Steve Giddins reports from
Liverpool
Saturday was a great day
for British sport. England's footballers, cricketers and
rugby players all won, as did Scotland's footballers.
But sadly, this day of British sporting success did not
extend to the chess board, as the UK suffered their
worst day so far against China. The visitors won the
round 5.5 - 2.5, without loss of a game, to take a
near-decisive 7 point lead into the final round.
The top board game Wang Hao
- Adams ended in a quiet draw. Adams's standard pawn
sacrifice in the Moller Lopez yielded sufficient
compensation, and the draw was agreed after Wang had
returned the pawn for a balanced endgame. Nigel Short
seemed to equalize comfortably enough against Zhang's
Scotch Game, but later drifted downhill, and looked to
be in some trouble:
Play continued 28.Qg4
Re6 29.a4 h6?! Weakening g6. 29...Qg6 is possibly
better, although White retains he advantage after 30
Qxg6 Rxg6 31 Rd7. 30.f5 Re8 31.Rd6 Kh8 32.Qg6
32.Re6 looks strong here, eg 32...Rxe6 33.fxe6 Qf3+
34.Qxf3 exf3 35.Kg1 and the e4 pawn is vulnerable.
32...Rf8 33.Qxf7 Rxf7 34.Kg2 Ne5 35.a5 Nd3 36.b3 g6
37.fxg6 Rf2+ 38.Kg1 Rf3 39.Nf1 And here, the active
39 Nd5 looks more promising. 39...Nf4 40.Nd2 Rxc3
41.Nxe4 Rxb3 42.Rd7 Nxg6 Now the danger is past.
43.Nf6 Nf8 44.Rf7 Rb5 45.h4 45 Rxf8+ Kg7 46 Nd7 Rd5
47 Rd8 Kf7 is nothing for White.
Rxa5 46.Rxb7 Rf5 47.Rf7 h5
48.Kg2 a5 49.Kg3 a4 50.Rxf8+ Kg7 51.Ra8 Kxf6 52.Rxa4 ½–½
Jonathan Rowson had some
pressure against Hou Yifan's hanging pawns, but the
13-year old Chinese girl kept her pieces active and had
the balance without undue trouble. Nick Pert has had a
tough week, and today was ground down in remorseless
style by Ni Hua. Pert's French Tarrasch led to an IQP
structure where Black was only very slightly worse, but
he never quite solved his problems, even after he
succeeded in trading of the IQP.
Even though the position is
simplified and the pawn structure symmetrical, White's
more active pieces give him a clear advantage. Ni Hua
continued 30.Rd6 Rb8 31.Ne3 Kf8 32.f4 Driving the
enemy knight to a passive position. Ng6 33.g3 Ne7
34.Kf2 Ke8 35.Kf3 Nc8 36.Rd3 b5 37.h4 h5 38.Nd5 Rb7
39.f5 Ne7 40.f6! This forces a decisive breach in
the Black kingside pawn structure. Nxd5 41.Rxd5 g6
42.Kf4 b4 43.Kg5 The position is already hopeless
for Black. Rb6 44.Rd4! Zugzwang. Black must shed
a pawn. Re6 45.Rxb4 Re3 46.Kh6 Rxg3 47.Kg7 g5 48.Re4+
Kd7 49.Kxf7 gxh4 50.Rd4+ Kc7 51.Rxh4 Rxb3 52.Rxh5 Kd6
53.Rh1 Rd3 54.Re1 Kd7 55.Kf8 Rg3 56.f7 Rg2 57.Rd1+ Kc7
58.Rd4 1–0 Highly impressive technique from Ni Hua.
It is very hard to pinpoint Black's decisive mistake in
this game.
Gawain Jones missed a great
opportunity. Abandoning his usual Grand Prix Attack in
favour of a long piece of Sicilian Sveshnikov
preparation, he soon picked up two pawns for nothing,
with an easily won ending. Then the problems began.
