CHESS #573

THE Ivanchuk drug scandal at the Dresden Olympiad has ended with Fide showing commonsense. The enquiry concluded: “A lack of personnel led to procedural error: there was not a designated Doping Control Officer present. The procedural error allied with Mr Ivanchuk’s distraught state of mind led him unintentionally to miss the test. The Hearing Panel therefore concludes unanimously that there should be no penalty.”

Meanwhile there’s further bad news on the Grand Prix front with Karlovy Vary pulling out as the sponsor/host of one event. This drives the entire title qualification cycle into further quagmire.

At Wijk An Zee, the first rest day comes with five players tied at 2.5 points from four games in Group A. The leaders include Radjabov, Kamsky, Karjakin, Smeets and Movsesian. Carlsen and Aronyan haven’t had a decisive result while Moro and Ivanchuk are both on minus one.

There have been several bizarre games with Ivanchuk flagging out in round one against Smeets after wasting 10 minutes wandering around before settling at the board. Wang Yue blundered a piece on move 9 against Ivanchuk and then worked up astounding compensation before losing anyway. Morozevich made a premature (but correct) resignation against Karjakin, assuming his opponent would find sharp sacrifices.

In Group B, Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Nigel Short share the lead on 3 points, along with Italian-American Fabiano Caruana. Top-seeded Sasikiran’s had an awful start with 1 point.

In Group C, the leaders are Martin Bosboom and Tigar Hillarp Perrson with 3 points each. Of the two participating junior world champions, Harika is on 2 while Abhijeet Gupta is on 1.5. Gupta flagged out versus Harika in an even position. Nepali-Russian teen Anish Giri is on 50 per cent.

The Seventh Parasvnath Open concluded recently in Delhi with SuryaSekhar Ganguly landing first on tiebreak ahead of Mikhail Ulibin. They scored 8.5 points from 10 games. Karthikeyan, Sethuraman and Prathamesh Mokal all logged GM norms and the first two named tied for 3-9 places with 8 points.

While this was a successful event for several Indians, fans would have been disappointed at the lacklustre form of local hero Parimarjan Negi, who ended 14th with 7.5 points. Ganguly received Rs 2 lakh for first place — the total prize fund was around Rs 12 lakh.

THE DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY (Karjakin Vs Morozevich, Corus 2009) continued 24. Nc4 d5 25. exd5 exd5 26. h6 (1-0!). It isn’t obvious at first or second glance why black quit after long thought. The threat of 26.—dxc4 27. Bxh7+is blocked by 26.—g6 but then 27.Bxg6 hxg6 28. Qxg6+ Kh8 29. Qg7+! is brutal. On deeper analysis, the Bxh7+ and Qxg7+ threats cook black’s goose. Moro trusted Karjakin to find it all.