CHESS #592

Last week saw action scattered across various parts. Anand duly beat Leko 5-3 at the Miskolc Challenge. The world champion notched two wins, one with either colour to win comfortably.

Carlsen beat Ivanchuk in the Leon Masters in a much more hard-fought contest. Each won one game to tie the initial four rapid game final. Then they drew two blitz games before Carlsen won at armageddon. Earlier, Ivanchuk knocked out Morozevich while Carlsen did the same to Wang Yue.

Nigel Short zoomed to a 2990 performance, winning the Sigeman Invitational at Malmo with an amazing 4.5 from five games. Second place went to Swedish prodigy, 15-year-old Nils Grandelius who made 3 points. The field was respectable, including Ivan Sokolov, Tim Nyback, Tigar Hillarp Persson and Emmanuel Berg, who are all rated above 2600. Short’s only draw was versus Berg.

The Chinese Championship is tracked with great interest since new talent always surfaces there. The 12-player round-robin open section saw a huge controversy. Wang Hao led with 8 points from the first 9 games.

In round 10, Wang lost to the untitled 16-year-old Ding Liren, who moved into second place with 7.5. Ding had the better tie-break by virtue of that win. In the final round, Ding won again while Wang lost, handing the teenager one of the most prestigious national titles.

So where’s the controversy? Ding’s last round opponent Zhou Jianchow was defaulted for arriving one minute late. Wang was distraught since this immediately put the onus on him to win and he took early risks to go down in flames. The default also devalued Ding’s outstanding performance — he played at 2800 level.

Earlier, Hou Yifan also suffered a default. She was in the tournament hall but not seated at the start!

This sort of absurdity hardly makes great advertisement for a game supposedly played by smart people. For comparison, tennis and soccer both have grace periods. The new rule allows organisers’ discretion to keep a grace period up to the old limit of 60 minutes. Organisers will have to find common sense ways to implement it.

The diagram, WHITE TO PLAY, (Ding Vs Wang, Chinese Chps, 2009) shows that Ding’s victory was no fluke. The threat of Bxh3 can be met by 25. Nd4 which looks fine. But in a key game, Ding found the gutsy 25.R1xe4 dxe4 26.Ng5 Rf5 and now 27. Nxe4 holds an edge.

However, white continued with the dynamic 27.Bc4+ Kf8 28.Rc7 Rxg5 29.Nxc8 Rf5 30.Nd6 Rf4 31.g3 Rf3 32.Nxe4 h6 33.Kg2 Rf5. It was a mop up after 34.h4 Rd8 35.Rxb7 Rd4 36.Nd6 Rf6 37.Rb8+ Ke7 38.Nc8+ Kd7 39.Nb6+ Kc7 40.Ra8 Ne6 41.Bxa6 Rf8 42.Bc8 Nd8 43.Bd7 Kb7 44.Rc8 Rxd7 45.Nxd7 Re8 (1–0. 49 moves).