Biel, Round 6: Carlsen Wins, Extends Lead

The lucky spectators got to enjoy three lively games today. The "boring" game was Vachier-Lagrave vs. Caruana, which ended in a draw by repetition after the Frenchman first sacrificed the exchange (refused) and then a piece. It's a pity the game couldn't continue, but it was contentful as far as it went.

The most important result from a competitive standpoint was Carlsen's second victory over Pelletier, won in his typical style. He didn't seem to have much, and even strong online kibitzers were proclaiming "draw, draw". But as Carlsen has shown countless times now, he is capable of posing serious problems to even the world's best players in allegedly drawn positions (and this really wasn't any sort of obviously drawn position), and he did it again today. Carlsen coordinated his bishop pair, seized the initiative, and material and the game soon followed.

The game of the day, however, was the tactically insane game between Morozevich and Shirov. Morozevich probably should have won, but if he and Shirov managed to leave the board without a splitting headache, that's achievement enough. (I'm considering presenting this game for one of the two sites I do videos for. Hopefully we can avoid serious mental pain as well.)

So round 6 was a replay of round 1, with the same players reaching the same results, albeit with colors reversed. Thus Carlsen has extended his lead at Biel, especially given the 3-1-0 scoring system:

Standings After Round 6 (official 3-1-0 scoring first; traditional scoring in parenthesis):

1. Carlsen 13 (of 18; traditional score 4.5/6)

2. Morozevich 10 (4)

3. Vachier-Lagrave, Shirov 7 (3)

4. Pelletier 4 (2)

5. Caruana 3 (1.5)

Crestbook Conference with Levon Aronian, Part 2

A long and excellent read, highly recommended.

World Team Championship, Round 8: Armenia Leads But Hasn't Clinched

Just one round to go now at the World Team Championship, and Armenia leads by a point*, having lost half a point to the pack with their today's drawn match against Azerbaijan. Both teams won a game with White: Akopian over Mamedov and Mamedyarov over Sargissian. Akopian was helped along, I think, by Mamedov's 21...e4, which may have been based on a miscalculation. Perhaps he initially underestimated the strength of 23.Bc4 in case Black met 22.fxe4 by 22...Bxe4, or perhaps he overlooked 26.Bf3 in the game, or at least underestimated it. Winning wasn't easy, but it was the logical result once White went the exchange ahead. Mamedyarov-Sargissian started out great for the Azeri player, who like Aronian earlier in the event met the QGD with an h4+g4 idea. He was significantly better for a long time, possibly winning, but by move 36 he had lost almost all of his advantage. Here Sargissian needed to find 36...Rd5, so that the rook isn't locked out by 37.Bd4. Had he found the move, a draw would have been likely and Armenia would have won the match and clinched the championship. Missing it, White won in comfort and the match was drawn.

That's huge, because the two teams within a point are China and Ukraine, and Ukraine will play Armenia in the final round. Ukraine is still alive, in third (on tiebreak) after defeating the U.S. 2.5-1.5. Board 1 was a hard-fought draw between Kamsky and Ivanchuk. One thing that caught my attention was Ivanchuk's tactically neat 24...Rfd8 25.Bxa6 Rxa6!? 26.Qxa6 Nac4. Black is down the exchange and a pawn, and White's queen isn't even trapped, but despite that Black is completely fine. Had Kamsky chosen 27.Nxc4(?) Bxc4 28.Qa5(?) his king would perish after 28...Qxe4 followed by moves like ...Rd3 and ...Bd5. He therefore bailed out to an endgame with 27.Qb5, giving up a full piece in the process. Black was certainly better after that and maybe even winning, but Kamsky eventually held. Efimenko-Onischuk was a balanced game while Seirawan-Moiseenko was a thriller, but both also wound up drawn. The match was thus decided in the Areshchenko-Hess game. The winning move, practically speaking, was Areshchenko's exchange sac 23.Rxd5!? I don't think it promised an objective advantage, but the position was much harder for Black to handle. By move 35, when Hess returned the exchange, White's advantage was already decisive.

China defeated India 3-1, based on nervy wins by Wang Hao and Wang Yue. Their tiebreaks (as I understand them) are pretty good, so if Ukraine beats Armenia and the Chinese can defeat Hungary, they are likely to win the gold medals.

