December 11, 2009 • General
Good morning to everyone from gloomy London. I must say that having spent time in Seattle and Vancouver, I have gotten fairly used to overcast days. However, the weather here seems to be a steady forecast of clouds followed by rain and then more rain later on. Luckily, I am here to play chess which does not require nice weather, THANKFULLY! Overall, though, I do like most of the chaps I have met during the tournament thus far. The organization has been first class, and I have had a good time. Now onto what everyone is interested in- the games.
In round 1 I had White against Chinese GM Ni Hua. In a slight surprise, Ni Hua chose to play the a6 slav. This variation seems to be in fashion once again as GM Vladimir Malakhov used it with a lot of success during his deep run into the semifinals of the Fide World Cup (he should be in the final). I chose to play the ultra slow 5.Bd2. The next few moves were pretty standard until we reached the following position.
A) In the two previous times that this line was played against Ni Hua, he chose to play 7…c5 which led to razor sharp play after 8.cxd5 exd5 9.g4! which was played twice between Malakhov and Ni Hua in the Russia-China match earlier this year.
B) 7…Be7 is also playable, but White has a small edge after 8.e4 dxe4 9.Nxe4 Nxe4 10.Qxe4 c5 11.Bc3
C) 7…Bd6 8.e4 dxe4 9.Nxe4 Nxe4 10.Qxe4 c5 11.Bc3 with a similar position as in line B.
D) 7…dxc4 leads to a much different sort of middlegame struggle than the other three variations.
In the game, Ni chose to play 7…dxc4 and I had a small advantage until he went badly astray with with 18…Bf6 which allowed the nasty shot 19.Bd2-a5!
Clearly, Ni had missed this move as he started shaking his head profusely. I hardly blame him, as Black is probably very close to equal if not for this crushing move. After a forced series of moves, I had a significantly better endgame up an exchange. In a slightly dubious decision, I decided to give it back up and play a rook and pawn endgame up a pawn. Had Ni tried 36…Ke6 instead of Ke4, he probably would have had some good drawing chances. However, after 37.Rd7 I was clearly winning. Unfortunately, right before time control I completely hallucinated.
In the following position, I used up 35 of my final 40 minutes on this key position. For some odd reason, I calculated this ending correctly, but with one problem. I thought the pawn was on h5 not h6. One might wonder what difference does that make? I had foreseen 40.e6 Rc7 41.f5 Ke5 (41…b3 42.f6 b2 43.e7 b1=Q 44.e8=Q+ Kf5 45.Qh5 with a winning position.) 42.Rf7 Rc8 43.e7 Re8 (43…b3 loses to 44.Rf8) 44.f6 b3 45.Rf8 b2 46.f7! the whole point of this line. Now, with the pawn on h6 it is winning, but what did I see? I saw 46…Rxc7 47.Re8 b1=Q 48.Rxe7 Kd6 49.f8=Q Qg1+ 50.Kh3. This position is clearly winning as Black has NO CHECKS. However, if the pawn is on h5, neither Kh3/h4 are possible as Qg4 is checkmate. 50.Kf3/f4 also lose to Qf1 as I drop the queen on f8. I am not really sure what to chalk up this hallucination to, but alas it happens.
The rest of the game was not really noteable as Ni held without making any errors and it ended in a draw a few moves later. Overall, I felt it was a very good first round performance except for the ending.
In round two, I had black against British GM Michael Adams. I have only faced Adams twice with both games being way back in 2004 when I had a sensational run making it into the fourth round of the Fide World Cup in Tripoli, Libya. As the games were a very long time ago, I was unsure what to expect. Adams had been a top ten player for what seemed like an eternity. Recently, he seems to have had a few bad results which led to him falling below 2700 which seems a bit ridiculous to me.
