It's All In The Planning!

Crowded calendar keeps enthusiasts on their toes.

THERE are just too many world-class chess events which have taken place or are taking place all over the world at the same time. From Ningbo in China to Dortmund in Germany and Biel in Switzerland, my attention is being divided by this surfeit of chess activities.

Would I consider this a problem? Yes, but this is a happy problem. I don’t mind the distraction. It only proves that chess can have a crowded calendar.

So where shall I start? Perhaps, from where I left off last week, with the world team chess championship that ended in Ningbo on Tuesday with Armenia deposing Russia to become the new champion.

Poised to win: Vladimir Kramnik is creating waves at the Dortmund Sparkassen invitational chess tournament.

I thought at first that Russia was going to win this event but the Russians stumbled badly and lost to China and Azerbaijan, and in the final round, suffered the ignominy of losing to India.

Russia’s setback was the opportunity for Armenia to spring into the lead. The Armenian team had played so steadily that they hadn’t lost to any other team yet. At their worst, they drew with Russia, the United States and Azerbaijan.

On Tuesday, Armenia was due to play Ukraine in the final round. A drawn match was all that they needed to clinch the title but the Ukrainians themselves were in the chase. If they could score a crushing result like a 3½-½ win against Armenia, they may even come out tops. Maybe the Ukrainians saw the unlikelihood of this ever happening because soon after the start of the round, their match was quickly drawn.

I believe China was disappointed with this outcome because they were mathematically in contention for the title and they would only need to win by 2½-1½ against Hungary, which they did, to be the champion if Ukraine had won by any score line. The only consolation for the Chinese team was that they actually finished with the same game points as the Armenians, except that on the more important match points, they trailed the new champion.

India, Israel and Egypt found themselves out of their depth. Israel was possibly the biggest disappointment seeing how just a year ago, they had finished third in the Chess Olympiad.

India came into this event as the Asian champion but they soon realized that even finishing in the middle of the table would be a tall order. I thought they could play the role of a spoiler and take surprising points off the main title contenders but the only problem was, they could not until the very last round against Russia when the results did not count any more.

As for Egypt, there is little to be said about this African representative except that they failed totally.

And so we move on to Germany where the former world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, is creating waves at the Dortmund Sparkassen invitational chess tournament. Well, at least he has been in impressive form right until the mid-way point of this event last Monday. By the way, the tournament ends on Sunday so there is still time to see whether Kramnik will carry his advantage right through till the end.

The Dortmund Sparkassen is an elite chess tournament that goes a long way back. However, it was not until 1973 that it was converted into a regular annual event. This year’s edition is a six-player, double round-robin tournament that features Vladimir Kramnik, Hikaru Nakamura, Ruslan Ponomariov, Le Quang Liem, Anish Giri and local German player Georg Meier.

As mentioned, Kramnik has been showing great form. He couldn’t have been happier. In the first half of the tournament, his victims included Ponomariov, Giri, Meier and Nakamura, and he has dropped only a draw to Le. Even if he eases up on the pedal and draws the rest of his games in the second half, I believe he should coast through easily to win the top prize.

The last tournament on my list today is the annual Biel Chess Festival.

This chess festival has been around for decades. It started as a masters open tournament in 1968; the grandmaster tournament was introduced in 1976, and evolved into one of Europe’s showcase events. Like in Dortmund, this is a double round-robin tournament featuring six very strong players. Their names speak for themselves: Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexei Shirov, Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Morozevich and Yannick Pelletier.

I would be very surprised if Carlsen does not win the event which will end today. On Tuesday as I was writing this story, Carlsen was leading the field with only Morozevich following hard on his tail. The rest had been left behind.

Caruana, who had won last year’s Biel grandmaster tournament, found himself trailing everyone this time around. A complete reversal of form.

Only the top 10 chess nations of the world get to play in Ningbo.

WE’RE in the midst of a mini-Chess Olympiad and it is taking place in Ningbo, China. This is the world team chess championship which started on July 16 and will continue until Tuesday.

Since the first world team chess championship began in 1985, it has always been held every four years but the World Chess Federation changed its regulations and turned it into a biennial event. The last championship was two years ago in Turkey.

