15 August 2015

A draw? No, unheard of

Round Five of the Superfinal in the review of Eteri Kublashvili.

It has become quite obvious that the Superfinal is an athletic event which has been looked forward to in the Zabaykalsky Krai since long before. The tournament has been attracting a huge amount of interest: the tournament is dedicated as many as up to 20-30 articles from the local mass media on a daily basis; the State TV and Radio Broadcasting Company of Chita regularly prepares reviews of each individual round with interviews and pictures from the playing hall, while the second main television channel of the city "Altes" has even gone to the length of opening up a stand-alone section about the Superfinal on its website. It is a sheer pleasure seeing such an attitude both towards chess and towards the chess players.

On August 13, the health clinic "Akademija Zdorovja", headed by the Honored Doctor of the Russian Federation, the Doctor of Medical Sciences Sergei Davydov, opened its doors to Chita’s 50 young chess players and their parents. A training session to be conducted by the grandmaster Evgeny Miroshnichenko became the main reason of the event. The lecture was devoted to analyzing the lost (!) games played both by him and by other players.

"I devoted time to explaining the nature of errors that the players commit on a regular basis. I was also speaking about to what degree the wrong decisions that we take over the board is affected by our human imperfections. The examples, which were taken from the games that I lost, served to demonstrate why I did what I did, what exactly I was thinking about prior to committing myself to any of my next moves, what had to be done. As chess is a model of life, it is important to talk in terms of errors rather than in terms of trying to win only. Besides, the pattern of chess thinking helps us in adopting our everyday life decisions," Evgeny said in his interview to one of the TV channels. 

You will find Jana Sidorchuk’s photos from the training session in the photo gallery. 

In the men’s section round five has brought about very little in terms changes in the overall tournament standings because of the multiple draws. It is not about the idea of the participants trying to avoid wasting their energy, but on the contrary, the majority of games were full of fight. Out of six games only one ended in a victory as Ivan Bukavshin has outplayed Ildar Khairullin.

Bukavshin – Khairullin 


52. g4

Having taken control over the b-file, Ivan makes up his mind to grab some space on the other side of the board as well. 

52…Kh7 53. Qb3 Rd2 54. Nf3 Ra2? 

The rook has come to occupy the wrong square, the fact which White soon managed to prove convincingly. More stubborn was 54...Re2. It should be noted, however, that Black was in a heavy time trouble at the moment.

55. Rb7 Qe2 



56. Nd2!

Bukavshin has come up with a move that crowned the entire operation. Without getting prior sight of this resource in the advanced calculations there was no sense in embarking upon the whole affair in the first place.

56…Kg8 57. Qxa2 

Instead of 57…Ne4? Black had an interesting 57…Nxg4! option at his disposal (now White needs to find some way to avoid being perpetually checked), therefore the cold-blooded engine shows us that White should have started with 57. Rb8+, taking the rook if Black responds with 57…Kg7. In this case 58…Nxg4 runs into 59. Qa1+, winning. 

58. Rxf7 Kxd2 59. Qxd5. Black resigns.

An early draw was agreed in the game between Sergey Karjakin and Alexander Motylev. After the game Sergey admitted that he was not feeling well and decided to go for a repetition of moves, the idea which found no objection from his opponent.

The rest of the games evolved into a very complex type of fight, which should be best analyzed in a detailed review. Dmitri Jakovenko, playing White against Nikita Vitiugov, was close to success. The native of St. Petersburg had to put up a hard resistance throughout the entire game, whereas in the middle game his position looked especially precarious. It appears that Jakovenko should have avoided the exchanged of queens, upon which the defensive hurdles of his opponent decreased. In the subsequent struggle White missed his chances, allowing Vitiugov enough counterplay to make a draw. The opponents agreed to a draw in a position which featured four white pawns against one Black’s rook.

 A lot of blood was drawn that day in the women’s tournament, where five out of the six victories were scored by White.

The focal encounter Kosteniuk - Gunina saw the former World Champion being very well prepared against the Caro-Kann (Alexandra later admitted that she had this line prepared as early as the game against Marina Guseva), not allowing Valentina to get into her usual type of sharp play with mutual chances for both sides. In a "dull" and a slightly better for White position Gunina committed a mistake.

Kosteniuk – Gunina 



Black opted for 26…Kf8 without much hesitation, a move that Alexandra considers to be a mistake. During the press conference the grandmaster proposed the 26…cxd4 27. Rxd4 Rc5 28. Nf3 Rxh5 29. Rc7 line, where White would try to benefit from the pin along the d-file. 

After what happened in the game Black lost a pawn almost by force. 

27. Re5 Nc4 28. Re4 Re8?!

Exchanging material was a more stubborn continuation: 28…cxd4 29. Rdxd4 Rxd4 30. Rxd4 Rc5, and it is unclear how White is supposed to convert his advantage, if any such is available for him in this position at all. 

In the game Alexandra took on f4 and went on to bring her material advantage home without allowing Valentina any counterplay. 

Olga Girya suffered her second bitter defeat in a row after having successfully emerged out of the opening against Alina Kashlinskaya, being up a pawn. However, something went wrong after that and in the endgame that ensued Alina overtook the initiative and succeeded in winning the game.

Girya – Kashlinskaya 



Black is better, and Alina comes up with a decisive blow. 

44…Rxb2! 45. Ra7+ Kf6 46. Ra6+ Ke5 47. Kd4 e2 48. Kxb2 Kxd4, and White resigns. 

Anastasia Savina managed to stop the tournament leader Aleksandra Goryachkina, having converted an extra pawn which Black sacrificed in the improved Tarrasch Defence but later failed to make the best use out of his compensation for the sacrificed material. 

The tournament is going poorly for Natalija Pogonina, who failed to ward off White’s attack in the game against Kateryna Lagno.

Anastasia Bodnaruk took advantage of somewhat aggressive attempts of her fellow-countryman Evgenija Ovod in the middlegame, having obtained a strong passed pawn and going on to win in the endgame.

The first tournament victory was scored by Ekaterina Kovalevskaya, who delivered a tricky blow against the well-placed d4-bishop of Marina Guseva.

Kovalevskaya - Guseva 



28. с3! Bxc3 29. Bxg6 hxg6 30. Qxc3 Kh7 31. Rxe5 Kxh6 32. Qe3+. Black resigns.

Thus, after six rounds Evgeny Tomashevsky and Vladislav Artemiev go on retaining the lead in the men’s tournament with 3.5 points each. Sergey Karjakin and Nikita Vitiugov are trailing half a point behind.

The women’s tournament has come to feature three leaders, as Aleksandra Goryachkina was caught up by Alexandra Kosteniuk and Kateryna Lagno, all of them sharing 3.5 points. Valentina Gunina and Anastasia Savina are half a point behind.

Among others things, round six of the men’s tournament is going to witness an interesting duel between the seven-time Russian Champion Peter Svidler and the current Champion Igor Lysyj. Dmitry Jakovenko will put Daniil Dubov to test. The battle of championship debutants, Artemiev and Bukavshin, promises to be an exciting one.

In the women's tournament the encounter Gunina - Lagno can be called a focal one without any doubt.