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LIVERPOOL ’08
- THE BIGGEST AND THE BEST
by John Saunders
This is the first of our daily
reports from the European Union Chess Championship being
held in Liverpool. I should first introduce myself: I’m
John Saunders (editor of British Chess Magazine
www.bcmchess.co.uk).
It’s my job to bring you the edited highlights of the
play, incidents and funny stories. I welcome feedback,
so if you’d like to contact me, send me an email on
johnsaunders@bcmchess.co.uk.
This is the fourth playing of the
European Union Chess Championship and the second time it
has visited Liverpool. The inaugural event was held in
Cork, Ireland, in 2005, and it was played at the
Liverpool World Museum in 2006. Last year it was held in
Arvier in north-west Italy.
The 2006 EU Championship was the
first of a remarkable series of tournaments to be held
in Liverpool thanks to the sterling efforts of local
chess organiser Professor David Robertson. He managed to
secure sponsorship from the Mersey Partnership,
Liverpool John Moores
University, the Liverpool Capital of Culture Company
and the World Museum to enable Liverpool to host its
first major chess tournament for many decades. But ‘Prof
Robbo’ (as the nickname-loving locals like to call him)
didn’t stop there. In 2007 he brought the full might of
the Chinese team to Liverpool to play against Britain,
and then secured the prestigious St George’s Hall as
venue for the 2008 British Championship. And now, barely
a month after the British Championship, the Liverpool
chess juggernaut has returned to the Liverpool World
Museum for this, the fourth European Union Championship,
which forms part of Liverpool’s celebration as the
European Capital of Culture in 2008
This is easily the strongest EU
championship so far, and arguably the strongest open
championship ever held in Britain. Depending on your
yardstick, we might go one further and call it the
strongest tournament held in Britain ever. Just a quick
look at the stats: the top 14 players here average a
rating of 2629, the top 20 average 2609, and the top 40
average 2561. London hosted some mighty tournaments in
the 1980s, while we used to have the Monarch Assurance
Isle of Man Open with some very strong fields, but the
strength in depth of this year’s EU Championship is
unsurpassed in these islands.
BIG BANG OR STEADY STATE?
As well as being editor of the
aforementioned magazine, you may know me as the person
who wrote the recent piece on the
ChessBase website about ‘Armageddon’. Thankfully, we
have no clock-thumping, non-incremental blitz finishes
here in Liverpool but, oddly enough, we have been
affected slightly by an event at the other end of time
from Armageddon – the so-called
‘Big
Bang’.
At one end of our playing hall, we
have a spill-over exhibition stand on the subject of the
cataclysmic beginning of the universe. This is highly
topical, of course, with the European Organization for
Nuclear Research about to test something called a
Large Hadron Collider, which promises to provide
further data relating to the ‘Big Bang’ theory, though
apparently running the slight risk that we might all
suddenly become ex-chessplayers sometime later today. In
my view the boffins in Switzerland have a damned cheek:
they could at least have waited till after the end of
the Anand-Kramnik match. I should not like to be
vaporised before knowing who really is the strongest
chessplayer in the world.
This set my mind to thinking of the
perennial first-round dilemma for amateur players. The
tournament is not using accelerated pairings, so it
means that the top half is playing the bottom half in
round one. So, for the amateurs, the cosmological
question is – to go for ‘Big Bang’ (i.e. attack the
grandmaster like a maniac in the hope of landing a lucky
blow) – or opt for ‘Steady State’ (i.e. just play
steady, percentage chess in the hope of frustrating the
mega-opponent and maybe sneaking a draw). Of course,
both principles have their adherents and it is always
entertaining to see which one meets with success.
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Michael Adams |
Adding spice to our tournament is a
bit of traditional Anglo-French rivalry. Of the four
highest rated players, two are English and two French.
England has its two best players, Michael Adams and
Nigel Short (who returns to try and regain the title he
won here in 2006). France also have their two finest:
Etienne Bacrot and 17-year-old prodigy Maxime
Vachier-Lagrave. Published ratings of the four are Adams
2735, Bacrot 2691, Vachier-Lagrave 2681, Short 2681, but
if we consult the unofficial daily rating list, at the
time of writing, they are Adams 2734 (no.10 in the
world), Vachier-Lagrave 2715 (no.24), Bacrot 2705
(no.29). So it is clear that the French teenager is
improving at a rapid rate.
So, imagine you are a sub-2300 player
(not a difficult thing for most of us to do) and facing
one of these ‘Large Hadron Colliders’. What do you do?
Big Bang or Steady State? On top board Charlie Kennaugh,
highly popular local player and manager of the
North-West Eagles 4NCL team, faced Mickey Adams. It
started Big Bang-ish as Charlie played ...f5 against the
Lopez, but his particles soon began to disintegrate. The
English number one secured various chunky positional
advantages, tapped Black’s position lightly with a small
hammer and watched it crumble. Spanish amateur Dan Cruz
Alvarez de Ron decided to be bold against Bacrot,
snatching a decidedly warm a-pawn with his queen.