In case you are wondering, no, we are ineligible to play in it. Only the best teams in the world can take part, and there are only 10 places available. The foremost criterion for selection into this event is that a team must qualify as their continental champion.

Thus, India came out the winner at the last Asian team championship in Kolkata two years ago and is thus representing Asia in this world team chess championship.

Azerbaijan won the European team championship in 2009 and is playing in Ningbo. Similarly, the United States is the qualifier from America, while Egypt is the representative for Africa.

Apart from these four countries, Russia is playing in the championship as the defending champion, while Ukraine, Israel and Hungary qualified from finishing first, third and fourth respectively from last year’s Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk.

Of course, China as the host country is participating, and Armenia is the World Chess Federation president’s nomination.

Of these 10 countries, Egypt has arguably the weakest line-up. The team is not expected to end up anywhere but in the cellar position. But among the other nine teams, it is a real challenge to predict the winner.

Of course, Russia is still the team to beat with a line-up that comprises Sergey Karyakin, Alexander Grischuk, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Peter Svidler and Nikita Vitiugov. But they can’t be expecting any favour from the other teams. If anything, Azerbaijan and Ukraine will be breathing down hard on the Russians.

Both Armenia and Hungary cannot be discounted from leapfrogging over these top three teams while China, the United States, Israel and India will always be there as spoilers.

But having said all this, the first surprise was sprung in the very first round of the championship by an Egyptian player. International master Samy Shoker had been overwhelmed by playing the Ukrainian grandmaster, Alexander Areshchenko.

At the most critical point in the game, Areshchenko, thinking that the point was already in his pocket, went into auto-pilot mode and relaxed for a second. Shoker had the presence of mind to detect the smallest chance given to him and he seized on it.

The result? Areshchenko came under a mating attack and was unable to save the game. Here is the play:

Alexander Areshchenko (Ukraine) vs Samy Shoker (Egypt)

1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Be3 c6 5. h3 Nbd7 6. Nf3 Qc7 7. Bd3 e5 (I would have thought that the most logical move was to fianchetto the bishop and go for castling quickly.) 8. Qd2 exd4 (Again, 8. … Bg7 was called for.) 9. Nxd4 Bg7 10. Bh6 Bxh6 (Castle! Black should be castling here. Now, his king is caught in the centre.) 11. Qxh6 b5 (Black plays like a patzer. This move can be refuted immediately with 12. Bxb5 cxb5 13. Ndxb5 … and Black is in deep trouble.) 12. O-O-O b4 13. Nb1 Bb7 14. Nd2 Qb6 15. N4b3 Ba6 16. Bxa6 Qxa6 17. Kb1 c5 18. Nf3 c4 (At least Black has the presence of mind not to tempt fate further by capturing the e-pawn.) 19. Nc1 Ne5 20. Rd4 c3 21. Rhd1 cxb2 22. Nb3 Nc4 23. e5 (See diagram. White was already feeling so comfortable that he thought the game would play by itself. He totally overlooked Black’s threats or otherwise he would have played 23. Qg7. Just this one move, 23. e5, and the fortunes in this game turned around.) Rc8 24. exf6 Na3+ 25. Kxb2 Rxc2+ 26. Ka1 Nc4 27. Re4+ Kd8 28. Nc1 Qa3 0-1 (Checkmate is next.)

Grand prix circuit is a grand success.

AT THE last minute on Sunday, I decided to take a short drive down from Penang to look in at the fifth and final leg of the Tan Sri Lee Loy Seng chess grand prix tournament at the Syuen Hotel in Ipoh.

I was very encouraged by what I saw. When I entered the tournament hall, I could see that the Perak International Chess Association (PICA) had a good thing going for them. The hall was full, with 213 people playing chess.

Players of all ages had come to Ipoh from all over Perak and even the nearby states. As far as I could tell, there were players from Selangor and Penang but the organisers were quick to stress that there were busloads of players from areas like Bagan Serai, Slim River, Grik, Kampar, Ayer Tawar, Kuala Kangsar and Sungai Siput.

In fact, despite the closing date for entries being announced much earlier, Pica officials suddenly found an unprecedented number of unregistered players knocking at the door on Sunday morning.