I decided to trot out the French for the first time in a few years and Adams chose to play the Tarrasch. Shockingly, I believe this is the first time I have actually faced the Tarrasch in classical chess. I prepared the 3…Be7 variation. For some reason, I completely forgot about the game Adams-Caruana from the last olympiad. Instead of playing Nc7 followed by Nb8-c6, I chose the dubious plan of Nc7 followed by Qc8-a6. This was a rather careless choice on my part as it improves White’s queen position and takes my queen completely out of the game. The other huge problem it creates is that there are no concrete plans for Black while White just brings his queen over to the kingside and harrasses me with his knights. In the end, I had to go for the hideous plan of f5 which left me with a permanently backward pawn on e6 for the rest of the game. Fortunately for me, Adams could not find a clear way to put more pressure on the pawn and I was able to create complications.
Here, I once again had a similar hallucination as in round 1.
A) 32…Rd8 was the best move in the position. After this, White has only a symbolic advantage after 33.Kh1 exd5 34.bxc5 Qxc5 35.h3.
B) 32…Rf7 33.bxc5 (33.Rxe6 is also possible, but White gets nothing after 33…Rd8! 34.Qb3 Kh8.) 33…Qxc5 34.Kf1 (34.Qd4 Qxd4 35.cxd5 Rxd5 36.Re5 Rc7! 37.Rxd5 Rc4 which is a drawn ending.) 34…Rxd5 35.Rxd5 exd5 36.Re5 h6 37.Qxd5 Qxd5 38.Rxd5 Rc7 with another drawn rook and pawn endgame.
C) 32…cxb4? Once again the incorrect decision. In fact, I thought that by trading on b4, I could reach a favourable version of line B above, but the problem is that after 33.cxb4 Rf7 White has the very strong 34.Qd4! which I completely overlooked. After 34…Rxd5 35.Rxd5 exd5 36.bxc5 Qxc5 37.Qxc5 bxc5 38.Re8 Rf8 39.Rxf8 Kxf8 40.a5! and I cannot prevent the a pawn from queening. Once I saw this disastrous line, I panicked and immediately went 33…Rd8? (33…Rf5 probably would have led to a draw after 34.Rxf5 Qxf5 35.bxc5 Rxd5 36.Qe2 [36.Qb3 bxc5 37.Qb5 Rd8 38.Qb6 Qd5 and White will eventually have to go into an endgame where I can trade the c pawn for the a pawn.] 36…Rxc5 37.Qxe6 Qxe6 38.Rxe6 Ra5 39.Re4 b5 where we reach a theoretically drawn endgame.) completely forgetting that after 34.Nxf6 gxf6 35.Qc2 fxe5 36.bxc5 that I did not have a pawn on g7 in this endgame! After this horrendous gaffe, I had to suffer in a losing rook and pawn endgame. Luckily, Adams butchered it quite severely and I got a miraculous draw.
Yesterday, I got my second White of the tournament against the olive farmer, aka Nigel Short. Short has had a resurgence over the last few years and is playing extremely well considering that he is 44 (ancient in chess years). The only other player who seems to have maintained such excellent form this late into their career is GM Boris Gelfand from Israel. Unfortunately, unlike most of the other players in this tournament, Nigel is rock solid and rarely takes risks when he is Black. Unlike the first two games, this one was much more balanced and I gained a space advantage out of the opening which was a Rubinstein Nimzo-Indian. Overall, I played pretty accurately although I did have one chance which both Nigel and I overlooked.
In this position, I chose 21.Be4, however, 21.d6! is much stronger. What we both overlooked is that after 21…Bxf3 22.dxe7 Qxe7 23.Re3 Bb7 24.Nd5! with the double threat of Nxe7 and Rxa3. Nevertheless, it is still very difficult to win after 24…Bxd5 25.Rxa3 Bc6 26.f3 b5. The rest of the game gave neither of many chances to create play. As such, a draw was a justified result. Or as Nigel would put it, “chess is a draw and the rules need to be changed.”
