Photo by Fred Lucas
Report of round 8
A flurry of draws and just one decision in eighth-round action brought little change to the standings in Grandmaster Group A at the 74th annual Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk-aan-Zee on Sunday. Levon Aronian of Armenia settled for a relatively quick draw, while the other tournament leader, Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, rejected an early peace offer only to reach the same result by a repetition of moves after trying in vain for most of the afternoon.
“I think it was a drawish line, more or less,” said Aronian about his Queen’s Gambit with black against Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov. “I don’t know too much about it but it felt very natural the way I played it.” When asked about his preparation, Aronian indicated he hadn’t studied all that hard, as he’d spent the night before Sunday’s round at the BIM-House, a jazz music hall in nearby Amsterdam. Even so, at one point he felt that black was better “but then, I committed a couple of inaccuracies, because I thought the game was already finished. Fortunately, I collected myself and played correctly and it was a draw.”
Carlsen, meanwhile, played black in a Gruenfeld against Azerbaijan’s Teymour Radjabov, an inventive player with a reputation as a tough defender, who sprung an early proposal to split the point on his formidable opponent. The top-rated Norwegian refused, of course. “You should expect to have to fight to the end for every half point,” he told reporters afterwards. “But, okay, I think the position never strayed beyond the bounds of a draw, although I believe I was better to begin with and then, he might have tried for a win, because I over-pressed.” The game ended when a repetition of moves became unavoidable, which deprived Carlsen of the privilege to play on until just two kings were left on the board – as he did twice in earlier rounds.
Karjakin-Nakamura and Caruana-Ivanchuk were what experts call ‘correct draws’. In the first game, from a Dutch Defense, Karjakin held a slight edge throughout. It was far from enough, however, which was hardly a surprise for Nakamura, who had only a few days before told reporters that “white often seems to be better in the Dutch … when in fact he is not.” In the other encounter, a French Defense, Caruana saw the offer of an exchange refused, went on to sacrifice a full rook and threw in a knight for good measure only to force a draw by perpetual, after he realized that trying for a win would have been too risky.
Less ‘correct’ was the draw between David Navara of the Czech Republic and Holland’s Loek van Wely, who held a clear edge with black in one of his pet lines of the Sicilian Defense. “I had a comfortable position but somewhere he bluffed me,” Van Wely said, referring to the point where he missed 19…Nxe3, which would have given him a clear if not winning advantage. “Why, I should have calculated better,” complained Van Wely. “Later, Navara insisted on playing on – he’s had a bad tournament so far and probably thought he might beat me. Wrong decision! He ended up in a position where the only one who could win was me. Sadly, it wasn’t enough.”
Entirely ‘incorrect’ was the outcome of the encounter between Israel’s Boris Gelfand and U.S. champion Gata Kamsky, a Gruenfeld Defense which black handled perfectly until he produced the dismal 34…Re4, where 34…Qc7+ would have led to a straightforward win: 35.Kf2 Qh2, with the idea Re4-f4. After he also missed 40…Qh6 – which might still have saved the day – the only explanation one expert could think of was: “Poor Kamsky has lost his head completely.” Instead, the American champion came up with 40…R8e6? and, ignominiously, had to sign the peace four moves later.
The 500-euro ‘Piet Zwart Prize,’ put up by the municipalities of Velsen and Beverwijk, Sunday went to Azerbaijan’s Vugar Gashimov for his resounding win with black against Dutch champion Anish Giri. “Something must have gone wrong with Giri’s preparation,” supposed GM Ivan Sokolov in awarding the prize to Gashimov. “The Azeri was playing a well-known line from the 1950s, when Giri opted for the very unusual 10.Bd5?!, a move played only in some Opens,” Sokolov said. “Many top games have seen the more logical 10.Bb3.”
It turned out that what went wrong was that Giri had not really prepared 10.Bd5 at all. “I had looked at it for two minutes in a correspondence game this morning,” he admitted shamefacedly. “I thought it was interesting and, without discussing it with my second, I decided to try it.” The idea backfired seriously and Gashimov coasted to victory in 38 moves.
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What is he wearing?