They had to adjust their entries quickly and would have gladly accepted all who turned up at the last minute if not for the fact that they had filled up the tournament hall and had run out of chess equipment. I was told that possibly some 30 to 40 players were turned away.

Because of the large number of players, the organisers also made a quick decision to increase the number of rounds to eight and, at the same time, reduce the time control for each round.

Of course, some of the more serious participants may say that these factors made it uncondu-cive to compete seriously (there was a lot of prize monies involved) but, I was thinking to myself, who cares?

It was a great carnival atmosphere and I could see that the majority of the players were enjoying themselves tremendously. The noise level was high and impossible to shut out, but, again, who cares?

Naturally, the top boards got the most attention. They were the games that were usually among the last to finish, so it gave the other players a great opportunity to mill around and watch the better players.

This is the second year of the grand prix, which started last year. According to Pica president Chan Swee Loon, the association received RM25,000 from Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd (KLK) this year to run the five legs in various towns in Perak.

The series began with the Taiping leg in April and then proceeded to Bagan Serai, Slim River, Kampar and finally, Ipoh. Chan said that the grand prix circuit had drummed up a lot of interest in the towns where chess is not normally played. Next year’s grand prix circuit, he added, would probably be increased to six legs and start earlier in January.

At the closing ceremony on Sunday, the mayor of Ipoh, Datuk Roshidi Hashim, enthused about the game and paid a glowing tribute to the late Tan Sri Lee Loy Seng, founder of KLK. Then he sprang a surprise by pledging that the Ipoh City Council would contribute RM10,000 to next year’s grand prix circuit in the state.

For the record, the eight winners of the grand prix were Fong Yit San, Muhammad Nabil Azman Hisham, Fong Yit Ho, Ahmad Jamal Husni Jamaluddin, Jason Teh Chee Ying, Azman Hisham Che Doi, Amirul Rahimi Shamsuddin and Noor Ahmad Fazilah

INDIA, together with China, the Philippines and Vietnam, are considered among the great chess-playing countries in Asia, if not the world. I say this because these countries continue to produce some of the most exciting names in world chess.

For example, isn’t India’s Viswanathan Anand the world chess champion today? Wasn’t China’s Xie Jun the first Asian to become the women’s world champion? And isn’t Le Quang Liem the first Vietnamese player to break into that elite group of players with a rarified 2700+ chess rating?

In fact, there are so many other talents that have emerged from these four countries.

Wesley So from the Philippines is currently that country’s top ranked player and he is only 17; Hou Yifan from China is currently the women’s world chess champion and she is also 17; Parimarjan Negi, 18, is considered to be a chess prodigy from India. I should also add that Le Quang Liem is 20.

All very talented junior players. When we consider the likes of Norway’s Magnus Carlsen who is approaching his 21st birthday, Italian-American Fabiano Caruana who is 19 and currently the top junior player in the world, and 17-year-old Nepalese-Russian (but now Dutch) Anish Giri, we find that the world is practically littered with junior players who continue to shake up the older chess masters in today’s chess world.

Young champ: Fabiano Caruana, 19, is the current top junior chess player in the world.

Recently, the Delhi Chess Association and the Airport Authority of India joined hands to organise the AAI international grandmasters chess tournament in New Delhi, India, and they invited four of these young chess talents to participate.

Joining Caruana, So, Negi and Hou in this double round-robin tournament were two other players. One was the Czech Republic’s Viktor Laznicka, who at 23 wasn’t that much older than the four, and India’s second-best player Krishnan Sasikiran, who at 30 found himself the oldest player in the tourmanent.

The event was a romp for Caruana who justified his top seeding. He led after the third round and never allowed any of his rivals to get near enough to him. By the end of the eighth round, he was the only unbeaten player and he enjoyed a 1½-point advantage over his closest rival, Sasikiran.

But disaster struck for Caruana in the ninth round. According to him, he had blundered in a position which would have led to a draw. As a result, Sasikiran crept to narrow the gap on him to only a single point. However, Caruana’s first place in this tournament was never in any real danger as a draw in the 10th round was enough to seal his top prize.