Overall, I cannot complain with the results other than the scoring system as I would have preferred a win and a loss since it would give me one more point! Right now, three draws is not what I would have wanted, but it is better than losing three games! For now, I am going to spend the rest day exploring Soho and getting ready for the game against Magnus tomorrow. Have a great day everybody!
Cheers,
Hikaru
London, 11.12.09
November 30, 2009 • General
Hello out there to everyone once again. Before I talk about the recent tournament in Norway, I would like to take a moment to explain why I have not been blogging much of lately. Recently, I have become extremely busy boht in terms of chess and other events in Seattle. As such, I feel that the quality of my recent blogs has been lacking due to the limited amount of time which I have had to communicate my thoughts. My personal feeling is that any blog or book for that matter should be quality over quantity. For the first time in over a month, I have a chance to settle down and not feel rushed.
Towards the end of the disaster in Amsterdam, I received word about the possibility of participating in the BN Bank Blitz this November in Norway. After a brief communication, I agreed to play as I felt it would be a good opportunity to warm up before London and get another crack at Magnus Carlsen. The tournament had an interesting format with sixteen players; ten invited and six qualifiers from local tournaments around Norway. These 16 players were then broken down into four groups of four with the top two players of each group advancing to the quarterfinals at which point it became a knockout.
Preliminary Qualifier:
In the qualifier, I was in a group with GM Leif Erlend Johannessen and local qualifiers FM Kjetil Stokke and the young Anders Hobber. The basic goal in the preliminary stage was to avoid any calamities against the two weaker plays and just not lose to Johannessen. I did not have any major problems as I won the four games against the qualifiers. Leif on the other hand presented a few problems. The first time I ever played Leif was way back in Bermuda in 2002 (wow, that feels like another lifetime ago)when I made my second grandmaster norm. More recently, I beat him in the 2006 Turin Olympiad when we beat Norway 3.5-.5 to capture the bronze medal. Although Leif stopped playing chess seriously in order to finish a law degree, he has always been a dangerous opponent. In the first game against him, I got a bit lucky as he had a strong kingside attack. However, after a minor error I was able to capitalize for the full point. In the second game, I obtained a very small advantage and he self destructed as his time got a bit too low. This left me with 6/6 out of the first stage and looking forward to the next stage.
Quarterfinals:
In the quarterfinals I faced GM Kjetil Lie also from Norway. Prior to playing in the Gjovik rapids last year I had never faced Kjetil. During that tournament I became aware of his style as we played four times. Despite my 3.5-.5 score, he can be a tricky player. This time around was not much different as he had problems finding a way of reaching equality against the Trompowsky in both of his Black games. I won my black game without any problems either which helped me advance 3-0.
Semifinal: The semifinal was when the real tournament began for me as I had to play GM Peter Heine Nielsen from Denmark. Although Nielsen has yet to break 2700, he has always been a super solid GM who does not lose very often. Luckily for me this was blitz and not classical so I knew I would have some opportunities. In the first game, I got Black and played the Queens Gambit Accepted. We reached a rather tame position as queens came off the board early. After reaching a pretty equal position, I was able to slowly outplay him as we started drifting lower and lower on time. After winning the first game with Black, I knew my chances had drastically improved. In the second game, things did not improve for Peter as we repeated a similar variation from our game in Amsterdam. After going for a different idea, I was able to pick up two pawns and had a much better position. Unfortunately, it was here when he was down to seconds that I let the game slip and was probably only equal at the point when he accidentally overstepped on the clock. In the third game, with such a big advantage, Peter really had to go for broke. Despite trying the aggressive 3.e4 system against the Queens Gambit Accepted, he ran into trouble early on when he got a bit too ambitious while trying to win in the opening before reaching the middlegame. This led to catastrophe as he got his queen trapped on a7. This led to an early resignation and a 3-0 victory for me once again. Not more than 30 seconds later, Magnus won his third game against Jon Ludvig to advance by a score of 2.5-.5 which setup the dream final for the organizers.
