournament standings:

Meier – Fridman
Caruana – Anand
Adams – 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 Videos: Macauley Peterson

——————————————————

NOTE ON VIDEOS:

You’re encouraged to embed Macauley Peterson’s 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/6th-round )

Anand-Adams:

<iframe src=”http://new.livestream.com/accounts/2700783/events/1873473/videos/11543894/player?autoPlay=false&height=360&mute=false&width=640” width=”640″ height=”360″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”></iframe>

Fridman-Naiditsch:

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Meier-Caruana:

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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:

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Caruana-Fridman:

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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>

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

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

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

Dear chess friends,

Below you can find the official Round 1 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” in the title.

Best wishes,

Colin McGourty, GRENKE Chess Classic press team

—-

note: the full version of this report including diagrams can be found here: Link

Round 1: Caruana off to a flying start

When Baden-Baden hosted arguably the world’s first supertournament back in 1870 it began in mid-July. 143 years later February snow was falling on the German spa town as tournament director Sven Noppes welcomed the players onto the stage. Things soon warmed up, however – Adams and Anand threw caution to the wind, Naiditsch and Fridman engaged in a fierce struggle, but it was Caruana who claimed the day’s only win. The Italian trapped Georg Meier’s king in the centre before ruthlessly applying the finishing touches.

Chess players have a reputation for iron logic, but in their press conference after a dazzling game both World Champion Viswanathan Anand and England’s no. 1 Michael Adams revealed that logic only takes you so far. When commentator IM Lawrence Trent started by asking the players how they were Adams replied, “Good… confused by the game”. The confusion started on move 16.

Adams explained his first thought was, “16.Nd2 is a draw, but such is life – move on”. He’d dismissed 16.f4, but then thought, “Black has so many options that one of them must be good, but which one? Let’s see what happens!” Suddenly Vishy was also faced with a dilemma – all kinds of exchange sacs on e4 are possible and the rook can also simply retreat to e8, but the World Champion claimed his decision was also impulsive: “For some reason I started to like the idea of 16…Rh5, so I decided it was worth a punt”. The rest of the game was perhaps best summed up by Adams: “I was very suspicious of Rh5 – I was completely unable to refute it in any way, but it looked a very funny move.” After 17.e5 Nd7 18.Qe2 Rh4 19.e6 things looked dicey for Anand, but 19…Nc5! showed he had the situation under control, even if he still felt Black needed to be very accurate in the play that followed.

Both players were in good spirits afterwards. In the position following 27…Qd7 Adams regretted playing a3. They discussed alternatives, but Vishy brought the discussion to a close by joking, “it would have been a reasonable bluff just to play Rad1 and see if I have the guts to take on a2!”

The hero of the round was the Italian/American prodigy Fabiano Caruana. He started 2013 with a disastrous tournament in Wijk aan Zee, no doubt a shock to the system after a phenomenally successful 2012. In Baden-Baden he bounced straight back, winning a fine game against Georg Meier. Fabiano blitzed out his first 19 moves, featuring two pawn sacs to keep Meier’s king in the centre, while his German opponent was soon struggling over the board. Although Caruana stopped for a long think before playing 20.Qd3 he revealed afterwards that he simply couldn’t remember all the details of his preparation and suddenly worried that Black’s position would be hard to break down after about 20…Kc8. Meier instead played 20…Nd7 and after 21.b4 Bb6 22.a4 a6 (Meier: “after this I’m just lost”) 23.a5 Ba7 (this is definitely the last nail in the coffin) Caruana’s next move left Black almost in zugzwang: 24.Bf4!

Suddenly the king is caught in a lethal trap. Meier had seen this move in advance, but pinned his hopes on 24…g5 25.Bg3 g4 only to now realise his opponent had 26.Qe2! and mate can only be avoided with heavy loss of material. Meier instead played 24…Nb8, which Caruana described as “losing on the spot”. In what followed both on the board and on Meier’s lips in the press conference the dominant word was “desperate” as the young German tried to set up traps. Caruana felt he could have been more clinical, but he had no trouble with the mopping up operation.

The last game to finish was the all-German (or even all-Latvian-German) battle between Arkadij Naiditsch and Daniel Fridman. It bore a strong resemblance to Wang Hao – Anand from the final round of Wijk aan Zee, where the Chinese grandmaster somewhat spoilt Anand’s fine tournament with an impressive win. In that game Wang Hao traded off the dark-squared bishops, but Naiditsch instead “maintained the tension” by keeping the bishops on the board with 16.Be3 (a move he criticised after the game). The critical moment perhaps came after 19…Qe5.

IM Lawrence Trent explained for the internet audience that White has no discovered attacks on the black queen as the d4-knight would fall, and that when Black plays Bb4-d6 next move the white king will be in real danger. As it happened 20.Rd1 was followed by 20…Ne4, and the game fizzled out to a draw – though perhaps the process would better be described as a long, slow burn.

So Fabiano Caruana leads after the first round of the GRENKE Chess Classic, but he faces a real test in Thursday’s round two. He has Black against the tournament’s co-favourite, Viswanathan Anand. Don’t miss our live coverage starting at 15:00 CET.

Fridman – Meier
Anand – Caruana
Naiditsch – Adams

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Partie I rundy