Kramniks' Reti win from Dortmund 2013

"Victory in the Tromso World Cup is the second best result in Kramnik's career after beating Kasparov in the 2000 World Championship - even Anand who twice won knockout World Championships never demonstrated such dominance over his rivals"

- Alexander Grischuk (from Chess in Translation's Twitter feed)

 

by Junta

Vladimir Kramnik showed his class, winning the recent World Cup very convincingly. He didn't seem to be in any real danger throughout the marathon spanning 7 rounds and several weeks, and he played some beautiful positional games as usual.

However, in this post I want to show one of his wins from the Dortmund tournament at the start of August: I was extremely impressed by this game because I play the same opening as White, and this was an absolute model game for the line, with a bayonet attack and exchange sacrifice putting Black firmly on the defensive, and White's whole army joined in the all-out assault.

This 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 e6 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 Be7 5.O-O O-O 6.b3 line is covered in the final, 8th chapter of GM Alexander Delchev's book The Modern Reti (2012), a book I highly recommend for those who play or want to learn 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4.
 

 

I found the final move, 34.Qa1, amusing as it reminded me of another game of Kramnik's where the same queen move would have been the strongest move on move 21, winning at least an exchange (shown in Emmanuel Neiman & Yochanan Afek's book Invisible Chess Moves (2011)). This game was from a rapid match in Budapest in 2001.





Opening Disasters

“How does a strong player come to lose in just 18 moves? I should know, because I have lost several games just as quickly. If you want to lose a miniature, then here are three helpful tips. First of all, it is a big help if you are Black. Losing in under 20 moves with White requires a special talent which few possess. Secondly, choose an opening in which you try to realise strategic ambitions, but at the cost of backward development and delayed castling. Thirdly, if something goes slightly wrong, don’t reconcile yourself to defending a bad position - seek a tactical solution instead! Don’t worry about the fact that tactics are bound to favour the better developed side; just go ahead anyway. Follow this advice and at least you will get home early.”

- from John Nunn’s Best Games

by Junta

I experienced a swift (21 moves) defeat last week, and thought it might be instructive for others to see some good examples of what Nunn says above, from my own games in the last few years - pretty much games where I've been lost right after the opening.

#1: The game from last week, where Andrew broke his losing streak of 4 in our encounters. My rating: 2362, Opponent's rating: 2296

 

#2: A miniature from the 2011 World Juniors, where I managed to lose in 19 moves as White (special talent?). My rating: 2349, Opponent's rating: 2503

 

 

#3: A one-sided loss from the Rose Valley Open in Calcutta in December. My rating: 2304, Opponent's rating: 2385

 

#4: A similarly hopeless loss, from the 2011 Oceania Zonal. My rating: 2262, Opponent's rating: 2478
 

Sicilian Kan puzzle

by Junta

In the Kan after 5.Bd3 Nc6 6.Nxc6

Looking at some lines of the Sicilian Kan (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6) tonight, I remembered one episode from the World U/16 Olympiad in Singapore, 2007. I was examining the above position with teammate Moulthun and Ian Rogers present.

As many players should be able to relate, it can be fun to consider unintuitive, unnecessary or unusual moves (within the boundary of not being completely pointless) when analysing positions, and for Black's 6th move here I found 6...Qb6 - White must give a piece back, and Black can reach a Hedgehog pawn structure!

Objectively it is of course a waste of time, and after 7.Ne5 Qa5+ 8.Nd2 Qxe5 9.O-O for example, White is much better. Still, Moulthun and I were amused at discovering such a 'novelty', but showing it to Ian, he quickly pointed out that White can stay material up with a surprising move: 7.Bxa6!?

We had completely missed this intermezzo, and White stays a pawn to the good (although Black has some compensation in the two bishops). The novelty had been refuted...

But checking it again tonight after five-and-a-half years, I realised it isn't so simple - after 7...Rxa6 8.Nd4 Bc5 9.c3 e5, Black regains the pawn with equality, e.g. 10.b4 Bxd4 11.cxd4 Qxb4+ 12.Qd2 Qxd4 13.Qxd4 exd4. Either way, it's fun to get sidetracked with lines like these sometimes.



A short novelty consultation

by Junta

A friend came up to me and asked if I could have a look at a variation he prepared - he was paired against a certain Australian junior the next round, probably later on that day. Although he was Black, I stood looking down at the White side of a board on a table. He showed me:

1.c4 e5 2.e4 Ke7

I was surprised - this definitely looked like a novelty, and an interesting one at that. If White was unable to punish it straight away, then maybe it would become a playable sideline. Left at the board alone, I started examining White's critical attempts - 3.Qh5, 3.Nc3, 3.d4, 3.f4...

3.Qh5 Nc6 - Black defends e5 easily, and will harass White's queen with tempo next with ...g6 (followed by ...Bg7) or ...Nf6. This attempt would be too crude.

3.Nc3 c6 - Black will follow up with ...d6, ...Nd7, ...g6, ...Bg7 - that looks quite solid. But surely there's a reason the king move has never been seen before. How could the game continue from here?

Pressuring e5 and opening lines up should be White's plan - let's say 4.f4 d6 5.Nf3 Nd7 6.d4 g6

Hmm...what does Black do if White just develops? Be2, O-O, Be3, Qd2... 7.Be2 Bg7 8.O-O Nh6 aha, so if 9.Be3, ...Ng4 with tempo. 9.h3 f6 And here I realised what my friend's plan must be - ...Nf7, ...Re8 and ...Kf8-g8, castling artificially!

After checking over the lines as well as examining other insignificant lines, I called my friend over to deliver my verdict. "It's an interesting novelty, but I'm not totally convinced. Your next opponent loves to have space and attack, so wouldn't this opening be helping him too much? I think you should stick with your normal repertoire this time." But I felt that the novelty was worth something, adding "But trying this line out in a game - it will definitely be a good learning experience for you."





N.B. This was a dream I had last night. Usually things are much more exciting in my occasional chess dreams, often playing in a tense tournament game myself, but usually I can't remember the positions and moves as well as here. Waking up, I wondered how the poor move 2...Ke7 could be considered ok, but in the dream it only felt like a sub-optimal, but playable move.