CHESS #598

Trainer Mark Dvoretsky once noted that Mikhail Tal, who is no:1 on everyone else’s list of insanely great tacticians, was actually an instinctive positional player. Dvoretsky said the Magician of Riga rarely made exact calculations — he trusted his judgement instead.

Karpov, Smyslov and Capablanca belong to the same “type” in that they rarely calculated long variations. But most instinctive positional players also avoid complications. When they do land in maelstroms, they calculate.

The key difference was Tal’s appetite for risk. He would head for the razor’s edge and make huge material sacrifices on feel. He was prepared to offer material any time, against any opposition, be it a Title match or a Candidates Finals.

Sometimes, Tal’s bizarre ideas had holes. However, those holes were usually pointed out in post-mortems to the bewildered losers. Very few found refutations in real-time. The pressure Tal generated also often meant “gift” points from blunders.

“Weird Al” Alexander Morozevich is one of the few who can be considered a successor to Tal. He’s not in the same league — his results against other top-class players are much more inconsistent. But Moro is also an instinctive, risk-taker who sharpens every position. When he’s on song, Moro can run away with a tournament. Just like Tal, he’s gifted blunders by opponents who have lost the thread.

Moro shares the lead in this edition of the Biel premier, a tournament he’s won thrice. It’s a difficult field to evaluate: Moro, Gelfand, Alekseev, Ivanchuk, Vachier-Lagrave and Fabiano Caruana. Two teenaged prodigies, two inconsistent geniuses, two rock-solid professionals, averaging out at 2716 in a double-round-robin, which is the lead event in a major chess festival.

Moro started with two wins, after inducing gratuitous blunders from hard-nosed pros like Evgeny Alekseev and Boris Gelfand. But in round four, he lost to the Italian American teenager Fabiano Caruana.

Moro’s co-leader is the equally enigmatic Vassily Ivanchuk, who has a solitary win against Caruana. There have been just four decisive games so far —just one per round.

The diagram BLACK TO PLAY, (Morozevich Vs Alekseev, Biel 2009) is a psychological classic. It’s almost equal and black has the automatic 29.-- Nxd3+ 30. Nxd3 though the Kt could get dominant. Instead Alekseev played the outrageous 29. --h5? 30. Kf2 a5? 31. Kg3! Ng6 - the penny has dropped but 31. --Nxd3 32. Rxh5 is just as bad.

Moro polished it off with 32.Rxh5 axb4 33. Rah1 bxa3 34. Rh7 (1-0) — this leads into mate with Rg7+, Bxg6, Rh8# unless black prefers Rxf6. Incidentally 34. Bxg6 fxg6 35. Rh8+ Kf7 36. R1h7+ Ke6 37. Rxd8 seems to work as well due to the threat of Re7+ and Rxd5#.