Round 1. FIDE Matches

First round of the FIDE Matches took place on Thursday.  All four games ended in draws, each in a different way.  With the exception of the Aronian vs Grischuk game, all the games were drawn in just a few hours. The second round takes place Friday.

I forgot to mention in my last blog-report on this chess event that the time control is reasonably slow: 2-hours for the first 40 moves, followed by 1-hour for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes til the end of the game (with , ofcourse, the 30-second increment for each move starting at move 1). 

There are no adjournments.  This factor might have played an important role in the Aronian vs Grischuk game, where Aronian–with a strong passed pawn–  let several wins slip thru his fingers in the final minutes of the marathon 6-hour plus game.  Perhaps, also, Aronian is not used to such long games.

The opening of this game was a Grunfeld Defence (X-change variation) where Aronian surprised the spectators accepting a positional pawn-sacrifice that Black usually offers in this opening that White generally refuses!  In the position above Black has absolutely no problems at all and I am certain that most Grunfeld players would be quite pleased with Black’s compensation for the slight material deficit.  Especially, White’s a, c and e-pawns are all isolated and easy enough to attack.

Black should now consider 20…Be6 (or 20…Bb7) followed by placing his Rooks in the centre.  Black could even refuse a draw offer from White in this kind of position!  Instead, Grischuk played the simplifying 20…Bg4?! and even allowed the exchange of Queens a few moves later!  Soon Aronian found himself in an ending a pawn up and with some remote chances…

Now Grischuk has some work before he can make a draw.  Being a pawn down, he still has to prove that he has enough compensation.  Even so, after 24…Rb8 25.Rb3 Nd3!, it is difficult to believe that any grandmaster would lose this position with Black!

But match psychology is a tricky business:  Grischuk lost an ending like a child against Aronian earlier this year at the Wijk Ann Zee tournament and no doubt had still not got over it.  In the ensuing play Grischuk failed to get any concrete counterplay and Aronian slowly but methodically built up a winning position!

Analysts say that Aronian’s 69th move (69.Nc5) was a blunder that thru away his win. 

ChessInTranslation wrote:  ” What can you say… Chess is a cruel sport. It’s not enough to have an absolutely won position. You also have to win it! Aronian conducted the game brilliantly, was very close to succeeding, but couldn’t maintain his concentration to the end. He began to rush, to make inaccuracies, to slowly let his ingenious opponent slip. Grischuk showed himself to be a real escape artist. Every inch a Harry Houdini! And it’s unlikely the best program in the world could have defended better in the Russian’s place. In any case, our man demonstrated real nerves of steel…”

[Event “WCh Candidates”]
[Site “Kazan/Tatarstan/Russia”]
[Date “2011.5.5”]
[Round “1.1”]
[White “Aronian, Levon”]
[Black “Grischuk, Alexander”]
[Result “1/2-1/2”]
[Eco “D87”]
[Annotator “”]
[Source “”]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bc4 c5 8.
Ne2 Nc6 9. Be3 O-O 10. O-O b6 11. dxc5 Qc7 12. Nd4 Ne5 13. Nb5 Qb8 14. Be2
bxc5 15. f4 Ng4 16. Bxc5 a6 17. Na3 Qc7 18. Bd4 e5 19. fxe5 Nxe5 20. Qc1 Bg4
21. Bxg4 Nxg4 22. Qf4 Qxf4 23. Rxf4 Ne5 24. Rb1 Rad8 25. Nc2 Nd3 26. Rff1 Rd7
27. Rfd1 Nf4 28. Kf2 Rc8 29. Ne3 h5 30. Rb6 Ne6 31. Bxg7 Rxd1 32. Nxd1 Kxg7
33. Ke3 Nc5 34. Rd6 a5 35. c4 a4 36. Kd4 Ne6+ 37. Kc3 Rb8 38. Rd5 Nf4 39. Rd2
Ne6 40. Rb2 Rd8 41. Nf2 a3 42. Rd2 Rb8 43. Nd3 Rb1 44. c5 Kf6 45. c6 Ke7 46.
Nb4 Rc1+ 47. Kb3 Nc5+ 48. Kxa3 Nxe4 49. Rd4 Nd6 50. Ka4 Ke6 51. Ka5 Rc5+ 52.
Ka6 g5 53. a4 Ke5 54. Rd2 Rc4 55. Ka5 f5 56. Rc2 Kd4 57. Rd2+ Ke5 58. Nd3+
Kf6 59. Kb6 Nc8+ 60. Kb7 Nd6+ 61. Kc7 Ne4 62. Ra2 Nc3 63. Rb2 Nxa4 64. Rb4
Rxb4 65. Nxb4 Nc5 66. Kb6 Ne6 67. Nd3 h4 68. h3 Ke7 69. Nc5 Nxc5 70. Kxc5 Kd8
1/2-1/2

I am one of the few who actually believes in Grischuk’s chances in this match (and in winning the overall event!).  It is a bit of a bad luck that he is paired against Aronian–who many feel is the best player in the world at present.  But what to do? 

Recently Grischuk’s results have been below parr and no doubt he is going thru some sort of personal crisis.  However, these crises often are necessary for a grandmaster to jump to the next level.  It is enough for us to remember how Boris Spassky emerged from a series of personal crises in the mid-1960’s and soon went on to become the strongest player in the world–playing not less than 3 matches for the world championship!

Be that is it may, I also confess that my own record is not very good in picking underdogs in high-level chess matches!

However, today’s game between Grischuk and Aronian could mark a turning point in the personal chess-rivalry between these 2 great players.  There can be no doubt that Grischuk must be very confident after having saved a lost ending against a player who is considered such an extraordinary endgame player.  We will just have to wait and see!

American Champion Gata Kamsky played the White pieces against he Bulgarian superstar Topalov and played a sort of ‘TN’ (theoretical novelty) against him on the 7th move :

I don’t think this move was prepared at home but was instead some sort of ‘Lasker’ over the board invention that was psychologically designed to take his opponent way out of his opening preparation and into  obscure positions.  Ofcourse, Black can take the pawn but White would have enough practical compensation for one game ( for example: 7…Nxa5. 8.Nd5!?  Nc6 9.Nxf6-ch gf6 10.Nxc6 bc6 11.Bc4!?)

But Topalov simply ignored the offer and developed his pieces, achieving a normal enough position without any problems.  At move 23  he ‘killed’ any hopes that Kamsky might have had when he sacrificed an exchange for a pawn (position below):

It soon became clear that the game was going to be a draw.  That was agreed at move 41.

There is not much to say about the other two games.  Radjabov vs Kramnik was a very boring game that lasted all of 25 moves.  Kramnik employed the ‘Lasker’s defence’ against the QueensGambit and  must have surprised his opponent who showed that he had nothing special prepared for it!

The move 7…Ne4!? leads to simplification and therefore often results in colourless draws.  Lasker , however, only played it during a short period of his career, and therefore it is surprising that his name would be attached to it!

And finally, Mamedyarov vs Gelfand  started off as a real game but ended in a fizzle.  Gelfand played the Najdorf instead of his usual Petroff defence ( psychology!) but ended up in a clearly inferior position in the early middlegame.  Soon Gelfand chucked a pawn and an ending arose where White had some practical chances of winning the game.