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    Entries in Peter Svidler (63)

    Thursday
    Dec142017

    Mr. Eight-Time: Peter Svidler Wins Yet Another Russian Championship

    While Peter Svidler didn't win any major events this year until the Russian Championship, he has performed consistently, gaining points in every or almost every event he played in this year. At the moment his rating is 2767.7, just a point and change below his all-time peak rating of 2769, achieved in 2013. He's back up to #10 in the world, and showing (as did players like Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Boris Gelfand, Vassily Ivanchuk and others) that passing the age of 40 (Svidler is 41) is far from a death sentence for one's career.

    Now about the Russian Championship. Entering the last round he was in a four-way tie for first, with three other players half a point behind. A playoff looked likely, and there was one--but it only involved two players. Svidler had White against Vladimir Malakhov - one of the players in the tie - and won cleanly and convincingly in a Spanish Four Knights (via a Berlin move order). The other two players in the tie had the black pieces: Vladimir Fedoseev (against Evgeny Romanov) and Nikita Vitiugov (vs. Sergey Volkov). Fedoseev, who led or co-led throughout the tournament (except in the final standings) was unable to beat the lowest-rated player in the field (though in this field, that's still an extremely strong player), but Vitiugov managed to beat Volkov. (Crushed him, but while he was already better with Black after just 13 moves, he was certainly helped along by the blunderful 14.0-0-0??)

    This entailed a two-game playoff between Mssrs. Svidler and Vitiugov. Svidler gradually outplayed his opponent with Black in the first game, and in game two Vitiugov took such extreme risks with Black that he was lost after his 7th(!!) move and resigned on move 18.

    So that makes eight Russian championship titles in all: 1994, 1995, 1997, 2003, 2008, 2011, 2013, and 2017. Granted, Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Grischuk, Sergey Karjakin, and Ian Nepomniachtchi weren't playing, but he has won the title ahead of them as well.

    (Speaking of which: Nepo has won the title once, in 2010, and lost in a playoff to Svidler in 2013. Karjakin has never won the title, but he has twice been eliminated in playoffs - in 2010 to Nepomniachtchi and in 2012 in a large playoff that knocked Svidler out as well. Grischuk has won one title, in 2009, and surprisingly Kramnik has never won it - he's 0 for 3.)

    Congrats to Peter Svidler!

    Monday
    Sep252017

    Svidler On His World Cup, and on Game 1 of Aronian vs. Ding Liren

    The audio isn't especially good, but it's worth watching if you can tolerate its choppiest moments. Have a look.

    Sunday
    Sep172017

    World Cup, Round 5, Day 3: Vachier-Lagrave Defeats Svidler in Tiebreaks

    Four is the number of the remaining players, but not the number of consecutive Candidates events for Peter Svidler. Instead, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is in the final four, one match away from his first Candidates tournament. (Not that it will be easy, as his next opponent is Levon Aronian.) He defeated Svidler after a pair of tiebreak games, both of which continued the theoretical duels of their classical games.

    In the first, Vachier-Lagrave was White in a Giuoco, with Svidler repeating the 10...a5 idea that he and Grischuk have now played a combined five times against MVL in the past week. White enjoyed a very mild plus through most of the game, but the eventual draw was no surprise.

    In game 2, Svidler again played the English, and MVL repeated the Symmetrical line with 5...Nb4 and 6...Nd3+. Svidler again played the curious 9.h4, and after the same six consecutive moves with the same knight, Black varied from their classical game. In that game, Black chose 10...Nbc6, while time MVL played 10...e6, as played in the only other game to have reached that position. Svidler already started to think here, which wasn't a particularly good sign for his fans. (But maybe I should say something like "fans of his play". Fans of his commentary may be thrilled; one may hope that he'll appear before the microphone somewhere for the semi-finals or at least the finals.) After 11.Bf4 a6 12.Nxd4 cxd4 13.Ne2 Nc6 Black had no problems to speak of. My suspicion is that if 9.h4 survives, it is 10.d3 that will go the way of the dodo. Black was soon better, and after 23.Qxd6+? Svidler was just about lost. Short on time as well, he was unable to put up much resistance, and Vachier-Lagrave won quickly and smoothly. (The games, with my notes, are here.)

