Wijk aan Zee, Round 10: Anand and Nakamura Win Again, Carlsen Loses
As the 2011 edition of Wijk aan Zee heads into the homestretch, the fighting spirit seems to increase by the round. In round 10 there were only two draws in the seven Group A games (admittedly, both were disappointing and one was almost shameful), as players throughout the crosstable fight to improve their places.
At the top of the table, the world champion, Viswanathan Anand, seized the opportunity to pick on a struggling Alexei Shirov. Shirov played another Cambridge Springs with Black, and ruined a worse but playable position in two moves. The first was a regular error, but the second was an outright blunder that forced resignation a couple of moves later.
Hikaru Nakamura kept pace with Anand, winning a very good game against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Nakamura was able to break apart Black's kingside in a Gruenfeld, and once the board opened up Black faced mate or drastic material loss.
Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik could have maintained a tie for first if they won, too, but they only managed to draw. Both had Black, against Anish Giri and Jan Smeets, respectively, and neither came close to winning. Giri stood better, but apparently felt satisfied with a draw, while Smeets played so shamelessly for a draw that he could have come to the board with a beggar's cup. Then again, Smeets confessed to handling the Berlin endgame so badly against Magnus Carlsen back in round 6 that this might have been a case of a man needing to know his limitations. Anyway, it was short, boring, and so drawish that even the Exchange French looks exciting by comparison.
Speaking of Carlsen, and also in Smeets' defense, Carlsen refused to accept a draw by repetition against Ian Nepomniachtchi and fought on. Objectively, there were no grounds for this, but with White and trailing the leaders by half a point entering the round he felt obliged to try. For something like the fourth or fifth time in this tournament, this strategy failed. (I'm aware of five or six implicit or explicit draw offers that were declined in this tournament, and only once did this pay off. The remaining games were all lost by the decliners.) Nepo was able to combine pressure against White's king with threats against Carlsen's queenside pawns, and this eventually won material. Carlsen tried giving up the exchange, but his opponent was up to the technical task and won the game. Down a point and a half with three rounds to go, Carlsen is almost certainly out of the running for first.
Farther down the crosstable, Alexander Grischuk's suffering continued, in this round against Ruslan Ponomariov. Grischuk played very creatively with Black in a Modern Benoni-ish King's Indian in which he gave up his queen for a rook and piece, but after that he played inaccurately. As a result Ponomariov was able to prevent Black from activating his army, and White won shortly after the time control.
Finally, Wang Hao defeated Erwin L'Ami in a slightly strange game. In an equal position L'Ami gave up a pawn for no obvious reason, since at best, if he recovered it without incurring any new problems, the result would still be equality. As it turned out, things weren't so simple, and a couple of inaccuracies later he was lost.
Standings After Round 10:
1-2. Anand, Nakamura 7
3-4. Aronian, Kramnik 6.5
5-7. Carlsen, Nepomniachtchi, Vachier-Lagrave 5.5
8-10. Giri, Ponomariov, Wang Hao 5
11. Smeets 3.5
12. L'Ami 3
13-14. Grischuk, Shirov 2.5
Thursday is a rest day, and on Friday these are the pairings for round 11:
Vachier-Lagrave - Anand
Nepomniachtchi - Nakamura
Kramnik - Carlsen
Wang Hao - Smeets
Grischuk - L'Ami
Aronian - Ponomariov
Shirov - Giri
In the B-Group, the leading triumvirate disintegrated. Two members, McShane and Sargissian, both lost, so So (so-rry) managed to shed both of them with a draw. However, he has a new friend at the top, Efimenko, who got there by defeating McShane (with Black, no less). So and Efimenko have 6.5; Tkachiev, Sargissian, McShane and Navara are but half a point behind.
In group C, the Vocaturo coronation march hit a bump in the road when he lost to Ivanisevic, still at 7.5. Fortunately for him, Lahno only managed to draw, so she's a point back, while Nyzhnyk's lost kept him a full point and a half behind, tied with Ivanisevic for third.
The round 10 games, with my notes, are here.
