Wijk aan Zee, Round 5: Shirov 5-0; Nakamura-Carlsen a Tense Draw
Alexei Shirov continues to lead, and how. His win with Black over Loek van Wely puts him at 5-0, and extends his lead over the field to a point and a half. It's very impressive, but it should be remembered that except for his win over Peter Leko, the other four wins came against 2600s. Can he continue this hot streak, or at least avoid disaster, once he's facing the likes of Carlsen, Anand, Kramnik and Nakamura? (We won't find out tomorrow, as he plays another tail-ender, the last of the 2600s, Short.)
For now, things are going swimmingly on Planet Shirov. Meanwhile, in the war of the youth, Nakamura really pushed Carlsen hard, but Magnus just eked out a draw with some brilliant play. I've analyzed this game in some depth (the link is given at the end of the post). Ivanchuk remains tied for second as well, as he too just pulled out a draw against Short.
Solo fifth belongs to Kramnik, who notched his first victory of the tournament. It has seemed for years that Kramnik would play the Petroff against his own mother or even a vacuum cleaner, but apparently he draws the line at Smeets, whose total score in the tournament is just half a point. Kramnik played a Pirc(!) and won without much difficulty. (Will we ever see him play it again, I wonder.)
Leko-Anand was a short but not trivial draw, while Tiviakov-Karjakin and Caruana-Dominguez went longer but with the same result.
Standings after Round 5:
1. Shirov 5
2-4. Nakamura, Carlsen, Ivanchuk 3½
5. Kramnik 3
6-8. Anand, Dominguez, Karjakin 2½
9-11. Tiviakov, Caruana, Leko 2
12. Short 1½
13. van Wely 1
14. Smeets ½
Round 6 Pairings:
Anand - Carlsen (I assume Anand will get nothing from the opening, since he's hiding and saving all the good stuff for Topalov, so the question is probably whether Carlsen will push.)
Ivanchuk - Nakamura (A battle between two players in second place.)
Shirov - Short (6-0, anyone?)
Kramnik - van Wely (A good chance for Kramnik to gain ground on the leaders.)
Karjakin - Smeets (Ditto for another "K".)
Dominguez - Tiviakov
Leko - Caruana
In the B group, Anish Giri continued his hot play, defeating Emil Sutovsky (Giri's own comments are here). That put him in clear first when previous co-leader Ni Hua lost to David Howell. Howell is now in clear second with 3½, half a point behind Giri. Giri is "only" 2588, and as such the third-lowest seed, but the youngster is clearly improving in a hurry. (If this keeps up, he might be a triple qualifier for next year's group A: he can qualify by winning the B-group, by being a top Dutch player, and by having an enormous rating, period. It's still early, but his 2888 TPR puts him ahead of everyone in all three groups, excepting Shirov.) At 3 points, there's a large group consisting of Harikrishna, Ni Hua, Negi, L'Ami and Naiditsch.
In the C group, Ray Robson continues to be the story. He was under some pressure for a while against Peng Zhaoqin, but found his way clear despite his time trouble and then capitalized on a blunder to win. He has 4½ points, but Li Chao is only half a point behind.
More info here, tournament site here, and my comments to Nakamura-Carlsen here.
Reader Comments (8)
It also should be remembered that Shirov is beating the 2600 while the other big guns are only drawing with them! He has every possibility of getting to 6-0. Thats going to make for a lot of fighting chess in the second half! Go Shirov!
Dennis,
Care to explain your !!-annotation to Carlsen's 45 ... h7-h5!! in the Nakamura-Carlsen game?
Thanks
The course of the game pretty well answers the question for you, as Carlsen saves the game with various tricks using the h-pawn. (On other "normal" moves, Carlsen will have to defend passively and hope for the best, a strategy with excellent losing chances in such a position.)
Hey Dennis! I've been scouring the internet looking for some commentary on Smeets v. Ivanchuk, rd.3. Crowther of TWIC simply published the game score, confessing that he didn't understand where white had gone wrong. Indeed, it looks almost magical; black gives up the h pawn for a tempo and little visible positional compensation, white plays quite credibly, and yet it's mate in 13 around move 30. I haven't found comments on chessbase, chessvibes, etc. Is there something out there I've missed? And if not, would you care to provide some commentary for class players like myself?
Thanks!
@Chris Falter I have seen many annotations of that game already. All seemed to agree that Smeet's 23. Qe2? was the lights out. Suggesting instead that R3d5 maintained equality. I haven't had the time to analyze for myself if this is true but the annotations were from GMs not just engines so you can look for yourself.
@ Dennis
Did you hear the interview clip from ICC with Kramnik? When asked "why the pirc?" He said, "Well I wanted to win. So I picked up the book on my way out of the bookstore on the rest day." Apparently the book was Pirc Alert. He went on to say he thought many of the lines to be heavily biased towards black but that "the opening would do to complicate things for a win."
Hi Daniel,
I hadn't heard the ICC clip - was this during the live broadcast, or a standalone interview? I rarely listen to the commentary, but made an exception the other day for Svidler. When you get the chance to hear someone of his caliber in action, it's worth taking the time to listen. Anyway, that's interesting information, though while you're probably right about the identity of the book based on the claims of bias, Vigus's The Pirc in Black and White is very good and could be another candidate. If the story is true, it's funny that he would take it up so whimsically. As for Alburt, he should shout the quote from the rooftops.
The clip was played live but i'm hoping they add it to the rebroadcast interview clips on chess.fm
Yea, I like to listen especially to quality players like Svidler. They've had him three times now. I got to listen once live and the other two times relistened to the full 5 hour broadcast later on my own. Quality.
There are other Kramnik quotes on the opening, this one is from the tournament webpage:
"Why I chose the Pirc? I’ve been playing the Petroff almost all my life and I was afraid Jan was going to refute it. I’d still play the Petroff against Anand, against Carlsen, but against this guy … no way!"
Of course he must be joking - something we're more used to from Aronian. I also find it hard to believe that the decision to play a (for him) entirely new opening was made spontaneously on the rest day, and based on one book he happened to come across.
"Brian" on Mig's Dailydirt may have a point: "All this guff about seeing it in a book the day before is to have future "Smeets" wonder if they'll be facing the Pirc again!"
Anyway, as I will travel to Wijk aan Zee tomorrow I might as well check which books on the Pirc are for sale at the venue ,:) - unless they are all sold out, and the Pirc is suddenly played throughout the various amateur events!?