Chess (#1080)

The new year started badly with news of the death of Vugar Gashimov in a German hospital. The Azeri GM was only 27. He had been suffering for years from a brain tumour. He was one of the strongest and most creative players in the world and well-liked due to his pleasant personality.

In other news, Magnus Carlsen reported, appropriately enough, on his own Facebook page that Mark Zuckerberg, "an incredibly quick learner", has hired him for chess lessons. This might mean a new potential sponsor.

At the Tata Steel, the premier is led by Levon Aronian with 3 points from four games, with key wins against Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. Pendyala Harikrishna, Sergey Karjakin, Wesley So and Anish Giri share second with 2.5 each. Caruana and Nakamura are on fifty per cent. There's been a pretty good decision ratio with around half the games decided.

Group B has been even more bloody with a very high decision ratio, including one round where every game was decisive. Baadur Jobava leads with 4.5 from five games (Group B has 14 players versus 12 players in the Premier). Jobava is an unstable player but he's known to be amongst the most aggressive of super GMs and he's in top gear. The Georgian GM has a TRP of over 2900 at the moment. Ivan Saric and Anna Muyzychuk share second with 4 points and the top-seed, Radek Wojtaszek is languishing in 11th place with 2. Veteran Dutch legend Timman is on 50 per cent.

In the DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY (Giri Vs Naiditsch, Tata Steel 2014), white has calmly exchanged queens despite being a pawn down. Now he proceeds to pull off a mating attack concluding with a king-hunt to midboard.

Play continued 18.hxg6 fxg6 19.Bg5 h5?! Now white could play 20. Bxe7 Nxe7 21. g4 with massive compensation but he chose the direct 20.g4 Bxg5+ 21.Nfxg5!? Nxe5.

Does white really have enough compensation? The game went 22.gxh5 Nc4+ 23.Ke1 Bd7 24.b3 Na5 25.Rc1 Bc6 These are natural moves but it looks as though black is lost. His alternatives include A) 25. --Nxb3 26. hg6! Nxc1? 27. Rh7! Rf8 28. Nf7 Rxf7 29. Rxf7 is a mating net with Nf6+-Rh7#. Or b) 25.--Rac8 26. Rxc8 Rxc8 27. Rh3! gh5 28. b4 with 29. Nf6+ picking up Bd7.

The game concluded with 26.hxg6 Bxe4 27.Nxe4 Kg7 28.Rc7+ Kxg6 29.Rg1+ Kf5 Or else 29. - Kh6 30. Nf6 Rh8 31. Rcg7. Now it's like a composition. White solves it with 30.f3 e5 ?! Black can avoid mate here with 30. - Rg8 31. Rxg8 Rxg8 32. Rc5+ but of course that's losing a piece. The finish is 31.Rg5+ Kf4 32.Kf2 Rf8 33.Rh7 (1-0).

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player