Wijk aan Zee, Round 7: The Kids are Alright
Saturday, January 23, 2010 at 11:47AM Alexei Shirov is still in first - it was impossible for him not to be, since he started the round with a 1.5 point lead - but that doesn't seem likely to last for long. Hikaru Nakamura pretty convincingly outplayed him on the White side of a Sveshnikov Sicilian (the 5...e5 Sveshnikov, not the 2.c3 Sveshnikov). Black's position became a collection of weaknesses, and Nakamura's 38.c5 was the death knell.
That pulled Nakamura to within half a point of the leader, and Carlsen is there too, thanks to a malfunctioning Ivanchuk. The latter started with a dubious pawn sac, then compounded the problem by attempting to regain it with 15...Nxd4, and then completely fell off the cliff with 18...Qxd1+. Carlsen took all the goodies, defended easily and collected the point.
Kramnik could have stayed in the tie for second with a win over Short, but the tournament's oldest player would have none of it. He played an unpretentious system against the Petroff, but one that had the virtue of making Kramnik play chess. Kramnik came up with an unnecessary but interesting pawn sac for play, and after many complications Short had kept his extra pawn and had a completely winning position to boot. Incredibly, though, Short botched the win, and cognitively gifted rabbits everywhere are thanking God that Kramnik's luck doesn't require their feet to be severed; if it did, there's be a whole farm full of amputated bunnies.
All the other games were drawn, generally lamely. Van Wely-Kajarkin was a 16-move draw well within the bounds of theory, but it's hard to get upset at van Wely for that, since he had lost his last five games in a row. Smeets-Dominguez looked exciting, but it was mostly known theory. Tiviakov-Leko was a routine draw in the 5.Qe2 Ruy, and Caruana-Anand was a quiet Semi-Slav where a brief tactical flurry led to a perpetual.
Standings After Round 7:
1. Shirov 5½
2-3. Nakamura, Carlsen 5
4. Kramnik 4½
4-6. Dominguez, Ivanchuk 4
7-9. Anand, Leko, Karjakin 3½
10-12. Short, Tiviakov, Caruana 2½
13-14. Smeets, van Wely 1½
Round 8 Pairings:
Anand - Ivanchuk
Shirov - Carlsen
Kramnik - Nakamura
Karjakin - Short
Dominguez - van Wely
Leko - Smeets
Caruana - Tiviakov
In the B group, leader Anish Giri had a little trouble with Erwin L'Ami, but managed to hold a rook and two vs. rook and three ending. He leads with 5½ points, with L'Ami, Ni Hua, David Howell and Wesley So a point behind.
In the C group, Ray Robson suffered his first defeat, losing with the French to Daniele Vocaturo. Fortunately for him, Li Chao lost with White to Nils Grandelius, so their relative standings remain the same. Robson has 5½, Li Chao has 5, and Abhijeet Gupta also has 5, thanks to his win over Sjoerd Plukkel.
More info here, tournament site here, and all the A-group games, with my comments, are here.
Reader Comments (9)
I was watching live at the venue today: The first 9 moves in Nakamura-Shirov were played quickly, but Nakamura spent about ten minutes on 10.Nc4, and Shirov roughly the same amount of time on his reply 10.-Nd4. Unless they were bluffing, both were out of book at that moment?
In the meantime at the press conference, Nakamura said that Shirov should have played 1.-e5 - given the tournament situation where a draw is fine for Alexei but Hikaru needs to win. I would say the "mistake" was 9.-f5 rather than transposing back to the mainline where Shirov might have had an edge in preparation - after all he KNEW that he would play the Sveshnikov, while Nakamura had to consider some other choices .... . For what it's worth, 9.-b5 would have been my choice (based on decades of experience in the Sveshnikov, obviously at my level).
Then what to make of Nakamura's early 8.Lf6: ? Was it mixing up the move order (at least one book considers it inaccurate, don't remember which one) or - more likely - an invitation to play "chess rather than theory" that Shirov could (and should!?) have declined?
BTW I couldn't find ANY books on the Pirc at the bookstands, so maybe Kramnik was 100% joking .... [this would belong in an earlier thread, but as you wrote "What, no Pirc?" on Vlad's game today it still fits in this one ,:) ]
I was out today and didn't get in to see the games til only the Short game was still going in A group, and logged in at move 47... I thought as you do that 47.Qe7 is good and I (as a Brit) was shouting go Short but... what a shame.