Maxime
Vachier-Lagrave
But the French have long known what
to do with queens who disrespect the peasantry – off
with her head. Dan managed to get a rook, piece and pawn
for his fallen monarch but it was not enough. Romanian
WIM Iozefina Paulet played boldly against Maxime
Vachier-Lagrave, even having the temerity to threaten
mate in one in the early middlegame. But she then
overlooked a small tactic which allowed the French boy
to win a pawn and secure a won position.
Of the top four, Nigel Short had the
hardest route to victory, coming up against a die-hard
proponent of the ‘Steady State’ approach. 38-year-old
Lithuanian FM Povilas Lasinskas was a hard nut to crack.
Despite having had to concede the exchange, Lasinskas
looked close to a draw when he strangely spurned the
opportunity to capture one of the grandmaster’s pawns on
move 62. Even then it took a lot of patient manoeuvring
for the English grandmaster to secure the point. His
father David (who is hon. sec. of Lichfield Chess Club)
had been present to watch him in action and the full
point was gratifying for both father and son.
GAME OF THE DAY
So, let’s look at some chess. The
thing we all crave to see in the first-round of a Swiss
event is some giant-killing action. Inevitably, with
such larges disparities in rating there weren’t too many
David and Goliath acts but our secret panel of judges’
choice for the £100-prize-winning game of the day was
the following outstanding effort from a 37-year-old
English amateur player from Chester, Chris Doran, who
scalped a 40-year-old Latvian grandmaster.
Chris Doran
It is a clever blend of ‘big bang’
and ‘steady state’: the choice of opening (Dragon) is
very brave, and he follows this up with some canny
defensive play inviting the GM to overreach, which duly
comes to pass. This is welcome proof that the amateur
player’s dream of beating a grandmaster can really
happen.
Round 1
Viesturs Meijers v Chris Doran
Sicilian Dragon B77
1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6
5 Nc3 g6
The Dragon is a good choice for
‘Tigers’ – the game can soon get out of control and lead
to the sort of ‘swamp’ the late Simon Webb referred to
in his wonderful Chess for Tigers.
6 Be3 Bg7 7 f3 Nc6 8 Qd2 0–0 9 Bc4
Bd7 10 Bb3 Ne5 11 g4
11 0–0–0 is a much more frequent
choice. The Latvian grandmaster opts to leave his king
in the centre.
11...Rc8 12 h4 b5 13 h5 Nc4 14 Bxc4
Rxc4 15 hxg6 fxg6 16 Ndxb5
16...Bxb5!?
This proves to be a very sensible
plan. 16...a6 17 Nd4 Qb8 18 0–0–0 Rfc8 19 Nde2 Be6 20
Bd4 Bf7 21 g5 Rxd4 22 Nxd4 Nh5 23 Nd5 soon led to a win
for White in Meijers-Grecescu, Trier 2002.
17 Nxb5 Qb8! 18 a4
18 Nxa7? Qxb2 19 Rc1 Qxa2 gives Black
strong play against the c2 pawn; 18 b3 leaves the long
diagonal horribly exposed but perhaps it is worth a try,
when 18...Qxb5!? 19 bxc4 Qxc4 gives Black some
compensation for the exchange.
18...a6 19 g5
White cannot really move the knight
as the capture on b2 is too strong.
19...axb5 20 gxf6 Rxf6 21 Bh6?
The grandmaster is the first to go
astray: 21 axb5 Qxb5 22 Qe2 Qc6 23 c3 is roughly level.
21...Bxh6 22 Qxh6 Rf7
Suddenly White finds his kingside
attack is going nowhere and his queenside is wide open
to various threats.
23 axb5 Rxc2 24 b4 Qc8 25 Kd1
25 Qe3 allows 25...Rc3 and a capture
on f3.
25...Rc4 26 Rh2?
White is already in a position which
is close to irreparable but 26 Rc1 would pose the
amateur opponent with the problem of finding a few more
precise moves.
26...Rd4+! 27 Rd2 Rxf3!
You can feel Black’s confidence
growing: “I’m going to beat a grandmaster!”
28 Ke2 Rxe4+! 29 Kxf3 Qf5+ 30 Kg2
Rg4+ 31 Kh1 Qe4+ 32 Kh2 Qe5+ 0–1
Another honourable mention: Paul Lam
of Kenilworth CC offered GM Tiger Hillarp Persson a draw
on move 18. I confess I guffawed at the cheek of the
Midlands player when I saw “(=)” against his move on the
scoresheet.
Paul Lam
Fairly obviously, the 2526-rated
Swede did not accept the 2104-rated opponent’s offer at
so early a juncture. However, the English amateur proved
his point (or at least half of it) when he held the draw
after 100 moves.
That’s about it for today. Hopefully,
if mankind survives another day and we haven’t all been
turned into nuclear Swiss Roll, we’ll be back with a
report on the second round tomorrow. |
