London, Round 6: Four Draws, Or Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Three players - Carlsen, Anand and McShane - entered the round with the lead, and the same three players left it the same way. They were lucky, though, as both Nakamura and especially Kramnik could have led by day's end.
Kramnik outplayed Carlsen from start to finish...or rather, almost the finish. Carlsen hung on like a barnacle, and Kramnik failed to overcome the final hurdle. (That said, his technique even prior to the final error hadn't been stellar, though it should have been good enough to win.) Nakamura's opportunity wasn't quite as clear-cut and was only there for a moment, but he too had an excellent chance to beat McShane. Unlike his co-leaders, Anand was never at death's door, but he did have to neutralize Adams' long-term pressure.
In the battle to avoid last place, Short blundered a pawn on move 2 (1.e4 e5 2.f4?) and came out of the opening much worse against Howell. He eventually managed to equalize and even achieve an advantage, but like Kramnik, Nakamura and Howell in the first half of the game, he failed to maintain it.
Standings After Round 6:
1-3. Carlsen, Anand, McShane 10
4-5. Nakamura, Kramnik 9
6. Adams 7
7. Howell 3
8. Short 2
Final Round Pairings:
Anand - Kramnik (I'm sure Anand will push hard; Kramnik, unless he has a bomb prepared in an opening other than the Petroff, will be playing for a draw and is thus out of the hunt.)
Nakamura - Adams (Nakamura must win to have a chance, obviously.)
Howell - McShane (A good chance for McShane, but it would be better if he had White.)
Carlsen - Short (Hopefully the Short of the 90s rather than the Short of the first 6 rounds will play.)
Note: The round starts two hours early, i.e. at noon London time (= 7 a.m. ET/1 p.m. CET).
Reader Comments (6)
Not a fan of the King's Gambit?! ...Or just think it dubious? I mean 2. f4 is not really a "blunder"?
[DM: The evaluation was half tongue in cheek, half serious! I just did a search of my TWIC database, which goes back about 15 years, for games where both players were at least 2500 and Black played 2...exf4. As it turns out, Black was plus four in 97 games (98 if you count this round). When you consider that White almost always has the advantage of surprise working for him as well, it's a pretty miserable ad for the King's Gambit.]
Short himself had nothing but nasty things to say about the opening despite its recent success. He named 7 recent wins by strong GMs (and he forgot one win I was aware of). But still he said the opening was nothing but rubbish.
My personal favorite quote from the post mortem about the bad KG is "The main problem for black with the king's gambit is there are so MANY refutations that black will end up losing on time trying to decide which one to use" - Nigel Short
He even related a story of him and Morozevich talking about how bad KG was and the bad things Vlad had to say about it.
Morozevich to Short :
"Should I play the King's Gambit ?
- Yes, of course !
- Allright, but how do I equalize after exf4 ?"
"And i wasnt able to answer that", added Short...
Are white's winning chances any higher than normal? I.e. is the lower white score because of fewer draws?
I did the same database research as DM but with both players ELO 2600+. Including this game of Short the score is 17 wins for White, 12 draws, 11 wins for Black since 1995. That's a not so miserable ad for the KG, isn't it?
Short should have played 10.Nc3 by the way (not my idea; see Chesspub).
[DM: Very interesting! I'll have to have a look at that. I remember Carlsen using it successfully a few months ago, Short using it on occasion, and in the late 90s Fedorov using it during the brief period when he was getting elite invitations...and getting crushed with it.]
While Fedorov had some crushing losses, he also had wins against Adams and Yusupov (though in his case it wasn't a surprise weapon any more). Not surprisingly, Morozevich also experimented with the King's Gambit, beating Anand in 1995 (but "RUS Moscow Kremlin" may have been a rapid game) and Sokolov in 2000.
[DM: The Morozevich-Anand game was rapid - and Moro was losing.]