Navara Presents His Game vs. Wojtaszek

The game David Navara vs. Radowslaw Wojtaszek may be from the B Group of Wijk aan Zee, but this is a very high-class game with both players over 2700. Players of this level obviously prepare deeply and calculate extremely well, but there's more to their ability than that. Watch these videos of Navara presenting the game, especially the endgame phase, and I think you'll also be impressed by their ability to think schematically as well. Navara may be a bit clumsy with the pieces, but the elegance of his thinking is remarkable.

HT: ChessVibes

Wijk aan Zee, Round 4: Anand and Nakamura Lead

Tomorrow/today (Wednesday) is a rest day at Wijk aan Zee, and after four rounds Anand and Nakamura lead with 3/4, with Aronian, Giri and Vachier-Lagrave half a point behind.

The day's games were very exciting and a lot of fun to analyze (and I was quite pleased to see that most of my pre-computer analysis held up!), but also extremely time-consuming. (Don't worry, I haven't spent the past 12 hours working on the games, but it was a fair chunk of time.) Here's a quick recap:

Anand-Wang Hao: Anand repeated the same 4.f3 line used by Kramnik in round 3 against Wang Hao, but did it better. 16.Nd4 was a nice novelty and led to a surprisingly quick win. I say "surprisingly", because this motif is well-known (as you'll see) and I would have expected Wang Hao to be better prepared for it. Easier said than done, I suppose, especially against Anand!

Aronian-Nepomniachtchi was simply an opening disaster for Black. Nepo's 8...cxd4 was apparently an OTB "inspiration" that just about loses for a simple tactical reason.

Shirov-Vachier-Lagrave was the third decisive game of the day, and it was a short game as well. Shirov played the same bloodthirsty line against the Gruenfeld Topalov used with such success against Anand in game 1 of their match, but a lot of work has gone into the line on Black's behalf since then. White was never able to make his attack work, and burning bridges only led to a speedy loss.

Giri-Nakamura: Nakamura started the day alone in first, and had to work very hard to finish it with a share of the lead. By transposition they reached the "Flexible" or "Kasparov" variation of the Nimzo (4.Nf3), quickly reaching a position where White enjoyed serious pressure in return for a damaged pawn structure. Nakamura gave up a pawn to break the pressure, and the rest of the way sought to show that the pawn would not be enough. It wasn't, thanks to Nakamura's excellent defense.

Ponomariov-Carlsen was an excellently played game. Ponomariov played very aggressively against Carlsen's Hedgehog, and the latter had to defend very precisely to stay alive.

Grischuk-Kramnik was also a (half-) triumph for good defense, this time in a "Semi-Slav" English.

L'Ami-Smeets: The last intra-Dutch battle of the tournament was drawn as well, but here it wasn't a finely balanced struggle between attack and defense. L'Ami was simply better, and only a few inaccuracies allowed Smeets to escape with a fairly quick draw.

Standings After Round 4:

1-2. Anand, Nakamura 3

3-5. Aronian, Giri, Vachier-Lagrave 2.5

6-10. L'Ami, Kramnik, Ponomariov, Nepomniachtchi, Smeets 2

11-12. Grischuk, Carlsen 1.5

13. Wang Hao 1

14. Shirov .5

For followers of the live ratings, Anand leads with a hefty 2815.2, ahead of Aronian's 2807.1 and the world's strongest fashion model's 2804.9. Nakamura has moved into 9th, while Shirov is in danger of falling off the page. Still, with nine rounds to go, practically anything can happen.

In group B, Luke McShane's 100% score finally stopped, but he still leads with 3.5 points, a full point ahead of Sargissian, Fressinet, Navara and Efimenko.

In group C, Italian GM Daniele Vocatura also has 3.5 points, putting him half a point ahead of Mark Bluvshtein and Ilya Nyzhnyk.

The group A games are here, with my comments.

Fischer Pics, x2

First, Tony Boron informed me that he has some old pictures of Bobby Fischer taken in Iceland in 1972, which he has posted on his blog. Have a look.

Second, when I wrote my review of Frank Brady's forthcoming Fischer bio Endgame, I stated that it didn't have any pictures. I was subsequently informed that the final edition would have pictures and made the correction, and now, having received a copy, I can confirm that this is indeed the case.