Russia and Hungary are tied for 4th-5th, and both won their matches today. Since Hungary played Egypt, the news that one of the teams won its match 4-0 might lead you to think the Magyars produced the tournament's first whitewash, but you'd be mistaken. It was Israel that got pole-axed, giving Russia a terrific tiebreak score in case they can wind up tied for a medal spot tomorrow.

Standings After Round 8:

1. Armenia 6.5

2-3. China, Ukraine 5.5

4-5. Russia, Hungary 5

6. USA 4

7. Azerbaijan 3.5

8-9. India, Israel 2.5

10. Egypt 0

* Two, technically, but that's based on 2-1-0 scoring. I've been using the simplifying assumption of normal chess 1-1/2-0 scoring instead.

Dortmund 2011, Round 4: Kramnik Wins, Extends His Lead

Two of today's games were drawn and it should have been three, but when Hikaru Nakamura mistakenly rejected the chance for a dead drawn ending against Vladimir Kramnik, the former world champion pretty straightforwardly outplayed him and collected the full point. He now leads Ruslan Ponomariov by a full point, with an impressive score of 3.5/4.

Ponomariov came close to winning his third game in a row, but while Georg Meier made things more difficult for himself than they needed to be, he was as resilient as he needed to be and drew with rook against rook and bishop.

Finally, Anish Giri and Le Quang Liem had a stable draw reminiscent of Morozevich-Pelletier from round 4 of Biel. Practically all Le's pawns were on the same color as his bishop, but there was no way for Giri to take advantage.

Standings After Round 4:

1. Kramnik 3.5
2. Ponomariov 2.5
3-4. Le, Giri 2
5-6. Nakamura, Meier 1

Round 5 Pairings:

• Le - Ponomariov
• Meier - Nakamura
• Kramnik - Giri

Official site here, games (with my light comments) here.

World Team Championship, Round 7: Armenia Continues to Lead

The World Team Championship is winding down, and Armenia is in great shape to win it all. They lead by a point and a half with two rounds to go - bad news for the other teams. Today they defeated the Hungarians 2.5-1.5, thanks to a Movsesian win on board 2. On board 1, Aronian held against Leko in a good illustration of what we might call the principle of one weakness. Aronian had an isolated pawn, but Leko was unable to force any further problems in the enemy camp, so it was a routine draw. On board 2, Almasi stood a little better in the early going, and what was a clear advantage could have been decisive after Movsesian's 29.Re3(?) - Black had the winning shot 29...Bc1! (30.Rxc1 Rxf2). Fortunately for the Armenians, he missed it, and after some further errors in time trouble (notably 37...Bd2) White won. Polgar-Akopian was another easy draw for Armenia, while on board four Balogh was incredibly lucky not to get destroyed in the early middlegame. (The pretty obvious 26.Ra3, for instance, was crushing: 26...Nf4 27.Rg3+ Ng6 [27...Kh8 28.Nxf7+ mates] 28.h4 wins a piece, as they're no defense to the threatened h5 that doesn't allow the Nxf7+ mating idea.) Eventually Balogh managed a draw, but Sargissian's half-point made it 2.5-1.5 for Armenia.

China is one of the two teams tied for second (right now they would win the silver medals on tiebreak), on the strength of a surprising 2.5-1.5 over the seemingly underachieving Russian team. The match could easily have gone the other way around: Svidler was clearly winning with White on board four against Yu Yangyi, but by a near-miracle Black escaped to an inferior ending two pawns down that he could draw. On board three Li Chao-Nepomniachtchi was a comfortable draw for Black in a Classical Gruenfeld with 8.Rb1, and there weren't any adventures on the board two game Grischuk-Wang Yue either. It all came down to Wang Hao-Karjakin on board one. Karjakin was better for a long time, but things went badly wrong in time trouble. After building up an attack for a long time, Karjakin obtained a clear edge, and he could have started cashing in with 33...Be7. The point is that if White wants to put his bishop on e5, as in the game, it will cost him the exchange. He could save the rook, but then the Bc7 is pinned. After 33...Bf6? 34.Be5 the position was about equal, but after 34...Be7?! 35.Rd7! Qe8? 36.Rxc8 Qxd7 37.Rc7 White had a big advantage. The roller coaster ride wasn't over yet, though, as Wang Hao's 40.Qd5?? gave the game away - or should have. (The right move was 40.Qc3!, which gives White a winning position after 40...e2 41.Bxf6!! e1Q+ 42.Kh2 Qxc3 43.Rxg7+ Kh8 44.Bxc3 Be4 45.Bf1 Bd5 46.Bb5 Rf8 47.Kh3; work remains, but only White can win. Working out such a line, even to move 44, would be incredibly difficult to find in time trouble.) After 40.Qd5, Black can win with 40...e2 41.Rc1 Bxe5 should do the job: 42.Qxd3 is toughest, but it's over after 42...Bxd6 43.Qxf5+ g6 44.Qf7+ Kh8 45.Re1 Bb4 46.Qxg6 Qb6+. Instead, Karjakin played 40...Ba6?? and was toast after 41.Qf7. At that point the time control was made, and White converted without any trouble.