Reader Comments (6)
Dennis,
Nice analysis as usual, and giving much more than the unknown annotator at ChessBase. In the Grunfeld game Nakamura - Vachier-Lagrave, in the note to move (18 ef5 c4), ChessBase says that Vachier-Lagrave "panicked" after realizing that he couldn't play 18 ... Qxd5. CB only analyzed 18 ... Qxd5 19 fg6 Rd7, etc., and quoted the tournament bulletin to the effect that Black was "expertly kicked off the board." CB missed the obvious 19 ... hg6 you give leading to a slight white plus. A little earlier, it would be interesting to see another Black alternative at move 13. Replacing the game's 13 ... Qd7 with 13 ... Qe8!? we have Fier, A. (2581) - Kongurel, P. (2412) 2010 Bhubaneswar IND, which continued 14 Bh6 cd4 15 Bxg7 Kxg7 16 cd4 ed4 17 Nxd4 Bb7 18 f4 Rd8 19 Qc3 Bxe4 (and 0-1, 66).
In the Cambridge Springs played in Anand - Shirov, after the rare 11 Bc4 I can only find one game besides these two by Shirov. As noted, Shirov has played 11 ... cd4, and 11 ... Nxc3 today. 11 ... N7b6!? was played in the only prior game, Solak, D. (2582) - Blagojevic (2545) 2005 Herceg Novi SCG. That game went 12 Bxd5!? Nxd5 13 a3 Bxc3 14 bc3 Ne7 15 Bxe7 Kxe7 16 0-0 Bd7 17 Ne5 Rad8 18 Qe2 Be8 (1/2-1/2, 81). Taking on d5 looks strange but I suppose White didn't want to lose time on a bishop retreat. I don't see that White has anything here but it's complicated. ( I always feel compelled to defend the Cambridge Springs!)
I know it's not possible to cite every possible relevant game. It's a blog post, not a New in Chess article! Having said that, our blogger deserves major props for serving up a nice novelty, in the Botvinnik system no less (21 ... d4!=), in the notes to Giri - Smeets (round 2) and given again in Nakamura - Smeets (round 7) for anyone who missed it the first time around. That's going way beyond the call of "duty," and is typically paid subscriber stuff.
Glad to see that you're back in the saddle today, annotating all the games in depth.
Nakamura has been doing remarkably well at the top-flight chess tournaments.
Just wanted to drop in and say a BIG THANKS for all the annotated games so far. This blog is really amazing even for novice like me to understand the ongoing games. Thanks much Dennis.
[DM: I'm not sure how helpful my notes are for novices, so maybe you're a bit stronger than you're giving yourself credit for! Anyway, you are welcome.]
It's funny or remarkable that three, maybe four games with declined draw offers included Nepomniachtchi. He beat Wang Hao, Giri and Carlsen. He could have tried to repeat against Smeets (though Smeets could have deviated) but didn't and eventually lost.
I was at the venue yesterday and put a little "report" elsewhere on the first critical moment of Carlsen-Nepo:
http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/2011/01/tata-2011-anand-nakamura-lead-after-4.htm#comment-230833
In Giri-Aronian, live commentators Timman and Sokolov (best they could find in the Netherlands ...) actually preferred black and were surprised that _Aronian_ accepted a repetition draw. They then changed their assessment to something like "black is optically better or more comfortable, but it isn't much". But Dennis' evaluation is consistent with the players' own postmortem analysis - Giri said that he remembered his game against Nepomniachtchi and wanted to play it safe this time.
Just wanted to drop by and ask if anyone has thoughts on Shirov´s performance lately and what might be going on in his life. Is this just a slump or do you think he is past his prime? Anyway, thanks Dennis for your work and at least for non experts like myself your notes keep me trying harder.
[DM: It's just one tournament, and last year he had two exceptionally good results. These guys are sharks, and if you're a bit off form they'll smell blood and turn you into chum. This especially the case for a more risk-tolerant player like Shirov. If Kramnik's in bad form, he'll lose 2-3 games at most and manage to make draws in his other games. Shirov doesn't seem to have that tool in his kit, so he's more likely to flame out when things are going wrong.
One could ask about Grischuk too, or instead. He has the same lousy score, and it's an even bigger deal for him with the Candidates approaching in about three months.]
Carlsen-Nepomniachtchi is an amazing game. Except for a little slip or two as ably noted by Dennis, this is my idea of what playing a mele'e (as opposed to a strategic masterpiece where you're always in control) at 3000-level is like.