San Sebastian Rounds 1,2,3

July 10, 2009 • General

Greetings once again to the cyber world. As most people know, today is the rest day, so I will attempt to recap the first three rounds and their respective outcomes thus far.

Round 1: The Living Legend Named Karpov

At the opening ceremony, I drew the number 1 which I seem to pick fairly often. Despite the fact that it is supposed to be a huge advantage due to starting off a tournament with double whites, I have found that it is very much a double edged sword. For instance, if you fail to convert in the first two games, there will be huge pressure to win with Black. Also, I was not overly thrilled about this drawing due to a certain uncertainty involving my performance as I was coming straight from the World Open in Philadelphia. Nevertheless, it is supposed to be an advantage and you just have to deal with it.

Onto the round itself, I got White against the 12th World Champion, Anatoly Karpov who is, in my opinion, the second best player to have ever lived (Kasparov is first). The game turned into a Queens Gambit Declined and I chose the 5.Bf4 variation. I am not quite sure whether Karpov was expecting this or simply unsure which line to choose as he has played this with both colors more times than I ever will. Nevertheless, he went for the 7…Na6 variation and obtained a slightly worse position out of the opening phase. Due to the time control, I was able to get a big advantage as he neared time pressure. From here, I proceeded to completely blow it as I missed about 3-4 easy wins. However, I was still winning at the end when Karpov flagged on the 61st move. In all likelihood, I would have been forced to mate him with bishop and knight. I have been paying a bit of attention to Mig’s blog on ChessNinja, and I completely disagree with his assessment that none of the younger generation are aware or scared of Karpov. I am pretty sure that the reason I nearly blew the win is because the thought of beating such a legend made me nervous.

Round 2: More Familiar Faces

In round two, I got my second white in a row against French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. We are both quite familiar with each other having played in the rapids at Cap D’Agde last year and being teammates on Evry in the French League this year. Overall, our score has been pretty even as we drew all four games of rapid. However, I completely destroyed him in both blitz games and won a third one in Gibraltar earlier this year. In our game, I decided to play the English Attack against his patented Najdorf. Fortunately it all worked out for me, although Maxime had 21…Qb7 22.Ng3 Nd4 23.Bc4 with an unclear position. After 21..e5 I was able to get into a very comfortable ending in which I converted without any problems. I certainly was hoping to have a shot at being 2-0, but realistically, I did not expect it. Nevertheless, it was a pefect start.

Round 3: The Big Russian

In the third round, I got my first black against GM Peter Svidler. As most people are aware, I have played Peter quite a few times recently and seem to see him a bit too often for my liking. We last played in the Gjovik Rapids in Norway last December when he beat me 1.5-.5 in the rapids and 1-0 in the blitz. Coming off this dreadful performance and leading this event as well, this was definitely an uphill task. Fortunately, I seemed to be up to the task for at least one day. Repeating much like we did in our first rapid game back in Norway, the opening was an advance Caro Kann. I am not sure if Peter improvised with Nh4, f4, Ndf3 or if this was all part of his plan. Nevertheless, I obtained a comfortable position and was able to equalize relatively quickly. However, upon second glance, it now appears that 17…Qb3 would have yielded me an extra pawn. Albeit, I would have given him a strong kingside attack. Therefore, I cannot complain with the result of the game as a draw with Black against Peter is nothing to be disappointed with. Now it is onto the second half of the tournament.