King's Tournament, Round 4: Carlsen & Radjabov Lead
It was a great day for the White pieces: 3 for 3. Carlsen defeated Wang Yue with the King's Gambit, of all things; Radjabov proved that Gelfand's Petroff isn't quite impenetrable; and finally, Ponomariov defeated Nisipeanu's odd-looking interpretation of the Blumenfeld Gambit.
It was a great day for fans of opening preparation, as all three winners were cleary ready in their own ways. Carlsen didn't land any knockout blows, but Wang Yue's response was rather easygoing and gave Carlsen a very comfortable (if slight) edge. Radjabov had a bombshell of an attack ready for Gelfand's Petroff, but since Gelfand chose a rare 13th move and played a novelty on move 15, maybe Radjabov's attack was all over the board inspiration. Finally, Nisipeanu repeated a dubious-looking line in the Blumenfeld that he gotten away with twice before; this time, Ponomariov's direct approach with 7.e4 and 9.e5 looked very effective, and Black's position looked awful straight out of the opening.
Here are the standings:
1-2. Radjabov, Carlsen 2.5
3-5. Nisipeanu, Ponomariov, Gelfand 2
6. Wang Yue 1
(It may not be Lake Wobegon, but only one of the "kids" is below average.)
Here are the round 5 pairings (for Saturday; they have Friday off):
Wang Yue - Radjabov
Gelfand - Ponomariov (a replay of the World Cup* final)
Nisipeanu - Carlsen
Tournament site here; the games, with my commentary, are here.
* That's the real World Cup - the chess one - not the one with the hooligans and defeaning trumpets in the stands cheering for easily injured actors with miraculous powers of recovery as they kick a defective ball around every four years.**
** A mini-rant. Some people can be a little obnoxious rooting for their country in this event, but (as long as they don't get too obnoxious, or violent) I'll take them anyday over people who think it's hip to bash and root against their own country. A sense of irony and humility is one thing - generally a good thing - but to wish your country ill for the sake of impressing others is pretty low.
(Yes, these are tangents. Fire away, people - just keep it clean and as polite as you can!)
Reader Comments (14)
No one who has read van Perlo could have missed g4! in the Carlsen game. I swear that tactic comes up 50 times in that book.
Of course it's not Lake Wobegon. All the Kids there are above average.
Long live the Kings Gambit! It is more fun when accepted and I seem to get lost sometimes in the Falkbeer. Thanks for the commentary. g4 is a move your long time readers know, you had a post on it several years ago and some great analysis when you followed up the initial puzzle.
I agree about the horns. I love soccer but the horns drive me crazy. I did watch USA and pulled for them (not as obnoxiously as I get during football season) against England. Hope they score a few goals tomorrow.
Your annotations are superb as per usual, many thanks for providing them! I just can't resist this remark, though: no question mark after 2.f4 this time? ;-)
Anyway, I second Steve's cheer: long live the KG! I was watching the beginning of the round live and my heart was singing when I saw this move. I'd love to know what was going in Wang Yue's head when he saw 1.e4. "Oh cool, we'll play my favourite opening. Thanks for allowing 1... e5, Magnus." Serves the Petroff fan right!
When is the last time the King's Gambit was played in a game between two 2700+ GMs?
Kajetan: I don't confuse the KG with the Latvian! I don't know if the KG is 100% sound in all the accepted lines (by which I mean I'm not sure that White has full compensation). But who knows? It's especially good for a one-off, especially against a safety-first guy like Wang Yue who doesn't seem like the sort of player who would go for 3...g5 or 3...d6.
dfan: I haven't looked at the Van Perlo book in a while, but I really enjoyed it. One of the most fun chess books I've ever read.
Marc, this is the first time the king's gambit's been played in a game between two 2700+s with long time controls. Morozevich played it against Leko in rapids and Ivanchuk vs. Aronian in blitz.
That's a somewhat misleading stat. For one thing, Fedorov played it against a few 2700s about a decade ago when he was pretty close to 2700 himself. (His results were generally very bad.) Second, Spassky played it occasionally throughout his career, back at a time when - had there been ratings back then - both he and his opponents were possibly/probably the equivalent of today's 2700s. (Bronstein too.)
Rant indeed. Soccer is a great sport, and I somehow get the feeling that Dennis does not fully embrace it :-)
Dennis: I know you dont! I just remembered you annotating a KG game from some national league (USCL probably) and putting an "?!" after 2.f4, so I decided to have a little fun with you bringing this up now that Carlsen played it at classical time controls at a Super-GM tournament.
BTW, as to one-off, it seems to me that working with Kasparov had done Carlsen some good in terms of opening creativity. His repertoire is so extremely broad now (maybe not yet comparable to Ivanchuk's, but quite close) and he isn't afraid to play things he's never tried before. Like the French in the Corus tournament, a total surprise, and it worked very well.
estirodri: I like it - just not the way Europeans like it! And seriously, the fake injuries have got to go. If they made a rule that says all the cases where a player writhes around in apparent agony (until they are mystically saved by the magic spray) will be checked afterwards on the video, and bogus claims result in yellow or even red cards, that would go a long way to fixing that problem.
I one hundred percent agree with you, Dennis (about the fake injury thing).
I actually thought the exact same thing only 30 minutes ago while I was watching a replay of a situation on CNN, where an Ivory Coast player pretended to have been hit in the face, and caused Kaka to be sent off for Brazil.
There should be an opening for analyzing the video after the game, and sending the player home from the tournament. Or at least to give him the equivalent of a red card, and to take back the card given to Kaka.
Kajetan,
I agree with your "btw" remarks. It's good for his development, and it makes his opponents' lives even more miserable if they can't easily prepare for him. There is a danger to too much flitting about, which is that he might come to be too superficial in his understanding of (at least some of) the openings he chooses. (Anand says this about Kamsky in the context of their second Candidates match in the mid-90s, and I suspect the trouble Carlsen got into against Ponomariov is an example of this.)