The strongest player in chess history has tried and failed to reform Russia and FIDE and when not staging protests against Putin or trying to unseat Iluymzhinov, the legendary GM who was once known as the “Awesome Ogre from Baku” has been writing splendid books about chess and playing exhibition matches. He has also trained the world’s number one and future world champ, Magnus Carlsen, and is rumored to be now working with the top American player, Hikaru Nakamura.
Last September, the now 48-year-old Garik played a blitz match in Clichy, France against 21-year-old Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, a former world junior champ like Kasparov, who won 1.5-0.5. Early this month, he played an eight-game blitz match against Britain’s Nigel Short, the unsuccessful challenger in their 1993 title match.
Our annotator, IM Malcolm Pein, described the “rematch” as a “tremendous battle,” with Kasparov winning the final game “with some wonderful tactics, reminiscent of him in his pomp.” The blitz match “was staged in the Belgian town of Leuven by the charity Your Next Move. The first three games were drawn before Kasparov won games four and five and seemed to be cruising. Short hit back by turning to his favorite 19th century openings and crushed Kasparov with the King’s Gambit. Short then emulated Tony Miles’ defeat of Anatoly Karpov with 1…a6 by playing the St. George Opening and taking full advantage when Kasparov blundered. Short had leveled the score and played white in game eight. Kasparov fearlessly went into the Two Knights Defense, another 19th century opening that Short has a tremendous score with. 8.Bd3 is a relative sideline, first played in 1890. 8.Be2 h6 9.Nf3 (also 9.Nh3) e4 is what 8.Bd3 is designed to avoid.”
The time control was 5 minutes + 2 seconds per move.
Game of the week.
White: N. Short
Black: G. Kasparov
Two Knights Defense
Leuven 2011
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Na5 6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 bxc6 8.Bd3 Nd5 9.Nf3 Bd6 10.0-0 Nf4! Investing a tempo to destroy Black’s pawn structure 11.Re1 Nxd3 12.cxd3 0-0 13.Nc3 (13.Nxe5 Re8 or13…Qc7 14.d4 c5) 13…Re814.h3 (14.Ne4 Ba6!! 15.Nxd6 Qxd6 16.Qa4 Bxd3 17.Qxa5 e4 18.Nh4 Re5 with excellent play) 14…c5 15.b3 Ba6! 16.Ba3 Bxd3 17.Ne4 Bxe4 18.Rxe4 f5 19.Ra4 e4 (The Ra4 is misplaced and now so is the knight. Black is better) 20.Nh2 [20.Nd4!? cxd4 21.Bxd6 Qxd6 22.Rxa5] 20…Nc6 21.Rc1 Ne5 22.d4! (The best chance 22.Bxc5 Nd3) 22…Nd3! 23.dxc5 Bf4 24.Rc2 e3 25.f3 Bg3 (Short is never able to free his back rank) 26.Nf1 Bf2+ 27.Kh1 Nf4!! 28.Qxd8 Raxd8 29.Rxf4 Rd1 30.Re2! Bg3! 31.Kg1 Bxf4 32.g4 Red8 33.Bb4 R8d4 (33…Rb1 34.Re1 Rdd1 35.Rxd1 Rxd1) 34.Ba5 Rd5 35.Bb4 a5 36.Bxa5 Rxc5 37.Bb6 Rcc1 38.Bxe3 Rxf1+ 39.Kg2 Bxe3 40.Rxe3 Rfe1 41.Rd3 f4 and 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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