London Chess Classic, Playoff Semi-Final: Vachier-Lagrave Defeats Giri
And then there were three. A fair playoff would have been something like a double round-robin with Magnus Carlsen, Anish Giri and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, but very little about the organization of the Grand Chess Tour has had much to do with fairness. Therefore Carlsen got to sit back, relax and prepare a little while (and be guaranteed at least second place in the London Chess Classic) Giri and Vachier-Lagrave bashed heads over a three hour period for the right to play him. The unfairness, of course, isn't because it was Carlsen, who had the privilege of waiting because of his better Sonneborn-Berger score; it would have been an absurd privilege no matter who was the recipient.
Giri went undefeated in all three events of the Tour, a pretty remarkable performance, and his solid play continued in the first of the two rapid games in the playoff. Giri essayed the Berlin (the semi-official opening of the tournament) and won a remarkably clean game (for a rapid time control), blockading White's kingside majority and convincingly demonstrating the superiority of his light-squared bishop to MVL's knight.
All Giri needed was to draw with the white pieces, and unfortunately for him that's how he played in game 2. There are three classic psychological mistakes practically everyone makes at some point in their lives, and some people never seem to learn the lesson: (1) rushing in the opponent's time trouble; (2) assuming a winning position will automatically result in a win; (3) playing for a draw when one needs/wants a draw. Giri committed the third error, in spades. Rather than playing the position and making the best moves, Giri repeatedly called off the dogs whenever he could grab an advantage, trying cynically to make the position dull and achieve a draw. Vachier-Lagrave kept scrapping, never allowing the position to completely resolve itself, and Giri's situation grew worse and worse. In the end, the game was decided by time trouble, with the evaluation fluctuating between a serious advantage for MVL and a draw for Giri. Up until the last move, Giri could have survived - 59.Rh7 is still a draw, but 59.Rh8?? blundered a piece to the elementary 59...Rxe5. (Of course, it's elementary when one isn't running out of time, exhausted by a long day at the end of a tough tournament and in a press-filled situation.)
That forced Armaggedon, and Vachier-Lagrave took the option to have Black in the last game. (White gets six minutes, Black 5 + draw odds, with no increments until after move 60, when the players get three seconds per move.) The level of play wasn't very high in this game, with both players surely exhausted by then, but MVL remained in control most of the way and won after Giri declined a charity repetition in a dead lost position.
The games, with my comments are here; stay tuned for a post on the Carlsen vs. Vachier-Lagrave final.
Reader Comments (2)
Agree that the tiebreak was completely unfair, no fault of any of the players. What a long, grueling day for all of them. It was really nice to have Grischuk sit in for commentary for a while. He's an amusing person.
You mention, Dennis, that the Berlin was the unofficial opening of the tournament. Wouldn't it have been amusing to have some variation thereof showing up repeatedly and coming to be called the London Variation of the Berlin Defense? Or some suitably witty variant thereof, at least--more so than I can generate at the moment?
[DM: Unfortunately for your proposal - but fortunately for the sanity of chess fans - there was a lot of variety within the Berlin and no one tabiya that got beaten into the ground. By the way, it's common nowadays for White to punt the London System in events with a shorter time control, so the same joke (in reverse) could have been offered at the recent World Rapid & Blitz Championships in Berlin.]
I've been spending my study time on the Najdorf lately (English Attack), so maybe that's why I'm not inspired to think of anything better in that connection.
[DM: On Najdorf nomenclature: unless Black is playing 6...e6 against the Najdorf with 6.Be3, it ain't the English Attack. 6...e5 7.Nb3 followed by the usual buildup is the Byrne Attack, while 6.Be3 Ng4 is probably best labeled the Kasparov Variation.]