20 March 2016
Defying a Predicted Draw
Round seven of the candidates tournament in the review of Eteri Kublashvili.
Shortly prior to the start of round seven a charity event "Grandmasters of the world – for children", organized with the support of the "Tashir" group of companies within the framework of the project "Melody of the game", was held at the Telegraph. At first the grandmaster Sergei Yanovsky gave simul for children with disabilities, and then the kids went on to play games against each other. Soon after the end of the mini-tournament the children spent time and took pictures with Peter Svidler, Sergey Karjakin and Veselin Topalov.
Round seven began with a minute’s silence in memory of victims of the passenger jet crash in Rostov-on-Don...
Following only an hour after the start of the round I managed to take a brief interview from the FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who went on to share his impressions of the fight:
- The tournament is very exciting. I want to note that competing here are eight strongest chess players of various frames of thinking, styles and ages, beginning with Fabiano Caruana, Sergey Karjakin and Anish Giri and finishing with such experienced grandmasters and giants of chess as Vishy Anand, Veselin Topalov, Peter Svidler. Each participant is demonstrating his maximum.
What I like most of all is that all guys are determined to win, simply ripping it out with their teeth. There are no easy draws, as used to be the case, for example, in Kazan. I remember watching the games with the first President of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev when certain encounters would end in draws only within some ten moves. Here all draws are of a combative nature with everyone fighting, not shying away from melees. Being FIDE President, I am very happy about that.
While it is impossible to single out any one in particular, there is also no ruling out anyone in terms of being able to "hit the mark". The same is true, for example, about Caruana, who is now adapting himself, getting used to a time zone difference... Vishy Anand, despite being written off by everyone upon his loss to Magnus Carlsen, arrived in Khanty-Mansiysk to defeat all other candidates. As for the current event, should he find himself in the world of his own, he could end up repeating his previous achievement. Sergei Karjakin is set on winning. Levon Aronian is at all times being an inch away from a massive success.
I cheer up for everyone and I want to express my gratitude to all participants for what they do to bring joy and pleasure to millions of chess fans!
Kirsan Nikolaevich has predicted the win/loss outcome in the encounter of the current tournament leaders Sergey Karjakin and Levon Aronian:
"I believe there will be no draw in this game. I think so and feel it, because each of them is motivated to win. Whoever wins today will have a lot to gain from it, because tomorrow gives start to the second half of the tournament already. Whoever is more cool-headed is going to take the upper hand", was noted by FIDE President.
And indeed, at the time of the conversation the current position on the board was full of fighting opportunities: the white queen and knight were posted out on h5 and g5 respectively, but Black started brewing some counterplay of his own. As was proven by subsequent events, White's attack proved a bluff after all and the initiative was firmly overtaken by Black. Nevertheless, Levon failed to convert the advantages of his position into something more substantial since he rushed in somewhat with his breakthrough on the kingside, which resulted in massive trades and great simplification of the position. A peace agreement was reached on move 31.
Here is how the events of round seven were commented by Sergey himself:
- The game was very tense. I was not precise with my opening moves and got into a difficult situation, despite playing the white pieces. The thing is that I was trying to play some interesting chess by resorting to a piece sacrifice, but then I saw that the sacrifice was not correct and I had to move my pieces in the backward direction. In principle, however, Levon could do nothing: after the pieces were traded the resulting position was already absolutely equal.
It also seems to me that Black committed an error by not denying my knight getting access to e5 on move 16. A draw in this game is an acceptable result, because it allows my staying in share of the lead. A loss would have been a disaster in terms of fighting for the first place because the first additional tiebreaker is an individual game result.
In the game of players, closing the tournament table, it was Hikaru Nakamura who came out victorious. Both Nakamura and Topalov went for broke, resorting to one of the sharp lines of the Slav Defence. Topalov, being in charge of the black pieces, made up his mind to sacrifice a piece, thus putting his opponent up against significant problems. However, in time trouble such positions are difficult both for attackers and for defenders and Nakamura still managed to outplay his opponent in the final run.
Nakamura – Topalov
Instead of 31…Nd5?!, 31…Qf5! was much stronger.
According to Topalov, the move was not easy to detect since it carried no threat with it. Nevertheless, this move sends White searching for only replies. For instance, 32.Ne3? loses in view of 32…Qh3 33. Qd1 Nd5. The engine recommends returning an extra piece: 32. Re3 Qd7 33. Rxf3 Rxd2 34. Rxd2 Qxd2 35. Qd3, although it is far from clear about who stands better in this position.
The game went on 32. Re5, and now a second error followed: 32…Kh7?, intending to deflect the white queen with Rb8 if allowed to do so. As for our steel friend, it prefers 32…Ra8 or 32…Nf6 with the idea of playing Qd7.
The game was concluded in just a few moves: 33. Kh2 Nf6 34. Be3 Rb8 35. Qxb8 Rxd1
36. Rb1 Qd7 37. Rg5 Ne4 38. Rxd1 Qxd1 39. Qf4 Black resigns.
The long castling of three defeats is unlikely to allow Veselin count on competing for the overall tournament success, but Nakamura, despite his being "-1", returns into the big game since as much as an entire half of the tournament is still ahead. By the way, both Topalov and Nakamura share the largest number of scoring games at the moment, with two defeats and a victory for the former and three defeats for the latter.
The opening of the game between Anish Giri and Vishy Anand developed into the Queen’s Indian Defense, in which the former World Champion, playing the black pieces, managed to equalize the game. Numerous trades of pieces landed the game into a bishop ending with a symmetrical pawn structure. The opponents agreed to a draw on move 31.
In what turned out to be the longest game of the round, Peter Svidler sacrificed a piece to Fabiano Caruana, and the offered sacrifice achieved its intended goal: White greatly disturbed the black king and then won his piece back in a forced manner, grabbing yet a pawn to his good along the way. In the endgame "rook and bishop versus rook and knight" and an extra pawn for White Peter somewhere let his tricky opponent go and allowed him escaping with a draw.
Svidler – Caruana
When analyzing the game, Peter admitted that he considered not playing the planned 36. Rb7 to be his greatest failure in this game. Instead of this move, he opted for 36. e4.
36…Rf6 would be followed by 37. e4, and the arising position would be a better version of what happened in the game since the b6-pawn is en prise. The grandmaster was confused by 36…g5 37. Rxb6 g4, and the black passed pawn looks dangerous. However, the ruthless computer neutralizes it by 38. e3 Rf3 39. Rg6+, and White continues tormenting his opponent with two pawns versus one on the queenside.
The game followed up with 36…Ng3 37. e5 Rf3+ 38. Kc4 Ne4 39. Bc6 Rxc3 40. Kb5 Re3 41. Kxb6 c4 42. Bd5+ Kh8 43. e6 c3 44. Rc7 g5 45. Bxe4 Draw.
After completion of the first half of the tournament, Sergey Karjakin and Levon Aronian still go on leading the field with 4.5 points. Trailing half a point behind them is Viswanathan Anand. Round eight is out there for us with the following encounters: Svidler - Karjakin, Caruana - Nakamura, Aronian - Giri, and Topalov - Anand.
