London 2011, Round 4: McShane, Nakamura and Short Win (Updated)
Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 12:52AM The London Chess Classic has been exciting, and round 4 was the bloodthirstiest round of all. Three of the four games were decisive, and it wasn't too far from being a clean sweep.
Magnus Carlsen entered the round in clear first, and almost went out that way. Coming out of the opening, one might have thought that Vladimir Kramnik had achieved equality or at least an easily drawn ending. Carlsen's preparation or over the board assessment was more accurate, and it was incredibly impressive to see him outplay Kramnik in an opposite-colored bishop ending. Fortunately for Kramnik, Carlsen played 25.gxh6 rather than 25.Rxh6, and while Black still had to suffer a while the draw was within reach, and Kramnik managed to save the game.
Luke McShane thus caught Carlsen in first by defeated David Howell. McShane could have been in clear first by a fair margin had he defeated Carlsen earlier in the tournament, but then again he was worse today until Howell uncorked consecutive errors on moves 28 and 29.
In the other battle of Britain Nigel Short defeated Michael Adams, who clearly isn't in good form here. Short hadn't been in good form either, but he played quite well today, outplaying Adams on the black side of a Tarrasch French with 3...h6.
Finally, Hikaru Nakamura was the third player to win with Black, defeating Viswanathan Anand in a King's Indian. Nakamura once again played the dangerous 9...Ne8 line he has used (with some success) against other world-class players, but this round's version with the unfortunate 13...h6 + 18...h5 two-step certainly favored White. As Nakamura noted, however, Anand is a relative newcomer to 1.d4, and his feel for the King's Indian isn't yet what it is for Nakamura, simply as a matter of experience. White was better, but in a very complicated position his 29.Nc4? not only lost the advantage but may have left him with a lost position - and in the end, a loss.
So after four rounds and going into the one plenary rest day, Carlsen and McShane lead with 8 points apiece (on the 3-1-0 scoring system in use there), Nakamura has 7 and Kramnik (a game behind) has 5. Aronian has 4 and Short has 3, and they too have already had their byes. Anand, like Adams and Howell, has just two points, but unlike them he has already had his bye.
Update: Games here, with notes to Anand-Nakamura.
Reader Comments (11)
Short actually played 3... h6
When Korchnoi (who was doing a commentary) saw the move... he straight away said:
"switch to the next game!"
Hes got a great sense of humour, probably one big reason he is still in chess.
Short played 3...h6, not 3...Be7.
For Nigel Short, I am shure he had some extra motivation for his arch rival Adams. In addition the delayed starting time allowed him to have his 'tea time` which might be essential for a 'veteran' ;)
I take it you listened to the press conferences, or at least Nakamura's. I found it interesting that it one point in the press conference the commentators stated that they had heard that Nakamura's position was assesses as down four or five points by the computer, and Naka shrugged it off with something to the effect of "I''d always lose this position of against a computer, but against a human I've got a lot of play, and the pressure's all on him to find the right moves." Naka's postmortem was very interesting all the way around, from the drunken origins of the line he played to his all-or-nothing attitude to this game following his loss to Carlsen the day before.
Kramnik's comments in the press conference were also interesting. He had underestimated how difficult the position would be, but it was interesting to watch him go through possibilities. Listening to him I just kept thinking of what the Soviet players used to call "chess culture" - Kramnik's got a lot of it! Especially interesting to me was his comment that his position around move 34 would be easily drawn if he did NOT have his d5 pawn. maybe it was just me, but his commentary just seemed both deep and relaxed.
Anyway, anyone that want's to hear what I'm talking about can probably find it on the tournament website, or can see the embedded video at ChessBase:
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7734
Actually it was a 3. ...h6 Tarrasch. I wouldn't bother pointing out this minor mistake, but the fact may be interesting in itself.