Final:
In the final I faced off against Magnus Carlsen. Little needs to be said about him as he has proven to be one of the best in the world and recently won the World Blitz Championship. Before I delve into this match I would, for the last time, like to emphatically state that I never received an invitation to play in the World Blitz Championship despite rumours that I turned down such a request. Obviously I would have played in that event had I gotten an inviation. Onto the match, I knew that I was undefeated at 12-0, but was concerned about how my nerves would hold up at the start of the match after cruising through the prelims and matches. The first game proved my worst fears as I chose a rather dubious variation of the English. When combined with the fact that I more or less fell asleep at the board (not literally) and used a minute and a half to get out of the opening with barely equality, it doomed my chances. I almost immediately went wrong and lost without obtaining any realistic drawing opportunities. After such a bad start, I thought I would turn on the secondary gear and wake up. Much to my horror this did not prove to be the case as I blundered horrendously in the second game when I allowed 24.Nf5. Shockingly, I had seen Nf5 but forgot that after intentionally hanging the pawn on d6, Ba4 was not possible as my rook on e8 was en prise. This very unwelcome surprise wrecked my position and I almost certainly should have lost from here. However, caissa seemed to have different plans as I was able to complicate it a bit thereafter. Nevertheless, Magnus kept his wits and still had a completely winning position. Luckily, I was able to hang on long enough that we both were down to mere seconds. It was at this point that Magnus went astray when he traded into a knights endgame. At this point I was still lost, but I found a way to trick Magnus into a losing king and pawn endgame. After he miscalculated the pawn race, I queened first with check and went on to win the game. This balanced the score at 1-1. Realizing how lucky I had been to not lose, let alone win, I took a deep breath and slowed everything down in the third game. This turned out to be a very wise decision as we played a pretty straight forward Grunfeld in which I sacked a pawn on c3 to gain initiative. Having looked at this variation in depth with GMs Shulman and Onischuk during the olympiad I felt pretty confident and came out with a lot of play. Despite being down a pawn, my position was slightly easier to play and I eventually was able to pick off a few pawns and convert the advantage into a win. This put me up 2-1 heading into the fourth and final game with Black. Needing only a draw, I once again decided to go into the nimzo, but I chose to play like Michael Adams when I chose the 5…ne4 variation. This turned out to be a very wise choice as I was never really in much danger throughout the game. Many people have suggested that this game should have ended in a draw, but had this been an earlier game in the match, I most certainly would have avoided a repitition myself! Alas, Magnus was in the unfortunate position of having to avoid the repitition and I won the game after picking off all his pawns in a rook and bishop vs queen ending. Thus, I won the match 3-1.
Overall, I felt that my play was pretty good; unfortunately, the finals were a bit of a letdown for me personally. Having played so well and calmly throughout every game up until that point, it is hard to improve. Putting that aside, I felt that I was a bit too nervous and was not ready to up my play to the next level. Luckily, I calmed down and soundly outplayed Magnus in games 3 and 4. Objectively, I think the score should have been 2-2 but I am still happy that I won. For me, this was a nice victory, but I am looking forward to London a lot more and hope to put together a strong tournament there. Last but not least, I would like to thank the organization of the tournament and the sponsor BN Bank for putting together a great tournament as well as Dag Danielsen and Oystein Brekke for their involvement as well.
That is all for now, time to get ready for the event in London. Have a great week everyone!
November 02, 2009 • General
Hello everybody! Unfortunately, I have been extremely busy with life (not chess related). This past weekend was also extremely busy as I was up in beautiful Vancouver at a book launch party for Bullet Chess: One Minute To Mate. This will be the subject of a blog shortly, but for now I will give everyone a simple recap of the US Chess League weeks 8 and 9.
