Topalov blitzed Vassily Ivanchuk off the board in just 21 moves, but this was primarily Ivanchuk imploding rather than a collapse due to his opponent's heavy pressure. Topalov had a small initiative after 17.dxe6, but it shouldn't have been anything too worrisome after 17...Nxe6 18.Qa4+ Kf8. Black's king isn't where it wants to be, but White's kingside structure isn't a dream come true either. Instead, Ivanchuk played one bad move after another, and his reward was a lost piece and a terrible king.
Dominguez beat Peter Svidler after the latter failed to preserve his king in a queen and rook ending. Svidler needed to play the overtly passive 26...Qf8 rather than the more active-looking 26...Qb7. The question is which White piece to contain, and it turned out that it was more important to keep White's queen off e8 than White's rook from a7. 29.f5 left Svidler in trouble, but the game wasn't decided until Black played the natural but erroneous 33...Kh8. Understandably, Black wanted to avoid allowing Qxe6 to come with check; the more important detail was that Black needed to keep extra control over f7. Thus after 33...Kh8 34.f6 White threatens 35.Ra8+ Qxa8 36.Qxg7#. If Black played 34...Rc8, then 35.f7 wins right away thanks to the threat of 36.Qh5#. This wouldn't be a factor had Black played 33...Kg8, as 34.f6 Rc8 35.f7+ just blunders the pawn: 35...Qxf7. Black tried 34...Rc7 instead, but after 35.Rf1 (threatening to take on g7 and continue 37.Rf8+, mating) 35...Rf7 36.Rf3 White is mating; the only question is how much material Black wants to throw into the wood chipper to delay it by a few moves.
Of the four draws, I'll take note of two. Kamsky-Ponomariov was even throughout, except for one fascinating moment right after the first time control. Kamsky should have played 42.Rxc5, when he should be able to neutralize Ponomariov's pressure after 42...Rxe4 43.Qb1 (e.g. 43...Re2 44.Qf1, or 43...Rd4 44.Rd5 Rxc4 45.Rd8+ Kh8 46.Qb2 etc.). Instead he played 42.Nf6+, but after 42...Qxf6 43.Rxc5 he was fortunate that Ponomariov missed 43...Qe7, which basically wins on the spot. Black threatens White's rook, and also threatens 44...Qe1+ 45.Kg2 Re2, when White cannot save his queen and cover the mate threat starting with ...Qxf2+. 44.Rc6! is the best try, aiming to meet 44...Qe1+ 45.Kg2 Re2 with 46.Rxg6+! If Black takes the rook, White has perpetual check; if he tries instead 46...Kf8? White wins with 47.Qf5.
Fortunately for Black in this variation, but unfortunately for Ponomariov, who must rue the missed opportunity, Black can improve with 44...Qb7! Now the rook sac is in vain: 45.Rxg6+ fxg6 46.Qxg6+ Qg7, forces a queen trade. If the rook retreats, however, e.g. 45.Rc5, then Black forces a speedy mate with 45...Re1+ 46.Kh2 Qf3. Instead of the winning 43...Qe7, Ponomariov instead returned the queen to f3, and Kamsky managed to hold starting with 44.Qd2.
The other especially noteworthy draw was the mind-boggling battle between Morozevich and Nakamura. Rather than give any hints or clues about it, I'll leave it to you to replay, analyze and simply enjoy it on your own. I'll note only that it was a remarkably well-played game considering its wildness.
Tomorrow (Sunday) is a rest day, and on Monday round 5 will occur with these pairings:
As for the one decisive game, it was a catastrophe for Ivanchuk. He had a colossal advantage against Dominguez, missing an easy outright win on move 26 with 26.Be5 (he had time, too, but it's one of those moves you either "see" quickly or you don't; more time is unlikely to help), and then a more subtle win on move 31 (31.Nxg7 Rxd6 32.Qe8+ Kh7 33.Nh5! - not too difficult either, if one has time on the clock) and yet a third win the next move (32.Nxg7 followed by 33.Ne8). Even after these errors he was still better, and would have had good winning chances after 37.Nf6+ or especially 37.Nc7. Instead, he uncorked the ridiculous 37.f4??, hanging his knight.
The finish was if anything even more amazing. Back in 2009 the same players had another time scramble. Ivanchuk knocked over some pieces then, and although he was winning at the time control he felt bad about the toppled pieces and offered a draw. In act of remarkable sportsmanship, Dominguez didn't take the knight but went for a perpetual check, to pay Ivanchuk back for the 2009 game, but Ivanchuk's flag fell on the last move of the time control and the arbiters declared the forfeit - even as Dominguez tried to declare the game drawn! Alas...
Round 4 Pairings:
In none of those three games was anyone really close to winning, but that obviously can't be said about the other three contests. Morozevich-Svidler was a startling blowout, won by White in just 22 moves. Morozevich played the Spanish Four Knights, and Svidler played Rubinstein's well-known pawn sacrifice. Morozevich returned the pawn for queenside play, and it seems that Svidler was a bit too interested in making something happen on the kingside rather than neutralizing his opponent's queenside play. The plan with 16...e4 and 17...Rh6 was a bit too optimistic, and 18...Nh4 was far too optimistic. Moro calculated and captured his way to what was by the end an overwhelming victory.
