I REALLY don’t want to steal any limelight from the on-going 35th Royal Selangor open tournament but I’d like to devote much of this week’s story to an interesting event that’s now being played in Baku: the first leg of the World Chess Federation’s Grand Prix.
It’s a very simple yet interesting concept. Gather 21 of the world’s top players and let them take part in a series of six tournaments that will be played over two years in various host cities around the world. The 21 players will not be required to play in every leg of the grand prix but only in four of them. Thus, each event will feature only 14 players and at the end of all six events, the player with the most points will be declared the grand prix winner.
On April 21, the first leg of the grand prix started in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. Today is the 10th round and the final round will be on Monday. Later this year, the second leg will be played in Sochi (Russia) and the third in Doha (Qatar). Next year’s legs will be in Montreux (Switzerland), Elista (Russia) and Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic).
According to the Fide regulations, the winner of the grand prix at the end of next year will play the winner of the next Fide World Cup, scheduled for 2009, in an eight-game match, and the winner of this match will go on to challenge the current world champion, Viswanathan Anand, for the title in 2010.
White: Sergey Karjakin
Black: Wang, Yue
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4 5. d4 Nd6 6. Bxc6 dxc6 7. dxe5 Nf5
8. Qxd8+ Kxd8 9. Nc3 Ke8 10. h3 Be7 11. g4 Nh4 12. Nxh4 Bxh4 13. Bf4 Be6
14. Kg2 Be7 15. Rfd1 Rd8 16. f3 h5 17. b3 a5 18. Ne2 a4 19. Nd4 Ra8 20. Nxe6
fxe6 21. Bg3 g6 22. Be1 c5 23. c4 b6 24. Bc3 Kf7 25. Rd2 axb3 26. axb3 Rxa1
27. Bxa1 Ra8 28. Bb2 Bg5 (see diagram) 29. f4 Bxf4 30. Rf2 g5 31. Bc1 hxg4
32. hxg4 Kg6 33. Bxf4 gxf4 34. Rxf4 Kg5 35. Rf6 Kxg4 36. Rxe6 Kf5 37. Re7 Ra3
38. e6 Rxb3 39. Kf2 Rb4 40. Rxc7 Kxe6 41. Rh7 Rxc4 42. Rh6+ Kd5 43. Rxb6
Re4 44. Rb1 c4 45. Re1 c3 46. Rxe4 Kxe4 47. Ke1 (0-1)
That’s the regulations in a nutshell. They actually go deeper because Fide had also considered the possibility of the same player winning both the grand prix and world cup. What happens in that case? And what happens if the world champion himself were to win the grand prix?
Who are playing in Baku? Fide has tried its best to include players from all continents, so it is interesting to see that there’s Wang Yue from China. Wang is possibly the top player in China right now and he has been playing terribly well in this event. Last October, his rating soared past the 2,700 mark and this got him into the grand prix.
Wang just passed his 21st birthday about a month ago but what credentials he has: world under-12 champion in 1999, China’s national chess champion in 2005, second at the Aeroflot open in Moscow in February 2007, first in the Cappelle la Grande open tournament in March 2007 ahead of 86 other grandmasters, first in the Philippines international open chess tournament in May 2007 and joint first at the Reykjavik open in March this year. He also played in the Fide World Cup 2007 but was eliminated.
Apart from Wang, the other players in Baku are all Westerners: Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan), Peter Svidler (Russia), Sergey Karjakin (Ukraine), Michael Adams (England), Gata Kamsky (United States), Alexander Grischuk (Russia), Etienne Bacrot (France), Ivan Cheparinov (Bulgaria), Ernesto Inarkiev (Russia), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan) and David Navara (Czech Republic).
Here’s an interesting game from Wang, played in the fifth round of the Baku tournament. Wang was playing with the black pieces and against Karjakin’s Spanish Opening, he equalised the game easily with the Berlin Defence.
The corker of the game came in the 28th move when 28 … Bg5 seized Black the control of the black squares, especially the d2 square. White was forced to keep his rook on his second rank. He couldn’t even steal a pawn with 29 Rd7+ because after 29 … Ke8 30 Rxc7, Black’s … Ra2 would win the game quickly. Yet, there were still chances for White to save his game but he missed them and had to resign the game when it became clear that Black would win the king and pawn ending.
Royal Selangor open
I’m unable to write anything much on the event yet as it’s still in progress but I heard from Chess Association of Selangor secretary Lim Tse Pin that among the 70-odd players in the tournament are several former men’s national champions: Yeoh Chin Seng, Lim Yee Weng, Mohd Kamal Abdullah, Kamal Arifin Wahiduddin and Nicholas Chan, and also former women’s national champions Roslina Marmono and Khairunnisa Wahiduddin.
Current women’s national champion Nur Shazwani Zulkhafli is also playing and last year’s winner, Lim Chuin Hoong, is defending his title. By all accounts, this is a pretty tough local event.
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(This story first appeared in The Star on 2 May 2008)