Ukraine is tied with China, but in third on tiebreaks at the moment, after their 2.5-1.5 win over Israel. On board 1 Sutovsky went headhunting against Ivanchuk, but his spectacular idea with 17...Nd5(?) 18.exd5 Bf5+ 19.Ka1 Bc2(?) was tactically flawed. Ivanchuk defended accurately and won with his extra piece. Israel got the point back on board 2 when Eljanov blundered the exchange in an equal position. Board 4 was a solid draw, so the match was decided on board 3. Postny was better most of the way, and with 39...Qe5 would have maintained a clear advantage. After 39...Qe4? 40.Qxa7+ Kh6 the position was objectively equal but harder for Black to play, and three moves later he was lost.

The U.S. climbed into medal contention by defeating Azerbaijan 2.5-1.5. Shulman has been in bad form and lost again, getting ground down by Mamedov in 96 moves. But by that time the U.S. had already won the match. On board 1, Radjabov was pressing against Kamsky until around move 34 or so, and then the American was better. Better, but not winning, so I wonder if Radjabov lost on time, as 40.Nxd5 Nxg4 41.Rd6 is only slightly in Black's favor. An odd outcome. On board 2 Onischuk was slightly worse against Gashimov for a long time, but held. That left Seirawan-Mamedyarov, and here the Azeris would have benefited by consulting with an older player to learn about Seirawan's strengths. Mamedyarov's decision to play the Clarendon Court (1.d4 c5 2.d5 f5?!) was misguided at best, both on the opening's (de-)merits and because it plays to Seirawan's strengths. White looked better throughout, and when Black miscalculated the final race between his a-pawn and White's collecting everything else, the game ended in a hurry.

Finally, India was yet another 2.5-1.5 match winner, defeating the still winless Egyptian team. For once Shoker was not the hero of the team; had he scored, Egypt would have drawn or won the match.

Standings After Round 7:

1. Armenia 6
2-3. China, Ukraine 4.5
4-6. Russia, Hungary, U.S.A. 4
7. Azerbaijan 3
8-9. India, Israel 2.5
10. Egypt 0

Dortmund 2011, Round 3: Kramnik Still Leads

Vladimir Kramnik remains in first place, but the 100% score is gone after a draw with Le Quang Liem. Kramnik came out of the opening with an edge, but Le handled the middlegame well and Kramnik forced perpetual early in the second time control with a nice sacrificial line.

Ruslan Ponomariov moved into clear second with his second straight win. He avenged his match loss to Hikaru Nakamura, defeating him on the black side of a Nimzo-Indian. Nakamura's queenside got into a terrible bind, and while his pawn sac eliminated the cramp he never achieved any real compensation, and Ponomariov eventually brought his extra firepower to bear.

Anish Giri won a sort of Carlsen Jr. game. He came out of the opening against Georg Meier without any advantage, but played for a win, without having anything, for about another 50 moves. Meier finally blundered, and Giri won.

Standings After Round 3:

1. Kramnik 2.5
2. Ponomariov 2
3-4. Le, Giri 1.5
5. Nakamura 1
6. Meier .5

Round 4 Pairings:

• Giri - Le
• Nakamura - Kramnik
• Ponomariov - Meier

Official site here, games (with my comments) here.

Biel, Round 5: Vachier-Lagrave Upsets Carlsen; Morozevich Also Wins

While he's still in clear first place - both in the tournament and on the rating list - Magnus Carlsen was given a reminder of his humanity today. All it took was Maxime Vachier-Lagrave grinding away for 96 moves! The variation 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 (disallowing the Sveshnikov) e5 (preventing White from getting a different Open Sicilian of his choosing) tends to give White a pleasant and safe space advantage in exchange for a very solid position. That more or less held true for another 90 moves or so.