In week 8 we were paired against the Tennessee Tempo. Unfortunately for the Tempo, they chose to run their two GM lineup when I was not around, so they were huge favourites. However, in typical Tennessee style, (look at them Titans) they also managed to lose when they ran that lineup as FM Mikhailuk came up huge as he crushed GM Shabalov in a classical Sicilian. This time around, the Tempo went with a much softer lineup as they featured Ron Burnett on board 1 and Todd Andrews on board 2 followed by Peter Bereolos and John Bick closing it out. In my game, there is not much to say other than the fact that Burnett clearly was not prepared for the game and went astray nearly immediately as I was already equal or better by move 15. The rest was simply technique and I had no serious issues in converting. On board 2, Serper played a Botvinnik English and cruised to victory as well. On board 3, Readey played a solid and extremely slow old Indian type of setup and slowly built up an advantage. With looming time pressure, Readey had several chances to win, but he missed tactical shots at crucial times. In fact, even at the end of the game he was still winning when he chose to repeat the position, alas, we still clinched the match even with this debacle. On board 4, NM Howard Chen came out swinging in a Caro Kann and had a clean K.O. of John Bick. Bick has been playing a bunch of offbeat or flat out losing openings, (Young-Bick) so I think it was caissa’s way of punishing him for such stupidity. Overall, we won the match 3.5-.5 without the outcome ever being in doubt.
Week 9 featured us going up against the red hot Arizona Sluggers. I faced off with Alejandro Ramirez on board 1 and was slowly grinding him until I completely overlooked Nd2 which equalized and maybe more. Sometimes you make mistakes, and I just did that’s all there is to it. On board 2, Slava played Levon “I want to draw every game” Altounian. The game featured standard anti-Grunfeld theory until Slava came up with a new (and very bad) idea involving g5. Levon correctly met it with h4 and the g pawn eventually became horribly weak and Slava lost a simple endgame without much of a fight. On board 3, Marcel came out swinging in the benko against Robby “I used to be good at bullet” Adamson. After getting a significant advantage, Marcel made a serious inaccuracy with f4 and the game petered out into a draw. On board 4, Josh faced off against Amanda Mateer in the new age Nimzo with 5.e4. The opening looked pretty balanced and seemed to be heading for a draw. Unfortunately, Josh misevaluated the situation and tried to press on for a win despite being down a piece. Nevertheless, he showed great team spirit and I have nothing but praise for his attempts at trying to win. Overall, it was not our best match as I blew good winning chances, Marcel blew a win and Josh never should have lost. Thus, we just have to avoid such situations in week 10 and the playoffs.
October 24, 2009 • General
Hello to everyone once again, my apologies for not blogging recently, but I have been extremely busy on many fronts. A few weeks ago, I finished competing in the European Club Cup Championship. At the start of the tournament, I got off to a rather bumpy start as I lost a marginally worse endgame against Peter Svidler with Black. To be fair, he played the endgame very precisely while my attempts at setting up a fortress failed. After this disappointing loss, I beat a 2400 IM and then followed this up with a draw against Czech Grandmaster, Viktor Laznicka in the Kings Indian. at this point, having scored 2.5/4 I was not doing very well. Luckily, I started to regain my form as I followed this up with a nice wins against GM Sergei Zhigalko (2601) and GM Milos Pavlovic (2533). Having recovered from the bad start, I more or less played a forced drawn line against GM Alexander Grischuk in the last round. Overall, I was more or less satisfied with my play except for the game against Svidler. Thus, I cannot complain as I felt the event served its purpose and I put on a solid showing in my last event before London in December.
In terms of the general tournament, I was pretty amazed to see that outside of Svidler’s excellent performance (wins over me,Ivanchuk,Mamedyarov and Motylev) no one escaped the event unscathed. Aronian for instance trounced Grischuk, but then got steamrolled by Mamedyarov in the following round. Other notable American players in the event were Kamsky and Onischuk, but neither performed very well as they both lost two games. In the end, the super strong teams finished at the top of the event as it ultimately comes down to the board 4s, 5s, and 6s. When one team has players like Adams or Petrosian on board 6 against a 2300, it makes the odds impossible to overcome. All in all, a fun event and I hope to play several leagues next year and the European Club Cup as well.
