CHESS #621

Serious football fans enjoy the Euro and the Copa America even more than the World Cup because of the more even standards. Similarly chess fans look forward to the World Teams Championships which is restricted to the top Olympiad performers and Continental champs.

The sixth edition in Bursa (Turkey) features Russia, Brazil, Egypt, India, Armenia, Israel, USA, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Greece. It is a round-robin with four boards (six-player squads). The Chinese are missing and there are stronger European teams than Greece and Turkey but this is a very tough field.

Participants include 12 GMs rated at 2700+ including Aronian, Gashimov, Gelfand, Morozevich, Radjabov, Grischuk, etc. The Indian squad is Sasikiran, Harikrishna, Ganguly, Gopal, Arun Prasad and Adhiban.

The result is by match points (2 for a match win, 1 for a draw). Three rounds have seen six teams including India tied with two wins each. Remarkably, every team has lost at least one match, with the Russians suffering a shock defeat to Greece. It’s going to be close. Armenia leads in tie-breaks with 7.5 game-points while Russia, Israel, Azerbaijan and US are tied in 2-5 on 7 each with India in sixth place.

Meanwhile Carlsen gears up to defend his no:1 status at Corus, next week. Anand and Kramnik are also in action at Corus where the A section’s average rating is 2719. Harikrishna and Negi are both playing the B section, (2629 average) while Abhijeet Gupta and Soumya Swaminathan play the C (2455).

Topalov is missing Corus. He will play in February at Linares, which will be of similar strength. The participants in the Sofia title match will both get some practice under their belt. Corus and Linares will determine ratings in the March list. But by then, the focus will obviously be on Sofia.

Chessbase has kept us amused through the hols with problems. The theme is, “Fool the computer” with setups where engines cannot find the best moves. Among the easier ones is the diagram, (Composer: V Simkovitch, 1923) WHITE TO PLAY AND DRAW.

The solution is 1. Nf7 Re8 2. Nd6+!! exd6 3. Rf3+ Ke6 . If Black delays coming to the e-file,white just checks on the third rank. 4. Re3+ Kf7 5. Rf3+ Ke7 6. Re3+ Kd8 7. Rxe8+ Kxe8 8. a3! - Black has only one way to disentangle pieces.

So 8. – Kf7 9. Kd2 Bb7 10. Ke1 Ra8 11. Kf1! Rh8 12. Kg1 Kf6. 13. g3 Kf5 14. f3 and it’s drawn! Black cannot penetrate down either e-file or h-file since 14. – Re8 15. Kf2 Kg5 16. Kf1 Rh8 17. Kg2 is an endless dance. Rook sacrifices on f3,g3,c3 don’t work either since white can always prevent king entry.

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player

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