The participating GM’s are world champ Vishy Anand of India, world number 1 Magnus Carlsen of Norway, number 3 Levon Aronian of Armenia, number 6 Hikaru Nakamura of the U.S., number 7 Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, and “the best Spanish player in history,” Francisco Vallejo Pons, ranked 28th in the world.
After five rounds, Chucky leads with 3.5 points, Nakamura is second, half a point behind, Carlsen, Aronian and Anand share third-fifth places, while Vallejo is dead last. The Spaniard thumped Carlsen, but lost to the other players. Anand and Aronian, for their part, lost to Ivanchuk. Hikaru is the only undefeated player. Now the action shifts to Bilbao.
Explaining Vallejo’s dismal score, Canadian GM Kevin Spraggett noted that the Spaniard “has played some enterprising chess in each game, but one finds oneself asking if such an uncompromising ‘poker-style’ of play is not just plain suicide at this level of play. Not that he is outclassed in the Grand Slam, but from my perspective Paco does not seem to realize that he is giving draw-odds to his opponents. That is, it is Vallejo who assumes all of the risks and shows that he is not interested in a half point. All his opponents have to do is sit back and wait for him to crack.”
Spraggett added, “This is in no way intended to slight Paco Vallejo, for whom I have the highest respect as a player and as a person. No doubt the first half of the Grand Slam has not been very kind to the Spanish star, but he can still surprise everyone in the second half and climb up the tournament table.”
Game of the week. According to Mark Crowther, who annotates our featured partie, Carlsen defeated Ivanchuk with black “in an interesting French Defense but there were a number of strange decisions from Ivanchuk and it was more his loss rather than Carlsen’s win. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ivanchuk’s recent heavy schedule with the World Cup isn’t catching up on him a bit. Perhaps the break comes at an ideal time for him as his general form is obviously excellent.”
On Twitter, Carlsen posted: “Beat Ivanchuk today, now anything is possible in Bilbao! Not a great game by any means, but I could not care less about that right now.”
Stay tuned.
White: V. Ivanchuk (2765)
Black: M. Carlsen (2823)
French Defense
Sao Paulo 2011
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Be3 Be7 8.a3 A rather strange move (2745)-Morozevich,A (2610)/Amsterdam NED 1996 (60)] 8…0-0 [8…b6 1-0 Hernandez,Z-Vilarino,L/Bento Goncalves 2000/EXT 2001 (65); 8…a6 9.Bd3 b5 10.f5 cxd4 11.Nxd4 Nxd4 12.Bxd4 Bc5 13.Bxc5 Nxc5 14.0-0 Qg5 15.Rf3 Nxd3 16.Qxd3 0-0 17.Raf1 Bb7 18.Rg3 Qh4 19.Rh3 Qg4 20.fxe6 g6 21.exf7+ Kg7 22.Qe3 h5 23.Rg3 d4 24.Qd3 Qe6 25.Rf6 1-0 Diaz Caramazana,J-Haines,K/Asturias 1993/EXT 2005; 8…a6 9.dxc5 Bxc5 10.Bxc5 Nxc5 11.b4] 9.Qd2 [9.dxc5 1/2-1/2 Sepp,Y (1967)-Dolskiy,V (1929)/Dmitrov 2011/CB32_2011 (80)] 9…b6 [9…a6 1/2-1/2 Padurariu,V-Stojanovic,N/Rimavska Sobota 1996/EXT 1997 (50)] 10.g3 Kh8 11.h4 f6 12.exf6 Nxf6 13.Bh3 Bd7 14.Rd1 cxd4 15.Nxd4 e5 It seems to be very nicely calculated counter-play. 16.Nxc6 Bxc6 17.fxe5 d4 18.exf6 Bxf6 19.0-0 dxc3 20.Qxd8 Raxd8 21.Rxd8 Rxd8 22.b3? Why? 22.bxc3 Bxc3 23.Rf7 Be5 is about equal. Ivanchuk just makes problems for himself. 22…Re8 23.Bf2 Be4 24.Re1 Re7 25.Rc1 h5 26.Bg2 Bf5 27.Bf3 g6 28.a4 Kh7 29.b4 g5 30.a5 g4 31.axb6 axb6 32.Bc6 Re2 33.Bxb6 White has succeeded in creating some counter-play. The rest of the moves up to move 40 were played very fast as both players were in time trouble. 33…Be5 34.b5 Kg7 35.Ba5 Rxc2 36.Rxc2 Bxc2 37.Kf2? The losing error in time pressure. 37.b6 Bd3 38.Kg2 c2 39.Bd2 Kf6 40.b7 and it is hard to see White winning. 37…Bd3 38.Ke3 Bg6 39.Be4 c2 40.Bd2 Bxg3 This wins although it has to be accurately calculated especially as black has the wrong colored bishop for the rooks pawn. 41.Bxg6 Kxg6 42.Kd3 Bf2 43.Kxc2 g3 44.Bf4 g2 45.Bh2 Kf5 Black will drive his king into h3. 0-1.
Puzzler.
White: Ka5, Nb5, Qc1, Bd3, pawn on d4
Black: Kd5, Ne5, pawns on a6 and f3
White to play and mate in three moves.
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