After 30 moves, the players reached an ending with queens, both pairs of rooks and all of their pawns. White had whatever winning chances there were, but thoughts of a win were for the distant future. After 50 moves, a pair of pawns had been swapped and the pawn structure ossified. Vachier-Lagrave did essentially nothing for 27 more moves (not that there's anything wrong with that; it gave him the chance to think a lot before making a final, commital decision and allowed him the time to work out, or at least get a good feeling for, the various nuances of the position), and then we reached this position:

Here he uncorked the fantastic 78.f4!! Perhaps it's the only try in the position, but it's still pretty gutsy, especially without so much time on the clock. (Again, see the previous parenthetical - he gave himself more time to work it out by doing "nothing" for 27 moves first.) White was able to combine threats from the queen on the kingside with penetration by rooks on the queenside, and although Carlsen was ultimately able to get the queens and a pair of rooks off the board, his position was hopeless. 90.Ra7! and 91.h7! were excellent moves, dominating Black's rook, and when Carlsen finally resigned Vachier-Lagrave was about to collect just about every Black pawn. (For example: 96...f2 97.Ra1 f1Q 98.Rxf1 Ra8 99.Rd1 Ra2 100.Rxd6 Rg2+ 101.Kxf6 and so on.)

Alexander Morozevich pulled to within a point (to equality on traditional scoring, but he's still a point back on 3-1-0 system they're using in Biel) by defeating Fabiano Caruana. (Caruana, sadly, is not within a point of anyone. His score of -3 =2 has him in clear last place, but he's young. He'll back and then some.) The Catalan is a gambit, though in many of the main lines Black declines it, but Morozevich accepted and held the extra c-pawn. Black's Semi-Slav-like pawn mass on the queenside is a great endgame asset, and Morozevich eventually won with it.

45...e3 was a particularly nice move, leaving White an unpleasant choice. If he takes with the pawn, then 46...Rxd5 followed by ...Rd2 gives him terrible problems on the second rank. If, as in the game, he arranges things to recapture with the rook, it gives Black several tempi to bring his king in contact with the queenside mass. Functionally speaking, Black wound up a king ahead, and White resigned after Black's 52nd move.

Finally, Yannick Pelletier drew on the white side of an actual Semi-Slav against Alexei Shirov. Oddly, both sides had dangerous kingside attacks in an ending, and the game finished with a perpetual. Shirov is tied with Vachier-Lagrave for third, while Pelletier is proving not to be mere cannon fodder. After a first-round loss to Carlsen, he has drawn his last four games - no pushover at all!

Standings After Round 5 (3-1-0 scoring first, "real" scores in parentheses):

1. Carlsen 10 (3.5)

2. Morozevich 9 (3.5)

3-4. Vachier-Lagrave, Shirov 6 (2.5)

5. Pelletier 4 (2)

6. Caruana 2 (1)

Tomorrow is a rest day; they'll commence the second cycle on Monday. Tournament site here.

World Team Championship, Round 6: The Armenias Extend Their Lead

Today's round was a funny one, in that almost all the top teams drew, allowing Armenia to grow their lead by defeating India 2.5-1.5. All three draws in that match were hard-fought, but Harikrishna didn't have enough to hold Aronian. He played the Lasker Defense of the Queen's Gambit Declined, which is a good start for someone trying to be solid, but Aronian produced a fascinating new plan that changed the usual character of that opening. After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Be7 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4 0-0 7.e3 Ne4 8.Bxe7 Qxe7 9.Rc1 h6 Aronian uncorked 10.h4!?, continuing 10...Nd7 11.g4. Harikrishna continued thematically with the central break 11...e5, but Aronian maintained control in that part of the board too: 12.cxd5 Nxc3 13.Rxc3 cxd5 and now 14.g5 h5 15.Bb5 probably left him a slight edge. Harikrishna soon sacrificed a pawn for play, but it was never quite enough, and soon White's passed e-pawn decided the game.