Sasikiran came second in the tournament, followed by Laznicka in third place. And what of the other three teenagers in this event? Well, by their own admission, they could have played better but actually, they finished according to expectations. So and Negi were expected to finish in fourth and fifth positions respectively, which they did.

Hou was the weakest player in the field and finished last. In fact, if not for a much steadier performance in the second half of the tournament, she would have ended up with even fewer points. The first half of the tournament was a disaster as she lost her first four games.

On the basis of her play in this tournament, I think she is going to have her hands full later this year when she defends her women’s world championship title against the official challenger, Koneru Humpy. It will be back to the training board for her as her coaches try to build up her game before the big match.

This week, I’m featuring a critical game between the tournament winner and the current chess champion of India. I’m referring, of course, to Negi who had won the Indian national championship in December last year. In this marathon game which went to 98 moves, Caruana sacrificed his queen and in return, got back three pieces as compensation. At first, Caruana’s advantage was slight but his pieces coordinated better and he gradually built up to a winning position. However, he still had to tread carefully to prevent Negi’s queen from continually checking him as he pushed his pawn towards queening. Eventually, though, both players managed to convert their pawns into new queens but where Caruana was concerned, his position was already winning.

Fabiano Caruana – Parimarjan Negi, Round 6

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e6 7. f3 b5 8. Qd2 Nbd7 9. g4 h6 10. O-O-O Ne5 11. Qf2 b4 12. Nce2 Nc4 13. Ng3 Qc7 14. Bxc4 Qxc4 15. Kb1 g6 16. h4 e5 17. Nb3 Be6 18. h5 g5 19. Nf5 Bxf5 20. gxf5 Rc8 21. Rd3 Be7 22. a3 d5 23. exd5 Nxd5 24. Rhd1 Nf6 25. axb4 Qxb4 26. Bd2 Qb8 27. Bc3 O-O 28. Qe3 Rfe8 29. Bxe5 b5 30. f4 Qc4 31. Qd2 Ne4 32. Qg2 Qc6 33. Rd5 Nf6 34. fxg5 hxg5 35. Qxg5+ Kh7 36. Bxf6 Qxc2+ 37. Ka2 Rg8 38. Qxg8+ Rxg8 39. Bxe7 Rg3 40. Na5 Rg2 41. Ba3 Rf2 42. Nb3 Rf3 43. Nc5 Qc4+ 44. Kb1 Rf1 45. Rd4 Qe2 46. Rxf1 Qxf1+ 47. Ka2 Qxf5 48. Rd6 Qf1 49. Nxa6 f5 50. Nb4 Qc4+ 51. b3 Qe2+ 52. Bb2 Qxh5 53. Nd5 Qf3 54. Rd7+ Kg6 55. Ne7+ Kh6 56. Rd6+ Kh7 57. Rd8 Kh6 58. Rd6+ Kh7 59. Rd4 Kh6 60. Nd5 Qe2 61. b4 Kg5 62. Kb3 Qf1 63. Nf4 Qa6 64. Bc1 Kf6 65. Bd2 Qf1 66. Rd5 Qb1+ 67. Kc4 Qa2+ 68. Kb5 Qa8 69. Bc3+ Kg5 70. Be5 Qa7 71. Ne6+ Kg4 72. Rd4+ Kf3 73. Nc5 Ke3 74. Kc6 Qf7 75. Rd3+ Ke2 76. Rd5 Qe8+ 77. Kb6 Qf7 78. Rd6 Kf3 79. b5 Qe8 80. Re6 Qc8 81. Bc7 Qa8 82. Rd6 Ke2 83. Ne6 Qe4 84. Nd4+ Kf2 85. Nc6 Qc2 86. Kb7 Qb3 87. b6 f4 88. Kc8 Qh3+ 89. Rd7 f3 90. b7 Kg2 91. b8=Q f2 92. Qb2 Kh1 93. Ne5 f1=Q 94. Kb8 Qh8+ 95. Rd8 Qhf6 96. Qb7+ Kg1 97. Rg8+ Kh2 98. Ng4+ 1-0

Medias King’s tournament earns a spot in chess world.

I STILL stand by my opinion that the Medias King’s tournament that ended in Romania last week wasn’t by far the most exciting chess event that I had been following recently, despite the presence of some heavyweights in Norway’s Magnus Carlsen and Ukraine’s Vasily Ivanchuk.

