London Chess Classic, Round 6: Carlsen, Adams and McShane Win
Today's games at the London Chess Classic finished in two shifts. The "quick" games finished just after the first time control, while the last ones went about another hour and a half before concluding.
The first game to finish was the only one whose result seemed likely early on, and that was Magnus Carlsen's victory over Judit Polgar. Carlsen - like everyone this round except Levon Aronian - opened with 1.c4, and Polgar played a slightly irregular Hedgehog. Generally Black has knights on d7 and f6 in that system, but Polgar wound up with knights on d7 and g6, and that latter knight proved a problem. In general Carlsen seemed to have a better idea of what to do, and he grabbed space all over the board without ever allowing Black to create any of the typical pawn breaks (...b5, ...d5, sometimes ...e5) in reply. White was already very comfortable after 30.Nf2, and Carlsen opined that Polgar's 30...Bg5 only made her situation worse. Black was able to temporarily grab a pawn, but White's pieces infiltrated with decisive effect via the f-file. Right after the time control Carlsen doubled his rooks on the 7th rank, and needed just a little accuracy to finish the job.
Carlsen's score is a gaudy 5.5/6 (or 16/18 on the 3-1-0 scoring system in play here), his TPR is over 3100 and his unofficial rating is a gaudy 2863.6. Better still, his closest rival in the tournament, Vladimir Kramnik, only managed a draw with Levon Aronian, so he leads Kramnik by 4 points with two games to go.
Perhaps his closest challenger will turn out to be Mickey Adams, who trails Carlsen by 6 points but has an extra game to play. Adams suffered a painful and slightly unlucky loss to Carlsen yesterday, and with Black against world champion Viswanathan Anand it looked like it might be double trouble. Anand may not have played very well this year, but he has a huge plus score against Adams and probably got a boost of confidence with a clean and overwhelming victory yesterday. The game was a very good one for the first 40 moves, with a rough balance between Anand's light squared control and Adams' bishop pair. The normal 41st move would have been 41.Rxe5, when 41...Qd2 would likely lead to a drawn rook ending after 42.Qxd2 Rxd2 43.Bc4 Bxc4 44.bxc4 Rc2. Instead, Anand played 41.Bc4??, losing the house after 41...Qd1+. It took Adams something like 15 minutes to play the move, during which time Anand must have been going crazy alternating between hope and despair while trying to maintain a poker face. Adams finally played it, though, and Anand resigned after 42.Qh6 Bh3+, as 43.Kxh3 Qh1 or 43.Kh2 Rxf2+ 44.Kh3 Qh1 is checkmate. Other tries weren't any better: 42.Bxe6 Ra1 43.Bxf7+ Kg7 leaves White just as helpless.
On to the second pair of games. Kramnik seemed slightly worse in a Berlin endgame against Aronian, but contrary to Aronian's initial impression during the game (as well as that of the commentators), it was only slightly and not seriously worse. And not for long, either: Aronian reported missing 25...f6, and after that it was Kramnik who was for choice. On move 34, Kramnik needed to cover his back rank and did so with 34...Kd7, but afterwards the players agreed that 34...Bg6 would have been much better, and would have given Black serious winning chances, especially with Aronian's time trouble. Even so Kramnik was better through the end, but with Black's c-pawn safely blockaded after 42.Nc3 Aronian wasn't in any real danger, even if Kramnik could have improved a little here and there.
Finally, Luke McShane finally got a win in this year's tournament, with White over bottom seed Gawain Jones. Jones was doing well, but his exchange sacrifice may have been too optimistic. After 30.g4 White's pieces were breaking in, and although there were some technical problems to solve McShane was up to the task. (Of course, he was helped along by the combination of 41...b5 and 43...Qd2. Maybe Jones missed White's h4 idea [48.h4], keeping the second extra piece.)
Round 7 Pairings (with scores and the number of games played in parentheses):
- Jones (2/6) - Aronian (5/5)
- Adams (10/5) - McShane (4/5)
- Polgar (1/5) - Anand (6/5)
- Nakamura (8/5) - Carlsen (16/6)
- Kramnik (12/6) - bye + commentary
Reader Comments (2)
on 1. c4
why do ALL super GMs avoid playing QGD's or slavs, why do they always go in for 1...e5, c5 or hedgehogs?
Seems like its just a way to have to double your repertoire.
[DM: Usually, but not "always": Jakovenko, Mamedyarov, Bologan, Morozevich, Kamsky and Kasimdzhanov are among the elite player who used 1...c6 this year, while Morozevich and others have used 1...e6. But it isn't the free ride you're suggesting, either. First of all, not every super-GM wants to play a Slav or a QGD against 1.d4. (To pick just two big, popular openings, there's the Nimzo-Indian and the Gruenfeld.) Second, just wanting the Slav or the QGD isn't enough, as White can avoid them: 1.c4 c6 2.e4 is a Caro-Kann, while 1.c4 e6 2.Nf3 d5 3.g3 (as used this year by Carlsen, Svidler and Movsesian, for instance) might, but might not, turn into a Catalan. White may be able to benefit from the (temporary?) omission of d4. Perhaps neither White line is especially terrifying, but there is further work to be done either way.
Going in a different direction: Third, many GMs may feel that sticking to the English may give them better chances for the sort of position they want than by transposing to a 1.d4 opening. And as for doubling up on their repertoire (if we assume the points in the previous paragraph don't apply), it's their job. Unlike us, it's their professional responsibility to work out a deep and broad repertoire.]
my pictures from round 5 & 6 are up now:
http://londonchessclassic.shutterfly.com/pictures#editPictures:albumId=191
unfortunately didn't have time to post round 7 yet.