Russia remains in second, on tiebreaks, after a 2-2 draw with Ukraine, drawn on every board. On board 1 ex-Ukranian Karjakin hoped to crush Ivanchuk a second time from the white side of an Austrian Attack Pirc, but nothing doing. At most Karjakin had a small edge at some point, and on board two Eljanov had at best a tiny edge against Grischuk before complete equality was reached. On board threes and four, though, Russian missed out on some real opportunities. Nepomniachtchi did have a serious advantage aginst Efimenko at one point, but after 25.Qf4 rather than 25.Rfh5 it dissipated, while 37...Bb6 or 37...Rb8 rather than 37...Bb4 would have kept a serious advantage for Vitiugov against Moiseenko. Vitiugov probably missed Moiseenko's tactical trick with 41.Nxf7, after which the ending was just a draw.

Hungary is in third, behind Russia on tiebreaks, after a more eventful but also drawn match against the U.S. Kamsky-Leko was a quick draw on board 1, and on board 4 Hess held comfortably against Balogh. On board 3 Seirawan had White against birthday girl Judit Polgar, and gave her an anti-present: he crushed her. Polgar's kingside quickly grew vulnerable, but it might have been tenable until she played 30...hxg5(?) 31.hxg5 fxg5(??) - ...Rb7 had to be played on both moves 30 and 31. After 32.f6, with the idea of Qg6, it was basically over. Polgar delayed the end by coughing up a rook and then an exchange, but the end was never in doubt. The US was in great shape to win the match, as Shulman was completely equal against Almasi with Black in a French, but around move 34 he was unable to work out the best way to achieve counterplay. Shulman's c-pawn was falling, but he had a move or two to drum up a counterattack against White's king. Probably something like 34...Re1+ 35.Kh2 Qc2! 36.Rxc6 Re2 37.Kg3 Qd3+ does the job: if the king goes back to h2, Black's queen returns to c2, while 38.f3 Qc2 39.Qg1 then 39...Qb2 gives at least enough counterplay for the pawn. In the game, Shulman was unable to keep sufficient pressure, and Almasi eventually converted his extra pawn.

Another drawn match - surprisingly so - was Azerbaijan-Israel. Radjabov won convincingly with Black against Sutovsky on board 1. His e-pawn sac was a neat idea: if 19.Rxe7 Ne5 White is in some trouble, e.g. 20.Qe4 Ra6! and now 21.Rxe5 Bxe5 22.Qxe5 Re6! 23.Qf4 Re4! followed by 24...Re1+ and 25...Rxc1 is probably winning for Black, while the better 21.Qxa8+ Rxa8 22.d4 Nd3 23.Bd2 Bf8 24.Re3 Nxb2 25.dxc5 Ra1 26.Re1 Bxc5 favors Black as well. Sutovsky did have one good chance, and surprisingly, given his lively attacking style, he missed it. He should have played 23.Rxe5 Bxe5 24.Qxe5, because White's dominant queen can create threats with either the knight (going to d5) or the bishop (going to h6). Thus 24...bxc3?? 25.Bh6 f6 26.Qd5+ Kh8 27.Qd7 wins for White, while 24...Re6 25.Qd4 Re1+ 26.Kh2 Rxc1 27.Nd5 is unclear. As things went Black was slowly making use of his material advantage until Sutovsky blundered with 38.Qf4??, when 38...Re1+ 39.Kh2 Qf1 forced White's resignation (White must give up the queen to avoid 40...Qh1#). There were hard-fought draws on boards 2 and 4, and on board 3 Postny accepted Mamedov's sacrifices, neutralized Black's attack, and eventually cashed in.

Finally, a non-drawn match: China routed Egypt 3.5-.5, and as you'll have guessed if you've been following the event or have read my summaries, it was of course Shoker who got the one half-point for Egypt.

Standings After Round 6:

1. Armenia 5

2-3. Russia, Hungary (Russia is currently second on tiebreaks) 4

4-5. China, Ukraine 3.5

6-7. Azerbaijan, USA 3

8. Israel 2.5

9. India 1.5

10. Egypt 0

This Week's ChessVideos Show: The Berlin Finale

The series on the "Quick" Ruy moves on, but our look at the Berlin ending comes to a close in this week's show. Rather than plow through all the theory on the non-...Kc8 lines, I highlight one particular approach that has seen some very high-level tests the past year or two, and that's 9.Nc3 Ke8 10.h3 h5. I survey the different plans available there and show how superstars like Carlsen, Anand, Kramnik and Shirov have handled the position for White and/or Black. This should help make it a bit more accessible, I hope!

The video is here and is free, as always (free registration is required for first-timers), and available on-demand for the next month or so.

World Cup Pairings

Here.

HT: Chess Today