Zurich, Day 1: Anand Starts 2-0; Gelfand Wins the Sideshows
Mark Twain famously wrote, "the rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated", and Viswanathan Anand could say the same. Given up for dead - again - in the wake of his poor performance in Gibraltar a week or two ago, he has shown - again - that he remains a top player, and must be considered a legitimate contender to win the Candidates' tournament in March.
Anand won both games today, crushing Levon Aronian with White in the opener and defeating Anish Giri with Black in round 2. All the other games in both rounds were drawn except for the round two matchup between Alexei Shirov and Hikaru Nakamura. Shirov's attempt to create his trademark "fire on board" backfired (pun intended); in particular, his exchange sac on move 36 was a lemon or involved a serious miscalculation (possibly in serious time trouble). Both 36.a5 and 36.Rh1 - two moves which avoid going a pawn down - sufficed to maintain equality. I'll draw your attention to one other game from round 2: Vladimir Kramnik's wild battle with Levon Aronian. Kramnik played the dynamic, sacrificial chess characteristic of his play the past several years, and while it wasn't good enough for a win the game was highly entertaining.
There was an "undercard" of sorts: a two-game match between Boris Gelfand and Alexander Morozevich. Gelfand drew the first game with Black and won the second with White. Afterwards he played a second exhibition, this time a single game with chess sponsor (and very strong amateur) Oleg Skvortsov. Gelfand had White and Skvortsov was busted early, but the latter managed to make a very exciting game of it. The game had a nice touch near the end, when Gelfand played 42.Bc1! It wasn't the only winning move in the position, but it was certainly the prettiest.
All the games are here, and I've annotated Anand-Aronian from round 1.
Reader Comments (4)
On your notes to Anand-Aronian (appreciated as always):
4.Nc3 "seems to me an underutilized strategy against the Berlin, a state of affairs that might change after this blowout" - I doubt whether such conclusions can/should be drawn from a miniature where a lot went wrong for black. By the same logic, one could promote 2.f4 (King's Gambit) as an anti-Berlin weapon? There are also cases, also at very high level, where it worked very well for white. One coming to my mind is Ivanchuk-Karjakin 1-0, Jurmala rapid 2015 - this was later a mix of positional and tactical play.
Of course I am provocative and tongue-in-cheek: The King's Gambit might be objectively just bad (some people will disagree?), the Four Knights might be objectively harmless. Hard to say where/why Aronian went all wrong: He might have been too ambitious, looking for play rather than dry equality, for sure he was careless with no sense of dangers.
[DM: I didn't claim that the Spanish Four Knights gives White an advantage, and my notes didn't suggest otherwise. But is it underutilized? Yes, I think it is. Black is faced with a different set of problems than in the Berlin endgame, or in the 5.Re1 and 4.d3 lines, and my impression is that they're less worked out than the standard anti-Berlins.]
By the way the exhibition game Gelfand-Skvortsov wasn't played "afterwards", but the afternoon before the opening ceremony.
[DM: Thank you for the correction.]
Actually, Gelfand's game against Oleg Skvortsov was the opening game of the event. Not that it matters, of course.
I didn't claim that Dennis claimed an advantage for white in the Spanish Four Knights, and like him I can't predict the future. My gut feling is that it can work for white as well as it did this time only if it remains a surprise weapon, not if it should be played more frequently at top level.
Depending on the reference period, it might be over- rather than underutilized - after all it was (as far as I know) quite popular many years ago [Dennis mentions Rubinstein in his game notes]. Will white be able to create new/fresh problems for black? If so, along the lines of this game (quick blood) or going for some slight advantage - as the Scotch Four Knights with h3, popular a few years ago, as in the "Giri variation" 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.h3, as in other Berlin and anti-Berlin variations? That's up to top GMs and their helpers.
Somewhat funnily, another memorable 21st century Zurich game was Kramnik-Aronian 1-0 from their match in 2012: a Scotch Four Knights, also here Aronian contributed - by sacrificing his queen early in the game. Interesting? Playable? The jury is still out as there were no follow-up games.
I want to amend my answer from earlier when you sort of polled your readers what times control they preferred. I am fine with rapid, as long as we all acknowledge it is rapid. This is in now way 'new classical', The games are of such higher quality at the classical time control. Yes, the players need less time for the openings than, say, 60 years ago, but with no adjournments, they need much more time for quality endgame play.
These rapid games have resembled more blitz games than classical to me.