    Tomorrow is a day off for everyone, and on Tuesday we get Aronian vs. MVL in one semi-final, and Wesley So against Ding Liren in the other.

    Friday
    Sep152017

    World Cup, Round 5, Day 1: Aronian Crushes Ivanchuk, Svidler Misses a Chance

    With 120 of the participants gone, the tournament has a much quieter, almost lonely feel to it now, and all the more so considering that two of today's four games were drawn before move 20. Richard Rapport didn't exactly pull out all the stops against Ding Liren, offering a draw (which was accepted) after his 11th move, and Vladimir Fedoseev didn't exactly put Wesley So's Petroff out of business. That barnburner lasted a whopping 19 moves. (Or 18 and a half, but who's counting?)

    Levon Aronian's game with Vassily Ivanchuk wasn't a marathon either, clocking in at just 24 moves. The Sofia rules aren't relevant, however, as the offer a handshake was Ivanchuk's resignation. An English turned into a sort of odd Open Catalan where Black made all his queenside moves, but without developing his kingside. If the goal was to achieve ...c5, it was a smashing success. Unfortunately, keeping one's king in the center can have adverse consequences, and Aronian ripped open the center before Black's king could scurry off to safety. Between Black's bad king and White's powerful, passed d-pawn, Ivanchuk was in all kinds of trouble. In the final position Black's king was relatively safe and material was still even, but White was likely to win 1-3 pawns on the queenside in the very near future. Black's kingside was still an uncoordinated mess, and White's d-pawn pinned down Black's army. It was a nice, high-energy game by Aronian, but a poor game by Ivanchuk; at a minimum a case of poor preparation.

    The last game to finish was Peter Svidler's battle against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Svidler enjoyed a serious advantage thanks to Black's weak pawns on the queenside, and he maintained a healthy advantage until 32.Rc6?! (or maybe '?'). This allowed Vachier-Lagrave to survive with the help of a little trick, 33...Nb5! White's pressure quickly dissipated, and the game was agreed drawn just after the time control, on move 41.

    The games, with my comments, are here.

    Thursday
    Sep142017

    World Cup, Round 4, Day 3 Tiebreaks: MVL, So, Svidler, Fedoseev, and Rapport Advance

    It was an exciting day of tiebreaks, though it was disappointing that only one match made it past the two 25-minute games, and it was settled in the 10' + 10" round. We need to see at least one Armageddon game before the tournament ends!

    Anyway, to the round. Peter Svidler had the easiest time of it, beating Bu Xiangzhi 2-0. In the first game, Svidler won with Black after Bu got tangled up in the center. White tried to bail out with an exchange sacrifice, and it almost worked. Bu was about to esacape until he played 40.Ra5??, walking into a lethal self-pin. Walking into mate in one on the next move didn't help, but the damage had already been done - even 41...Rb4 would have done the job. In the second game, Bu tried the Dutch, hoping for a complicated position, but when he met the Improved Lisitsyn Gambit by turning the game into a Philidor Counter-Gambit he got in trouble - fast. He was already clearly worse by move 7 (maybe by move 5, but let's be generous), and after a huge error on move 9 he was completely lost. Svidler may not have played in the most incisive way, but he didn't have to, and he coasted to victory.

    Wesley So was also a smooth winner, outplaying Baadur Jobava in their first game with the white pieces, demonstrating the power of the bishop pair (and later of bishop vs. knight) to grind out a victory. Game two was an "I'll make you an offer you can't refuse" draw: So was better from early on, and could have played for a win had he needed to. Instead, he allowed Jobava to draw by repetition in a position where he was still better, but the problem for Jobava was that varying from the repetition would lose on the spot.