But for a different reason, this tournament has earned its special position in today’s busy chess world.

Carlsen, by finishing this event, tied for first place with Russia’s Sergey Karyakin, regaining his position at the top of the unofficial chess live rating list, jumping over Viswanathan Anand. Anand, who is the world chess champion, had occupied the top live rating spot since last October.

The game played between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura.

The Norwegian grandmaster’s live rating now stands at 2820.8 points, which is 3.8 points more than Viswanathan’s current live rating of 2817. Before this Medias King’s event, Viswanathan had held a two-point cushion ahead of Carlsen.

Karyakin’s fantastic performance in this tournament also ensured that he would improve his live rating position as well.

In fact, Karyakin’s live rating increased by an impressive 12 points to 2788 points and this raised him from fifth to fourth position on the list, right behind Armenia’s Levon Aronian. This is an all-time high for the 21-year-old player who was once the youngest grandmaster in the world.

Last week, I offered you a game between Ivanchuk and Karyakin, a game where Karyakin’s irresistible attack tore through Ivanchuk’s defence. Today, there is another game from the Medias King’s tournament and this time, it is a game between Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura who is the top-ranked grandmaster in the United States.

Nakamura is an American citizen; his mother is American but his father is Japanese. He was born in Japan but at the age of two, the whole family moved to the United States. By the way, Nakamura’s number six on the live rating list.

So here is a game between Carlsen, 20, and Nakamura, 23, from the very first round of the Medias King’s tournament:

Magnus Carlsen – Hikaru Nakamura

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Be7 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bf4 c6 6. Qc2 Bg4 (At first, this move looked a little strange to me as the bishop lands on a square where it doesn’t even threaten a non-existent knight on f3. Then as the game continued, it struck me that all along Black wanted to move his piece to g6.) 7. e3 Bh5 8. Bd3 Bg6 9. Bxg6 hxg6 10. O-O-O (With this move, White gives up the idea of a minority pawn attack on the queenside. Instead, with the black kingside pawns a little awkwardly positioned, White looks to attacking in that direction should Black chooses to castle kingside.)

10… Nf6 11. f3 Nbd7 12. Nge2 b5 (White gets ready to push with h2-h4-h5 on the kingside, but Black starts the fun first by committing to his own queenside pawn roll.) 13. e4 (However, White’s decision to seize the centre puts Black’s strategy immediately into some doubt.)

13… b4 14. Na4 dxe4 15. fxe4 Qa5 16. Kb1 O-O 17. h4 (Here it comes. After due preparation to safeguard his king, White commences with his own initiative against the black king. Question is, whose attack will prevail first: White or Black?)

17…Rfe8 18. e5 Nd5 19. h5 g5 (Of course, Black does not wish to open up the h-file for White.) 20. h6 g6 21. Bc1 N7b6 22. Nc5 Bxc5 23. dxc5 b3 24. Qxb3 Qxc5 (Black seems to have an attack going as well but he will always have to keep the white pawn on h6 under observation. It can turn dangerous any time.) 25. Nd4 (Temporarily sacrificing a pawn in order to place his knight on a better square.) 25…Rxe5 26. Nf3 Re2 27. Nxg5

(See diagram. Black looks active but I think it is only illusory. White is better. The h6 pawn will be the key to winning the game. Now, 27…Rxg2 is answered with 28. Nxf7) 27…Qe7 28. Qd3 Rf8 29. Rdf1 (This threatens 30…Rxf7 next.) 29… f5 30. g4 Na4 31. Qd4 Qe5 32. Qxe5 (White mustn’t be too greedy with 32.Qxa4 as the table will turn with 32…Nc3+) 32…Rxe5 33. gxf5 gxf5 34. Nf3 Re7 35.Rfg1+ Kh7 (If 35…Kh8, then 36.Nh4 will win material. Or White can also play 36.Rg7) 36. Rg7+ Kh8 37. Rhg1 Rfe8 38. Nh4 Rxg7 (And here, Black gives up. After 39.Rxg7, Black will have to meet the threat of 40.Ng6+ next.) 1-0