Short beat Adams with a 3....h6 French, not 3...Be7. The live commentary was strange, because Aronian was wholly dismissive of the move, but didn't suggest a way for White to improve (unless his 11.Bxe4 is +/=
BTW one thing I haven't seen anyone mention is that Nakamura has now played the top 4, and has "only" the bottom four players left, AND he's White in 3 of those 4 games.
John Saunders has a good idea for tournaments with byes: translate the scoring to +2 win, 0 draw, -1 loss. This gives a better idea of where people who have had their byes stand. It also makes it easy to prove that you can win the tournament with a minus score:
3 wins 4 losses 1 draw = 6 - 4 = 2
The 4 people you lose to lose to the other 4 and draw the rest: each of them has 1 win, 1 loss, 6 draws for 2 - 1 = 1.
The person you drew with gets 1 win from that, and ties you on +2 with all other games drawn. The three you beat end on +1.
You eventually win by drawing an Armageddon finale.
Note that there are 11 decisive games in all, and 2x2 + 7x1 = 11 so it all adds up right.
What Icepick said. In fact I was going to post a similar comment myself but hadn't yet gotten around to it. The Nakamura discussion (primarily with Daniel King) is indeed entertaining. Alternate link to said discussion.
On another topic, I was struck by this comment from John Saunders on the subject of M. Carlsen: "He does what he knows best and he doesn’t try to hype it or conjure up an air of mystery about himself." (Chessbase)
Could it be . . . that Carlsen is not human???
Heh heh. They just took a twitter question at the Aronian-Carlsen postmortem. "Are you human?" Carlsen said either yes he is or no he isn't, I didn't quite catch it. Got a nice laugh in any case.
I like this Chris Ward guy as an interlocutor.
In Nakamura’s comments after the game, I found especially interesting what he said about Anand not being a “natural” 1.d4 player and therefore lacking an understanding of these super-sharp KID positions. Anand’s big mistake on move 29 (Nc4?), where the momentum of the game seems to have turned, does appear to be related to a basic misevaluation or misunderstanding of the position – 29.Bh3! instead stabilizes the K-side, and would have completed nicely the maneuver that started with Bc4 & Ne6. In fact, even after 29…Qe8! it was still probably better to play 30.Bh3 rather than Bd5 – the point being that 30…Qb5 doesn’t win a piece for Black, because White has the resource 31.d7! and after 31…Nxd7 32.Bxf8 and 33.Qd5 the position seems to be more or less balanced; whereas 30.Bd5, as played by Anand, allows Black to blow open the K-side with h4-h3, when White ends up with an almost useless pile of pieces on the Q-side.
A nice tactical idea later in the game, which I believe is not so common in such KID setups, was Black’s use of threats along the c-file (starting with 32…Rc8) – which is typically used by White for his Q-side play.
Getting back to Nakamura’s post-game comments: it was also interesting to learn at several points what he saw and what he missed. For example, he said that he considered 37…Nxb6 (which objectively might be the best move, since 37…a5 should have allowed White to hold with 40.Rd3! instead of Rxa5?) – but rejected it because of 38.Be6 (38.Nxb6 loses to 38...Rc1, since the white queen is tied to the defense of h3, in order to avoid ...Nxf3+ followed by mate) 38...Rxc4 39.Bxc4 Nxc4 40.d7!. Interestingly, he missed that 39...Bxd6! (an idea that he played in the actual game) is winning in this line – 40.Bf7(!) (40.Bxd6 Nxc4 and the white rook is overloaded, since it can’t defend both d6 and f3) 40...Qxf7 41.Bxd6 Nc4 42.Rd3 Qh5 (putting back the pressure on f3 & h3, and creating the decisive double threat of Nxd6 and Ne3) 43.Bc5 (43.Ba3 Ne3 44.Rxe3 Ng2!!) 43...b6 and the bishop can’t keep defending e3.
Another interesting comment from Nakamura was that he took Aronian's advice to completely ignore the other player's possible plans and focus on his own. That's advice from a 2800 being adopted by a 2750* that runs completely counter to what is told to all us lesser players!
* I know the ratings quoted aren't exact, but they're close enough.