    In one of the matches featuring underdogs, Evgeniy Najer held an edge in his white game with Richard Rapport until his ill-advised 23.Bxh6, which should have been met by 23...Rxf3. For a while after that Najer had good chances to win, but Rapport gradually clawed his way back to equality and a draw. The second game was completely crazy, and Rapport handled the complications much better than Najer to win deservedly. There was one big hiccup near the end, however. 45.Rb7+ followed by 46.Re2 won comfortably, but after his 45.Rb6? Najer had 45...Re1+ first, and only after 46.Kg2 was 46...Nb4 correct. In this case he would have equalized. Now White can't play Re2, and if he takes on a5 Black has an immediate perpetual with his rook going to e2, e1 and/or e3, as needed.

    In the other battle of the underdogs, Vladimir Fedoseev defeated Maxim Rodshtein 2-0, though unlike Svidler's 2-0 victory it wasn't easy. First of all, it's a mystery why Rodshtein didn't play 37...Qxc3 in the first game, leading to a dead draw after 38.Rxc3 Bxf2 39.Nxe6 Rxc3 40.Bxc3 fxe6. Even after 37...Bxc7 39.Bxc7, trading queens would have given him excellent drawing chances in the opposite-colored bishop ending. The draw wouldn't be guaranteed on account of the rooks, but keeping queens on as well made it harder, not easier, for him to defend. Eventually the queens came off, but under more favorable circumstances for Fedoseev. It still wasn't easy for White to win until Rodshtein's 69...Kf7, allowing White to play 70.Rf8+ and 71.Rf6. After that, the conversion was routine. Rodshtein did a great job of creating a complicated mess in game two, and he had good chances to win as soon as the early middlegame. The game went back and forth, and Rodshtein missed a very good chance on move 33, when taking on b5 followed by d6 would give him a winning advantage. From there on, he played too passively, and Fedoseev took over the initiative. White had to play 41.Bg2 to stay alive, and after missing that chance he resigned three moves later.

    Finally, in a match that would have been better as a semi-final or even a final, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Alexander Grischuk had a heavyweight battle in keeping with their ratings. They drew the 25-minute games, and saved the best for last. In the first 10-minute game, Grischuk's attempt to solve his strategic problems with tactics failed. In particular, 28...Rg6, going for counterplay, was strongly met by a great pawn sacrifice from MVL. From 30 to the end of the game, Vachier-Lagrave blew his opponent off the board with one threat after another in a great display of the power of the initiative. The second game was a battle between the initiative - again, on MVL's side - and static goods. Grischuk's 10.Bxc6 wrecked Black's queenside structure, but at the cost of the bishop pair, weak light squares, and a few moves later, a badly sidelined queen. Vachier-Lagrave found a great exchange sac, but misplayed it a few moves later and wound up in an inferior ending. After two further inaccuracies, he wound up in a lost ending with bishop and pawn against Grischuk's rook and pawn. Grischuk made a very serious practical error when he didn't play 44.h3, after which proving a win with hardly any time on his clock was as good as impossible, and MVL advanced to the fifth round.

    The games are here, but I've only annotated the second Svidler-Bu Xiangzhi game, along with the two MVL-Grischuk 10-minute games.

    Tomorrow the quarter-finals begin, with these pairings (in bracket order): Svidler - Vachier-Lagrave, Ivanchuk - Aronian, So - Fedoseev, Rapport - Ding Liren.

    Will Svidler continue his question to reach his fourth consecutive Candidates event? (Admittedly, once he was the organizer's wildcard pick, but the other two times he qualifed through the World Cup.) Or will Vachier-Lagrave stay alive as he hopes to reach the Candidates for the first time in his career? Can Ivanchuk survive the top remaining seed, Aronian, and show that his glory days are still going? And will the young upstarts Fedoseev and Rapport (22 and 21 years old, respectively) be put in their place by their elderly opponents (So and Ding Liren; 23 and 24 years old, respectively)?

    Friday
    Apr142017

    Zurich: Four Lead After Three Rounds

    The slow rapid/pseudo classical (G/45 minutes + 30 second increments per move) tournament in Zurich has been very entertaining so far, and after three of seven rounds four players are tied for first place with 2/3 (or rather, 4/6, as the tournament prefers 2-1-0 scoring; perhaps they're boycotting fractions and/or decimal points in Switzerland).

    Vladimir Kramnik has a win and two draws, and was completely winning against Ian Nepomniachtchi in round 2, up a piece for two very inadequate pawns in an endgame. Nepo kept trying and Kramnik either switched off mentally or chose a poor plan, and the game finished in a draw.

