Dortmund Finishes; Biel Begins
Monday, July 23, 2018 at 3:44AM
Dennis Monokroussos

Today marked an intensification of chess activity - along with the decisive round of Dortmund, today featured the inaugural round of the Biel Chess Festival! This year's incarnation of Biel features a small but incredibly potent lineup - any tournament featuring Magnus the Great is worth following, and he is followed by fellow 2800 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (I'm incredibly happy I was able to spell his name without double checking), fellow super GMs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Peter Svidler, Czech standout and 2700 David Navara (and, I must say, an incredibly good human being - Google what happened between him and Moiseenko in 2011 if you want to have your faith in humanity restored), and promising Swiss GM Georgiadis (who will most certainly be taking some learning bumps from this Murderer's Row). We'll discuss this 1st round shortly - but first, the last round of Dortmund!

 

Ian Nepomniachtchi came into the last round leading by half a point and was facing the ultra solid Meier - though Nepo had the White pieces, defeating such a solid player wasn't a given at all. Should he keep the guaranteed draw in hand and rely on the other games ending peacefully? Should he go all out for a win and risk being overtaken? However, similar to how Alexander the Great solved the Gordian Knot with the sword, Nepo solved his dilemma by cutting Meier in half! The game featured a Rubinstein French, where Nepo brought out the aggressive 7. Ne5 (a line first championed by Kasparov, which put Black's whole line under pressure when first formulated). Meier responded with the slightly offbeat 7...Bd6 (7...Be7 and 7...c5 are more normal). I'm not sure if Meier had some specific prep in mind or if Nepo dodged it via some move order, but Nepo gained a very fluid and dangerous attacking structure. Nepo managed to shatter Black's kingside structure in exchange for losing castling rights - White's king was in no danger on f1, whereas Black's king was feeling quite a bit of heat in his well ventilated hut. 19...Kg7? was a large inaccuracy, placing the Black monarch on a soon to open g file. 21...Bd7 was far too routine (21...Rh8 was better, but Black's position was critical anyways), and 22. Qh5! was lovely attacking technique (preventing Black from bypassing the can opener g5 with ...h5). After this, the game was essentially over, and Nepo finished off Meier with pure style. A lovely game, and a delightfully worthy way to finish off a very successful tournament.

 

The other games all ended in peace through various methods - Nisipeanu-Wojtaszek featured two players who've had tournaments that they'll do their best to forget. Although Nisipeanu achieved a little bit from an odd Ragozin/Nimzo hybrid (two bishops against two knights), Wojtaszek's knights had good activity on the queenside, and the players found their way to peace before the time control. Kovalev-Kramnik featured an opening that wouldn't look out of place from the 1850s - perhaps this is a wonky Scotch Gambit? Regardless of nomenclature, Kramnik did a good job of consolidating, and his extra pawn was balanced out by White's activity and Black's unsafe king. However, once again, Kramnik found a way to put himself in extreme danger, as 30...Nb5? was met with the excellent 31. Bf6!, giving Kovalev an extra exchange. However, in a rook and pawn vs. knight and pawn ending, Kovalev didn't manage to find a way through, and Kramnik managed to desperately hang on for the draw. I dearly hope that Kramnik rediscovers the form and stability that made him the best player in the world - these constant explosions have become all too common for him. Finally, the game Giri-Duda featured both players trying their best to keep winning chances alive in case Nepomniachtchi stumbled. Duda brought out the Pirc as a way of unbalancing the game. Like most situations where you're playing an unfamiliar opening for the artificial purpose of trying to win, it backfired, and Giri developed very dangerous attacking possibilities against the weak kingside dark squares. However, Giri never went for the throat - there were several moments where White seemingly could have rushed his kingside pawns forward and crushed the weakened Black kingside. Even after Giri traded queens he still retained an advantage - however, both sides chose a very strange sequence with very odd material combinations on offer (rook vs. two minors, rook for bishop, piece sacrifice for two pawns...all within a few moves!). They finally settled on Black having a rook for a bishop and three pawns - however, Black's huge activity slightly more than balanced this out. Black could have pressed for something - however, after seeing Nepomniachtchi crush Meier, Duda chose to liquidate his rook for White's bishop and a pawn, and he easily held a pawn down ending where virtually all the pieces were frozen up by passed pawns on either side. With these results, Nepomniachtchi won Dortmund 2018 by a full point - though this could have easily been a different tournament had Duda converted his winning edge in the penultimate round, Nepo went +3 and undefeated, and this is an absolutely superb result worth celebrating.

 

Now, on to Biel! Any game with Carlsen is going to be the game of focus, and today he took the White pieces against Navara. A Ragozin came about, and Carlsen typically chose to keep things in quiet and non theoretical channels. Carlsen got tangled up a bit, however - his plan of Nb5-d4 was a bit artificial, and 15. Nc2?! forced an early queen sac(!) for rook and bishop. Navara was most certainly slightly better, but...it's simply incredibly to watch Carlsen play against "ordinary" GMs. And here, he's even playing another member of the world elite. Carlsen did nothing flashy - he simply outplayed Navara step by step, move by move. Navara managed to reach a queen vs. rook and knight ending that most strong players would consider a dead drawn fortress...and yet, Carlsen just kept the game alive at every moment, waited for Navara's small missteps, and exploited every one of them. Carlsen never provoked a crisis, and Navara never even really made any major blunders - all Carlsen did was show a world class player, over and over, that his moves were 2nd or 3rd best. An absolute classic technical performance from the best chess player of all time (yeah, I said it - come at me, bruh).

 

MVL-Svidler featured a sort of Spanish structure that you might get from an anti-Marshall line. Svidler selected a sort of Chigorin-ish structure, and MVL gained the edge of the two bishops (his light squared bishop especially being quite strong). The game continued along fairly balanced lines until 27...Nxb5, which seems to unnecessarily grant White a very strong protected passer. White transformed this advantage into a weakened Black kingside and chances for an attack - however, at the critical moment MVL chose to force a repetition! Though it's not clear that White had anything forced, it certainly looked worth getting past the time control and seeing what things look like.

 

And finally, the game Mamedyarov-Georgiadis featured what will be the first of many learning experiences for the Swiss GM. Mamedyarov deployed an anti-QGD/Slav structure that has been growing in popularity for the past 6-7 years. Giorgiadis quickly went wrong, and Mamedyarov poked and prodded at Black's pawn mass with his bishop pair. Mamedyarov won a pawn, shifted to a kingside attack, Georgiadis gave up the ghost at move 28. As long as he learns from his encounters with the world elite, he can count any result in this tournament as a success. Tomorrow features the heavyweight matchups of MVL-Carlsen and Navara-Mamedyarov, while Georgiadis has a 2nd Black in a row against Svidler. Thanks so much for staying with us for Dortmund, and we'll see you tomorrow for Biel!


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