Wijk aan Zee, Round 3: Nakamura Leads

There were some short games today in Wijk aan Zee, but not all of the draws were short and not all of the short games were drawn. Nepomniachtchi-Grischuk and Vachier-Lagrave vs. Aronian were drawn quickly, but the miniature Carlsen-Giri was a rout in Giri's favor. Carlsen's prep wasn't good at all, resulting after 17 moves in an equal position where the burden was on White to maintain equality. He didn't: his 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st moves were all inferior, and after Black's 22nd move Carlsen resigned.

For Carlsen, it was a step down from a mediocre start; for Smeets, it was a fall from the lead. In the first two rounds he had been the Preparation King, but against Ponomariov in today's round he produced a lemon with the game's first new move. Actually, the move he played may not have been so bad, if followed up differently, but the idea Smeets came up with left him in a pawn down ending after 19 moves - with White! - with only grovelling chances. Ponomariov is an excellent player when it comes to grind-'em-down situations, and won without any apparent difficulty.

The last decisive game in group A was Nakamura-Shirov. Shirov repeated the Tkachiev/Neo-Archangelsk variation from round 1 against Smeets; interestingly, Nakamura varied first. After a flurry of excitement it settled into a late middlegame/early endgame in which White had an extra pawn. Shirov probably should have held the game, but Nakamura gained ground a little at a time, and after 93 moves Shirov finally threw in the towel. This puts Nakamura in clear first with 2.5/3.

In the world championship division, L'Ami gave Anand a good battle, but the champ managed to keep the balance and draw (with Black). Kramnik pushed Wang Hao, but the latter didn't give much ground, and they drew in 46 moves.

Standings After Round 3:

1. Nakamura 2.5

2-4 Anand, Giri, Nepomniachtchi 2

5-10. L'Ami, Aronian, Kramnik, Ponomariov, Vachier-Lagrave, Smeets 1.5

11-13. Grischuk, Wang Hao, Carlsen 1

14. Shirov .5

In the B-group, McShane (as predicted!) is continuing his hot start and leads with a 3-0 score. Sargissian, Navara and Efimenko have 2.

In the C-group, Lahno and Vocaturo have 2.5; Bluvshtein, Nyzhnk, Siebrecht and Sachdev have 2.

The group A games, with my comments, are here.

Wijk aan Zee Round 2: 6 Draws and a Nepomniachtchi Win

After yesterday's bloodfeast I wondered if they were using the Sofia rules in Wijk aan Zee; today's games answered that question with a resounding no. Six games were drawn, two of them in 17 moves and all but one of the draws finished by move 28. The one game that went to a natural finish was Wang Hao-Nepomniachtchi, and that game could have been drawn as well. Wang Hao declined a three-time repetition, though it was probably the right decision to take the draw, and got ground down in a long ending. Nepomniachtchi thus caught yesterday's winners (Anand, Nakamura and Smeets) in first place with 1.5/2.

Quickly summarizing the other games: Grischuk-Vachier Lagrave was a Rossolimo Sicilian in which White made his typical moves, Black made his, and White was soon satisfied that Black knew what he was doing: drawn in 27 moves.

Aronian-Nakamura was extremely disappointing. Nakamura played a pretty mainline approach in the Leningrad Dutch, and Aronian apparently had nothing prepared. Aronian's 15th move was new, but considering that it gave him nothing and that they agreed to a draw on move 17, I doubt this was any sort of home prep on White's part.

Giri-Smeets was by far the best draw of the day. Smeets is one of the few high-level GMs still willing to risk the Botvinnik System, and he seemed extremely well-prepared (as always). White won an exchange (or had one sacrificed to him), but Black's pressure on the a8-h1 diagonal and queenside passers kept the chances level. If anything, Black may have had some chances, but it was equal (but not boringly so) when the draw was agreed on move 38.

Anand-Kramnik saw some tremendous preparation by Kramnik. Kramnik first sacrificed a pawn and then an exchange with Black in the trendy Nimzo line beginning 4.Qc2 0-0 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.Qxc3 d5 7.Nf3 dxc4 8.Qxc4 b6 9.Bg5. It could have been fascinating, but Anand couldn't find anything clear and chose to play it safe, returning the material to achieve a dead equality. It worked, and the game was drawn o nmove 23.

Shirov-Carlsen was a sharp Scotch, but the complications fizzled out in a perpetual check after 28 moves.

Finally, Ponomariov-L'Ami was a 21-move draw in a main line Rubinstein Nimzo-Indian.