The second decisive game went considerably longer, with Caruana grinding down Ivanchuk on the white side of a Ruy Lopez, Steinitz Variation. In fact Black's position was tenable for a long time, but 44...Kf6 was a mistake that let White's queenside passers decide the game. Black probably should have played 44...Ra6, and on 45.Rd5 Rba7, freezing White's a- and b-pawns for the time being. Failing to do so, he was quickly overrun.
Finally, the third game was still longer - it went 121 moves! Nakamura was again the victim, as he was in round 1, of an impressive technical endgame won by his opponent. Grischuk grabbed a couple of pawns on the white side of a Neo-Archangelsk Ruy, and although his pawn structure was pretty ugly he managed to keep his material advantage into an endgame. After White's 52nd move both sides had a rook and a dark-squared bishop, while White had doubled f-pawns and a d-pawn against Black's lone f-pawn. No pawns were exchanged for the rest of the game, but the rooks came off at move 90. White eventually won by combining threats to Black's f-pawn with the power of his passed d-pawn (the "principle of two weaknesses" in action). Not a pleasant start for Nakamura: two blacks, 190 moves, and zero points. At least he's warmed up.
Round 3 Pairings (Scores in parentheses):
HT: Allen Becker & Brian Karen.
]]>Tactics books are a dime a dozen (metaphorically; the literal price is considerably greater), so what's different about this one; what do you get for your $44-51? For starters, you get a lot of puzzles: 3001, to be precise. In general, the positions are challenging. Often knowing the theme will give you a good idea about the first move (you won't be shocked to know that in most cases the first move in the puzzles from the chapter "Demolition of Pawn Structure" will involve sacrificing a piece for a pawn in the general vicinity of the victim's king), but that's almost never enough to fully and properly solve the puzzle. Until you're around 1900 or so, you're probably better off working on other tactics book (or software, or tactics websites).
If you are 1900 and up though, it's worth considering because the puzzles are sorted by themes, which is relatively rare for advanced tactics books. In my view both kinds of tactics books are valuable: those where the puzzles are divided up by themes and those where one has no advance idea of what to look for. There are 10 themes in the book, each further subdivided into three sub-sections: "combinations with attack on the king", "combinations to achieve equality", and "other combinations". The 10 themes, with my occasional explanations and/or comments in parentheses, are:
If you're a strong player and already have an impressive collection of (unused) tactics books, I wouldn't claim that this is the book for you, the one that will finally make everything fall into place. If you don't have a lot of advanced tactics books though, and especially if you don't have any that are sorted by theme, then it's worth considering - especially since $44-51 for 3001 puzzles is a good ratio. It's not worth getting if it's your 15th tactics book (meaning an advanced book for an advanced player), but if it's your first or maybe even your fifth, it might be.
]]>If it sounds interesting and you haven't already purchased those volumes, this is an excellent way to do it. The price for buying the three-pack on disc is considerably less than the cost for getting each Informant one volume at a time. The books run about $38 a pop, while this three-pack goes for about $64 from the publisher's site. Add to the savings the convenience of being able to examine the games (and all the other sections too) using ChessBase, Chess Assistant a PGN viewer or even the proprietary Informant format and it's an all-around good deal.
So if you're interested in the Informant and don't yet have these issues, it's definitely worth considering - especially for U.S. buyers, who can get it here for $57 (plus shipping). Highly recommended (for stronger/more ambitious club players, and up).
]]>In fact, the quickest game was Peter Svidler's 27-move win over last-second sub Etienne Bacrot. Bacrot was only a little worse until 21...Ba3, and he could still fight until his 23rd move, ...Bc8?, which allowed Svidler to maintain the "blind pigs" on the 7th rank. Then it was just over.
The other two decisive games featured the participants from the U.S.A. Gata Kamsky had an advantage against Leinier Dominguez all game long, but putting his opponent away was another story. Had Dominguez played 44...Kd7 he would have kept chances to survive; instead, he committed a gross blunder with 44...Rxh4??, losing a piece to the simple tactic 45.Rxd6+ (45...exd6 46.Bf6+ and 47.Bxh4). My view is that if you're in Dominguez' situation, you just laugh, acknowledge your fallibility and forget about it.
The other U.S. participant, Hikaru Nakamura, lost what looks like a textbook-ready endgame to Rustam Kasimdzhanov. Kasimdzhanov won a pawn and reached a good knight vs. relatively ineffectual bishop ending after 43 moves, and skillfully used all his assets to break in with the knight. Black could have played on quite a while longer, but with the h-pawn dropping White's win is routine.
The other three games - Ponomariov-Caruana, Ivanchuk-Morozevich, and Topalov-Grischuk - were all drawn.
Round 2 Pairings:
]]>