Good luck in Montreal Hikaru!   Looked over your 1st game against Shulman......it seems you were better at some point but it was complicated. ill have to take a deeper look at it in a few. good lucky buddy.

Smearinov on ICC

Jimmie Beatty

Hikaru,

In your game against Pascal i was trying to find improvements for white but this opening is strange and the tempos always seem to compensate for the pawn. I figured you probably tried 15. Qe2 cuz of the game Caruana-Negi and Caruana-Sargissian 2007. Kashimzhanov-Bacrot Nonyon 2008 though ended the same way your game did.  I looked at ways to try to avoid 19.f3 since weakening the pawn shield seems risky. but here is all i could come up with  19.Bd1?! (otherwise black plays 19...Bh3) 19...Qg6! 20.Nb3!? Bh3! 21. Qxh3 Re1+ 22. Kg2 Rxd1 23. Qc8+ Bf8 24. Be3 ( 24. Nc5 is what i wanted but just doesnt seem to be enough 24...Nf6! and the ideas of 25...Qh5-d5 seem to spoil every attempt to create something.) 24...Rxa1 25. Nxa1 Qe4+ ! etc. so 19. Bd1 is no good however 15. Qd3!? is !? try and 15. Be3 although one of main lines has did well lately in Wang-Grischuk ,Dagomys 2008 1-0 where Wang found a improvment for white in game Leko-Kramnik Monte Carlo 2007 0-1  (15. Be3 Bg4 16. Qd3 Rae8 17. Nd2 Re6 18. a4 Qh5 19. ab ab 20. qf1 bh3 21. Bd1 Qf5 22.qe2 c5 23. nf3 bf4 24. qd2 ne3 25. fe3 bh6 26. qf2 rfe8 27. bc2! played by Wang 27. Ne5? lost for Leko.  In this 15. Be3 line some other important games in other lines are Ponomariov-Leko  Moscow 2008 where Leko differed play 17..Qh5 but was subdued by Pono to a slightly worse ending after 18.Bc2! f5 19. f3 Bxf3 20. Nxf3 Qxf3 21. Bd2 Qxd3 22. Bxd3  which was an improvement over Anand's 18. Qf1 in Dortmund 2007 where Anand-Leko was 1/2.  I got more analysis and pgn file. Let me know if you want it.  Good luck today!