Dennis, I don't get Shirov's 12. ... Bg6 when the e6 seems to be a much better square positionally speaking. Okay maybe he needs e6 for the Knight but looking at the position it just seems that d5 is a square that Black needs to get control of. The bishop never moves from g6 and the d5 square is eventually left open for the "monster bishop" as you call it.
Nimzobg, retreating the bishop to e6 rather than g6 may be an improvement, but I don't think it's a colossally big deal. For instance, your suggestion that a bishop on e6 helps fight for d5 doesn't seem convincing to me, because White has too many pieces fighting for that square. In fact, it could be to White's benefit to have the bishop on e6, as a swap that doesn't result in a black pawn on e6 would give White fewer pieces fighting over the same square.
Marc: I was rooting for Kramnik, but I feel your pain. Short has accredited himself pretty well so far against the big boys, holding Carlsen, Kramnik, Ivanchuk and Shirov to draws. He won't win the event, but he hasn't exactly been a full-point bye either - at least not since round 1 vs. van Wely.
Thomas: Your decades of experience need supplementing. It's precisely because of 9...f5 that Nakamura's move order seems odd. First of all, Black saves a tempo getting his counterplay going; second, the pawn on b5 is a "hook" for White's queenside play. In the absence of a pawn on b5, a4 achieves nothing. Anyway, I don't see any advantage to Nakamura's move order, so I don't know if he was just careless or unfamiliar with 9...f5.
As for the Pirc book, you should ask the proprietor of the bookstore - maybe they were bought out after Kramnik's comments!
I should add that Kramnik's comments can be found here: http://www.coruschess.com/gameanalysis.php?year=2010&game=7.
Dennis, nakamura's comments are now up on the corus site including: "9... f5
"This move took me right out of my preparation. I assumed we were now both simply playing chess. That's all I can ask for in general!"
The game analysis on the Corus site is the Nakamura one not Short's. But Kramnik said in the round report “I was lucky for Short played a fantastic game up to his 45th or thereabouts.”
Actually I'm not overly fond of Short as his political views are suspect but it would have been good to see him convert that game. See this interview:
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1464
My experience in the Sveshnikov doesn't include this sideline, for the simple reason that it hardly appears on the board.
To clarify part of my previous post: I tried to distinguish between an "objective" and a "pragmatic" approach. Even if 9.-f5 is objectively the best move, it has some advantages to return to the mainline and remain in one's preparation for a few more moves. For one thing, it reduces the risk of running into time trouble. Even when you are out of prep, you can still rely on some sort of pattern recognition - in the game both players may have constantly thought about differences between this position and a "normal Sveshnikov"? But maybe Nakamura to a lesser extent - after all, he is also an excellent Chess960 player where there is (often) no such thing as pattern recognition.
Additional information from watching live (from the "not surprising news department"!?): Nakamura played several middlegame moves very quickly, putting additional pressure on Shirov [of course if one of them had turned out to be a blunder he would be hard pressed for an explanation].
While I do not really mean to discuss opening theory, I still wonder:
- does black's queenside expansion with -b5 have only disadvantages?
- does black really gain a tempo with the immediate 9.-f5 ? After all, in the mainline white needs more time to get his Na3 back into play - so it burns down to the question which move is more useful: c2-c3 for white or b7-b5 for black.
Daniel, Marc: Yes, I gave the link to Nakamura's comments in my earlier link, and just had Kramnik on the brain because of the preceding paragraph when I referred to the comments as his.
Thomas: Right: it's because your experience doesn't include this rare line that the initial appeal to "decades of experience" was irrelevant.
The Chess960 analogy may have a little mileage, but not too much - omitting ...b5 doesn't turn this into Martian chess or anything. And Shirov handled the opening quite well. He didn't lose because he got confused about anything having to do with the differences between ...b5 and non-b5 lines, but because the ...Nh3xf2 idea was a poor one.
You're right in one sense about ...f5 not gaining a tempo, because when Black plays ...b5, White has to play c3 to bring the knight back to the center, whereas in its absence it can go straight to c4. But there are two other considerations. First, c3 is useful for White, taking d4 under control, while ...b5 has no such similar asset. And second (as noted earlier), ...b5 gives White a target for his queenside play starting with a4. It's a lot harder for White to get any concrete play without that pawn there.