Morozevich in 2014

by Junta

Alexander Morozevich hasn't been active in 2014 - his first appearance was in April at the Russian Teams Championships where he played six games with an average result. I was excited to see him in the line-up of the 15th Karpov Poikovsky tournament (running May 11th-20th), and as the tournament began, I immediately discovered that he still holds the highest place in my heart for chess players - he is the only player I feel like a 'fan' of.

When he wins, I feel like I've won a game myself, playing through the game, marvelling at his play, the world is going in the right direction, Caissa is doing a good job - I might return later in the day to play through the game again over the board. When he loses, I feel an injustice has occurred - I play through the game much quicker this time, frowning, seeing what went wrong, feeling an irrational enmity towards the opponent - how could this happen?!

You can imagine how I felt following the 2012 Tal Memorial (With a field comprising of Carlsen, Aronian, Kramnik, Caruana, Nakamura, Grischuk, Radjabov, Tomashevsky and McShane, he surged forward with an emphatic 4/5, only to lose to Nakamura, Tomashevsky and McShane in succession and finish on 50%).

Nevertheless, it feels much more engaging and fulfilling to have such a player you admire and want to emulate, than to have no such 'heroes'. Moro is currently sharing the lead with 2.5/3, and I'm looking forward to seeing how he plays for the rest of the event.

And as I just went to check over his two wins on 2700chess.com, I saw he won in Round 4 as well. I'd say this was a good day.

Edit: Yes, this was another fantastic game. How can he play like this!?

You can see games from the event here.