Here, he could have decided
the game at once by 41 f6+, which wins a piece, eg
41...Bxf6 42 Re1+ Be5 43 Rxe5+ dxe5 44 d6+ winning.
Sadly, Gawain missed this and played instead 41.h4?.
Even then, he should still be winning, but what he
later described as a series of bad moves eventually led
to a rook ending in which he even stood worse,
and had to defend accurately for the draw.
David Howell's game was
another "triumph" for the idiotic time-limit. A highly
interesting struggle eventually came down to the
following ending:
In days gone by, when
chessplayers were actually permitted to think about
their moves, it would have been hard to imagine a
grandmaster losing such an ending. However, since the
Kalmykian Dunderhead decided to make chess more
"interesting", by outlawing the iniquitous practice of
thinking during games, anything has become possible.
"Play" - if it is right to dignify what follows with
such a term - continued 55.Re5 Exchanging another
pawn by 55 g4 was easier. Bg5 56.Rb5 Be7 57.Rb6+ Kf7
58.Rb8 g5 59.Bd4 Rd7 60.Bf2?? Losing immediately.
Rd2 61.g4 Desperation, since if the bishop
moves, 61...g4 is mate, whilst 61 Kg2 Bc5 wins a piece.
hxg4+ 62.Kg2 g3 0–1
Arakhamia- Shen Yang
simplified to a dead level heavy piece ending and was
agreed drawn in 31 moves, but Jovanka Houska suffered
another disappointment, losing a greatly superior
position to Ding Yixin.
In this position, White
could simply take a pawn by 33.Bd2 Rb5 34 Rxb5 axb5 35
Qxe4. Jovanka preferred 33.Rd7 Qe8, but
now blundered a pawn herself by 34.R1d2?? 34 Qe5
keeps the advantage. Rxc2! Play stumbled on as
follows: 35.Rd1 Rc8 36.h3 Rxb3 37.Qxe4 Rb5 38.Ra7 Qc6
39.Qa4?! 39 Qg4! Rb1! 40.Qg4 Rxd1+ 41.Qxd1 Ra8
42.Re7 a5?! 43.f4 43 Qh5! gives better
chances. Rd8 44.Qe1? And again here. a4 45.f5
Nf8 46.Qh4 Rd1+ 47.Kh2 Qd6+ 48.Bf4 Qd4 Now White's
position is irretrievably gone.
49.Re3 Rf1 50.Rf3 Rxf3 51.gxf3 a3 52.Qg3 Qb2+ 53.Qg2
Qxg2+ 54.Kxg2 a2 55.Be5 Nd7 56.Bd4 Nc5 57.f6 Nb3 0–1
As a result of this black
day for the British team, the Chinese lead the match by
23.5 - 16.5. The UK can still draw the match, if they
win today's round by 7.5-0.5, whilst an 8-0 whitewash
will even win them the match...
In the Open tournament,
Daniel Fridman won a sharp game as Black against Alberto
David, and now leads outright on 6.5 / 8. In today's
final round, he plays White against Danny Gormally, who
beat Ciuksyte to reach 6 points. The two other
6-pointers are Yuri Vovk and Alexandre Dgebuadze, who
play today. A large group on 5.5 includes Simon
Williams, Andrew Greet, Stewart Haslinger and John Shaw.
25
years on
Finally, there was some
amusement before the start of the final round, as
tournament webmaster Steve Connor arranged an
interesting photoshoot.
The above picture of two
youthful innocents, enjoying a game of chess, was taken
25 years ago, in London in 1982, at the National Primary
Schools Championship. It shows an extremely young Mickey
Adams (White), and an equally young Gary Quillan.
Since both players are present at Liverpool this week,
it was decided to re-create the scene, a quarter of a
century later, with the result that you can see below!
Now we are all waiting for
the Liverpool International in 2032, when we can do the
"50 years on" picture...
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