Games here, with my comments.

Larry Evans' Vienna 1922: A Quick Review

Larry Evans, Vienna 1922 (Russell Enterprises 2011). 144 pp. $19.95. Reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos.

Russell Enterprises (RE) regularly republishes tournament books from classic events, two especially notable examples being New York 1924 and Nottingham 1936, both by Alexander Alekhine. Those books are justly famous and unquestionably deserved to republished, but there are other, less well-known events that have been commemorated by tournament books, and RE has brought these back into print as well.

The latest such event is Vienna 1922, a 15-player event with such famous players as Alexander Alekhine, Akiba Rubinstein, Siegbert Tarrasch, Efim Bogoljubow, Richard Reti, Savielly Tartakower, Rudolf Spielmann, Geza Maroczy, Ernst Grünfeld and Fritz Sämisch. (Another interesting participant was Vladimir Vukovic of The Art of Attack fame.) Tarrasch was a little past his peak, and perhaps Rubinstein was too, while the other players listed were already very strong but still developing.

It was a hard-fought event, with only 32 draws in 103 games (Spielmann missed his last two games due to illness), and this is not just due to the top players beating up the amateurs - for one thing, there weren't many outsiders to beat up on! The tournament was a great success for Rubinstein, who scored 11.5/14 and finished a point and a half ahead of Tartakower, two points ahead of Heinrich Wolf (an Austrian master who had the tournament of his life) and two and a half points ahead of Tarrasch, Maroczy and Alekhine. Alekhine, who was probably the pre-tournament favorite along with Rubinstein, played some very nice games, but an early loss to Grünfeld (in a Grünfeld!) and late losses to Rubinstein and Wolf left him a disappointing result.

Now about the tournament book, which has the curious distinction of being both the first book and the last book Larry Evans wrote, and without being his only book. He wrote the original version in 1948, as a 16-year-old national master, and upon prompting from the publisher last year made some revisions. The opening references were not updated, but he added some annotations while fixed some analytical mistakes with the computer's help. Regarding the work's appearance, he changed the notation to algebraic and added some diagrams. There's a new preface, and John Donaldson wrote a foreword. There are also pictures of each of the participants, along with photos of the young and the old Evans. As the revision was completed in October of last year, shortly before his death from complications following gallbladder surgery in November, this was thus his last book as well.

As noted, the tournament was of a very high caliber, but does that mean you should buy the book? The notes are light by contemporary grandmaster standards, but they're "friendly" for an amateur looking to replay some old classics. It's not a must-have by any means, but I can recommend it to history buffs. It would also make a nice gift for a youngster, to introduce him to some of the game's old-time greats. (I'd probably select New York 1924 or Nottingham 1936 first, but Vienna 1922 has a place in the gallery of great early 20th century tournaments.)

Wijk aan Zee, Round 1: Wins for Anand, Nakamura and Smeets

The tournament (by which I mean group A unless otherwise indicated) got off to a great start with three decisive games and two pretty interesting draws in the seven contests.

World champion Viswanathan Anand played well against Ruslan Ponomariov, winning with Black. It would have been more convincing if he had won "properly" by catching a winning chance on move 32 rather than by taking advantage of his opponent's unintentional queen "sac", but a win's a win, and in general his play was good.

Hikaru Nakamura finally got that long-awaited win over Alexander Grischuk, and while he might not have beaten his opponent "like a baby" it was a pretty one-sided game. Grischuk was unhappy with Nakamura's extra space and looming pawn storm, and sacrificed a piece to break it up. The compensation was inadequate, though, and Nakamura always had a clear upper hand on the way to the win.

Jan Smeets is an absolute dark horse in the tournament, but if there's one thing he's known for it's his deep preparation. Smeets had a nice improvement ready against Alexei Shirov's pet line in the Ruy, and it worked like a charm. Just two moves later, on move 23, Shirov blundered, and after one more move resigned.

The other games were drawn, but one shouldn't have been. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave had a winning attack against Wang Hao, but found a good idea one move too late. This allowed his opponent to escape with a brilliant drawing combination. Magnus Carlsen-Levon Aronian and Ian Nepomniachtchi-Vladimir Kramnik were both Scotches. The first was lively but short, the second was solid but long, but both saw Black have the slightly better chances. Finally, Erwin L'Ami tried to make his bishop pair count against Anish Giri's two knights and extra pawn, but couldn't do it.