    Despite that bit of good luck, Nepomniachtchi was completely winning against Peter Svidler in round 1 and botched it, so two draws instead of a win and a loss came to the same thing. In round 3 he confessed that he would have offered Viswanathan Anand a draw at a certain point, but due to the Sofia rules he had to keep playing, and it paid off when Anand blundered on move 37. (It turns out that he also blundered on move 36, but got away with that one.)

    The third amigo is Svidler, who came back from a somewhat precarious opening position against Hikaru Nakamura in round 3 to win. In a promising position Nakamura switched from plan to plan, and after one switch too many found himself under uncomfortable pressure along the c-file. Breaking it cost him a pawn, and in the resulting heavy piece ending Svidler won a second pawn and the game.

    Nakamura is the fourth player with two out of three, or four out of six, or 754/1508. He defeated tournament underdog Yannick Pelletier and Grigoriy Oparin in rounds 1 and 2, respectively.

    Boris Gelfand has 1.5 points (out of 3), Oparin and Anand have a point apiece, and Pelletier has but a single draw to his credit thus far.

    Before the main event began, the players contested a blitz event to determine pairing numbers. Nakamura and Gelfand tied for first with 4.5/7, Kramnik was third with 4 points, and Nepomniachtchi took fourth on tiebreaks over Anand; both had 3.5 points. The importance of this is that it means he - Nepo - gets an extra game with the white pieces in the main event. Oparin was sixth with 3, and Svidler and Pelletier tied for last with 2.5 points apiece. (You can watch the opening ceremony and the blitz tournament here.)

    Even before that there was another event - but stay tuned for the next post.

    Sunday
    Jan082017

    A Long and Wide-Ranging Svidler Interview

    Here.

    Saturday
    Jul302016

    Various Events: MVL-Svidler Finishes; British Championship and Poikovsky Well Underway

    As already reported, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave had already clinched match victory over Peter Svidler with one classical game yet to play; that game has been played and was drawn.

    Meanwhile, the British Championship is underway. Nigel Short and Luke McShane aren't playing, but Michael Adams, David Howell, and Gawain Jones are and make for a strong set of headliners. Round 6 of 11 is underway, and entering the round Howell led with 4.5 points. Six players, including Adams and Jones - who has White against Howell - are half a point behind.

    The Karpov Poikovsky tournament is even stronger, a 10-player round robin whose field includes three players rated over 2700 and most of the rest (maybe even all of the rest) have been over 2700 as well. Round 7 (of 9) is almost finished, and Anton Korobov leads with 4.5 points. Dmitry Andreikin, Maxim Matlakov, and Dmitry Jakovenko have 4 points apiece, while Radoslaw Wojtaszek has 3.5 points but is still playing. He has been pressing against Igor Kovalenko, but the game looks overwhelmingly likely to finish in a draw.

    Friday
    Jul292016

    Vachier-Lagrave Wins Match With Svidler

    There's still a round to go, but Maxime Vachier-Lagrave has clinched match victory against Peter Svidler. He won the rapid portion 2.5-1.5, and with a game to go leads the classical stage 2.5-.5. The classical games count double, but of course it wouldn't matter at this point if they counted 100 times more than the rapid games.

    There's a nice report on the match here, and it also notes that MVL's rating is (rounded up) 2820! The '90s generation has taken over, led by those actually born in the year 1990.

    Monday
    May022016

    More Elite Chess: Russian Club Championships Underway in Sochi; Ding Liren vs. So Starts Wednesday

    The Russian Club Championship started on Sunday, May 1 and continues through May 10. Among the heavy hitters who have played so far there's Sergey Karjakin, Alexander Grischuk, Peter Svidler - to include only the players over 2750 - and Vladimir Kramnik is supposed to jump in at some point as well.

    On Wednesday, Ding Liren and Wesley So will begin a four-game match in China. (Or maybe there will be four classical games and some additional rapid and/or blitz games. All I know thus far is the very little given in the "Future Events" section of this page. Further details would be appreciated.)