CHESS #593

The zero-tolerance Dresden Rule is being debated hotly. Should players be defaulted if they are not sitting at their boards at the instant play commences? This has been interpreted rigidly as “Yes” in several instances, starting with the Dresden Olympiad where it was introduced.

Certainly, professional sportspersons should be at the venue at scheduled start of play. But defaults have been granted when a player is borrowing a pen from the arbiter (GM Ermenkov at Dresden) or after they have shaken hands with the opponent, filled in the scoresheet and excused themselves to freshen up (GM Hou Yifan at the Chinese Championships).

The old rule read “6.7 Any player who arrives at the chessboard more than one hour after the scheduled start of the session shall lose the game unless the rules of the competition specify or the arbiter decides otherwise.” This was widely criticised since players are regularly late, leading to missed photo-ops and confusion.

The proposed Dresden Change was “6.7 Any player who arrives at the chessboard after the start of the session shall lose the game, unless the arbiter decides otherwise. Thus the default time is 0 minutes. The rules of a competition may specify a different default time.” Legal logic-chopping about “at the chessboard” aside, there’s obviously room for a reasonable grace period. Tennis has a grace period, so do soccer and golf.

Alexander Motylev won the 10th Edition of the Karpov invitational at Poikovsky. This was a strong 10 player round-robin with an average rating of 2694. Motylev’s 7 points from 9 games was a 2900+ performance. Vugar Gashimov was second on 6. Emil Sutovsky and Ernesto Inarkiev tied for 3-4 with 5 points each. Top seed Alexei Shirov shockingly ended last with a miserable 2/ 9 — this was bizarre given he was fresh off winning the very strong Sofia Mtel.

Shirov has recovered some form at the Romgaz in Bucharest. That’s a 2730 average, 6-player Double Round Robin. Gelfand and Ivanchuk share the lead with 3.5 points after 5 rounds. Radjabov and Shirov are on 50 per cent with Kamsky and local GM Dieter Liviu Nisipeanu trailing.

The diagram, BLACK TO PLAY, (Gelfand Vs Nisipeanu, Bucharest 2009) shows the fine line between winning and losing at this level. Black shot off the brilliant 21...Nxe4! 22.fxe4 f3. 23.Rf1! Gelfand finds the only defence to stay afloat. Black wins after 23.Nxa8 f2+ 24.Kh1 g3!;

Play continued 23...Nf4 24.Bxf3! gxf3 25.Rxf3 Bg4 26.Nxa8 Qxa8? Instead 26...Nxg2! 27.Rxf8+ Bxf8 28.Qf1 Nf4 29.Ra2 Qg5 30.Kh1 Qg6 keeps excellent compensation and black is better, if not winning. 27.Bxd6 Rf7 28.Qf1! Qd8. 29.Bc5 Bf8 30.Rf2 Qh4 31.Kh1 Ne2 32.Rxf7 Ng3+ 33.Kg1 Bxc5+ 34.Nxc5 Ne2+ 35.Qxe2 Bxe2 36.Rf2 1-0.