In the B-section, two games caught my eye. McShane beat Spoelman in an attractive but long game, and my suspicion is that he'll prove a man among boys in this group, especially with the London tournament under his belt. The second game was Hammer-Efimenko, which was surprising mainly because Hammer lost the R vs. R + B ending, and very quickly.

In the C-group, I'll again note two games of interest. One was Ivanisevic-Sachdev, a big upset won by Black despite her nearly 250 point rating deficit. Oddly, White played the iffy gambit line 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 and soon sacked a piece. Theoretically speaking, there was nothing wrong with White's position in the opening and well into the middlegame. From a practical point of view, however, Ivanisevic's decision was crazy. When you're playing a significantly lower-rated player, you don't want to randomize the game unless you have to - that just gives the opponent more chances! Both players made mistakes in the complications, and it was Ivanisevic who made the last ones. The other game was young GM Ilya Nyzhnyk's rather smooth dispatch of the higher-rated Kazhgaleyev. It would be nice to see him succeed; after all, Ukraine needs a new youngster to replace Karjakin on the world stage.

Unless people start donating money I probably won't make a habit of annotating all seven group A games (even bloggers have to make a living), but I did today. Here they are.

Wijk aan Zee Starts Tomorrow

Here's the general info, and then we'll get to some specifics. The annual super-tournament in Wijk aan Zee, sponsored this year by Tata Steel, commences tomorrow. There are in fact three concurrent round-robins, an A-group, a B-group, and - surprise! - a C-group. The first is incredibly strong, the second merely extremely strong, while the third isn't bad but rounds out the entertainment, serves as a qualifier (as does the second: the winner of the B- and C-groups get promoted a section for the next year's event), serves as a GM-norm tournament for some Dutch players and often showcases promising young talents.

All three groups have 14 players and thus 13 rounds, with play starting on the 15th and running through the 30th, with rest days on the 19th, 24th and 27th. The rounds start at 1:30 p.m. CET/7:30 a.m. ET, except for the last round, which starts 90 minutes earlier.

The B- and C-groups are interesting, but it's the A-group that puts the tournament on the map every year. Here are the players in the A-group:

1. Magnus Carlsen 2814

2. Viswanathan Anand 2810

3. Levon Aronian 2805

4. Vladimir Kramnik 2784

5. Alexander Grischuk 2773

6. Hikaru Nakamura 2751

7. Ruslan Ponomariov 2744

8. Ian Nepomniachtchi 2733

9. Wang Hao 2731

10. Alexei Shirov 2722

11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 2715

12. Anish Giri 2686

13. Jan Smeets 2662

14. Erwin L'Ami 2624

Strong enough for you? The three Dutch players at the bottom bring the average rating down a little (though I wouldn't be surprised if Giri raises the average in a couple of years), but even with them the average is a ridiculous 2740. The world's top four are playing, and better still there isn't a dull player in the lot.

Who do you think will win? One potential complicating factor for Aronian and Kramnik fans is that they're in the Candidates, which starts May 3, and may be starting their opening disinformation campaigns. Still, that's a ways off, so it's not clear how much they'll keep hidden at this point.

This Week's ChessVideos Show: Spassky-Fischer and the Blockade

Last week's show was a Nimzo-Indian that saw White's creative attacking play break through Black's attempts at a blockade; this time, the Nimzo-Indian blockade holds firm. It's game five of the 1972 Spassky-Fischer match and this game, won by Fischer, tied it up at 2.5-2.5. The game was cut short by a blunder, but even before that moment Fischer's deep strategy had proven effective, and at best White would have had to grovel for a draw.

The game is a nice complement to last week's show, and for those of you unfamiliar with the game and the blockading ideas therein, it will be a useful brick in the edifice of your chess knowledge. The show is here and it's free (free registration required if you're new to the site), and will be available on-demand for the next month or so.

A Tal Tale

Alas, so far it is only being told in German. Lubosh Kavalek writes about a new book on the great Mikhail Tal, written by GM Karsten Müller and Raymond Stolze, with contributions (or at least extended quotations and/or analyses) from Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov, Vladimir Kramnik, Robert Hübner and Artur Yusupov. Those who are friends of Müller's or know the Edition Olms people should harrass them as soon and as much as possible to get this book out in an English translation. (Meanwhile, I may have to brush up on my German!)