That’s all for now, stay tuned for more updates shortly!
October 04, 2009 • General
Good morning to everyone out there from Macedonia, where it is approximately 4 AM local time. After having a nearly a perfect September, it is time to return to chess. As most everyone knows, I fell violently ill right from the start in Amsterdam and never recovered. Thankfully, this happened at the end of my long streak of traveling as I am pretty sure I would have gone and dropped more points in any following tournaments ala Ivanchuk. After this long recovery time, I feel quite rested and fresh. Since I noticed some people clamoring for my thoughts on other chess events, I will oblige the fans and talk about some chess for a change!
A few weeks back, there was the 25th anniversary match between Kasparov and Karpov. In general, other than the obvious importance of it having been 25 years since their legendary match in 1984, I did not really see any point as I thoroughly expected Karpov to get thrashed. Having seen and played against Karpov in a few tourneys over the last year, I have nothing but respect for him. The fact that he continues to play chess even though he is well past his prime is incredible. In comparison, I do not think Kasparov ever could do the same as he would simply get too upset losing games to players who he would have crushed 10-15 years ago. At the start, I expected Kasparov to roll over Karpov. I figured that 1 draw in the four rapid games would be good, and in blitz…anything. The main reason for my thinking was that Karpov had major time issues in his last tournament in San Sebastian, Spain.
The match itself started much like San Sebastian with Karpov being unable to manage his time and losing both games in a horrible manner. However, he played a great third game and won which shocked me completely. Clearly, these few years of retirement have made Garry a bit rusty. Nevertheless he returned to form and won the final game to win 3-1 at rapid. The blitz games were not really anything to write home about either as Kasparov won 6-2. Overall, I found the games to be extremely dry and did not enjoy having to watch the Queens Indian Declined every other game. The irony for me is that Kasparov played like Kramnik despite his constant remarks about Kramnik’s style being too dry. I had some mild expectations for the match, but it certainly did not do it for me. A fun match for the general chess observer/enthusiast, but no real pertinance to modern day chess.
The other tournament I will make a few comments about is the Pearl Spring tournament in Nanjing,China. Obviously the major story is Carlsen and his great results there. However, I do think the field is particularly suited to his advantage as all the other players are extremely solid with the exception of Topalov. In terms of Topalov, I do not really know what to make of his play as it would seem he is trying to save his preparation for the match with Anand when and if it happens. As is, a great result for Carlsen and I can’t wait to get a crack at him in December in London.
Now, onto the European Club Cup which is why I am in Ohrid, Macedonia. Having never played in this tournament before, it is interesting and a bit different than the norm. They style of the event is essentially a mini olympiad without the weaker teams. This definitely makes for a more exciting event when it comes to the quality of chess as almost all teams have 1-2 GMs at the top and some, have 2600’s on board 6! My team, Husek Wien which I played for in the Austrian League is reasonably strong with me on one, Georgiev and Chernin on board 2 and 3. Compared to the very top teams, we will probably get crushed on the bottom boards, but it should be a fun experience anyway. In the first round, we played a team from Denmark which had only 1 IM and a couple FMs on the preceding boards. Despite our massive rating advantage, it took a lot of endgame technique from myself and Chernin tricking his opponent for us to win on these boards. We won on boards 2,4 and 5 pretty easily while losing the toss up on board 6. A solid 5-1 opening round is nothing to complain about. It gave me a chance to shake off the rust from a 1 month break while serving as a tuneup to future rounds. In the second round, it appears that I will be facing Svidler on board 1 and now that I am not sick, I will try to play better than I did in Amsterdam.
That is all for now, time to go rest and study for the second round!
