CHESS #622

The World Team Championship ended with Russia retaining the title. Sitting on a one-point lead, a last round win against Israel clinched gold. The top seeded Russians did it comfortably with 3-1. Russia won 7 matches, drew 1 and lost 1 (to Greece) to log 15 matchpoints.

The US and India tied for second place, with 13 MP and identical scores of +6,=1,-2. However, the US took silver since the Americans won the India-US match. India did very well, given that this was a scratch team put together at 72 hours notice, after the PRC withdrew.

The event was very high quality, with several outstanding performances. Six players registered 2800+ level rating performances with Shakhriyar Mamedaryov (8/9 on Bd4) and Nikita Vitiugov (5.5/6 as second reserve) going over 2900. Nakamura was outstanding on top board for the US with 6/8 (2850+). He also played a game which is already being hailed as a modern immortal.

Naka heads straight to the Corus A Group, in Wijk An Zee this weekend. He’s the sole US representative in the top group since Fabiano Caruana prefers to call himself Italian. Anand is the second seed behind Carlsen in a field, including Kramnik, Ivanchuk, Leko, Shirov, Karjakin (defending champion), Short, etc. Obviously one main point of interest is Carlsen’s ability to maintain his new number 1 rating. Anand’s form and opening choices will also be subject to a certain amount of careful scrutiny in his last major event before he defends his title.

Group B has three “hot” prodigies in Wesley So, Parimarjan Negi and Anish Giri, the Nepalese-Russian 15-year old GM, who is the reigning Dutch champion. They’ll have their work cut out in a field with a 2629 average where Arkady Naiditsch is top seeded. Like Nakamura, Harikrishna will be coming straight from the World Teams to fight in the B. Group C is much weaker (average 2455) and only GM Li Chao is rated above 2600. Former world junior champ Abhijeet Gupta is the second seed in C Group and current world junior champion Sowmya Swaminathan is also in the fray.

The diagram, BLACK TO PLAY, (Gelfand Vs Nakamura, World Teams 2009) is from the top board of the Israel - USA match. Naka shot the amazing 23...Nxg2!!? 24.dxc7? Nxe1 It's possible that 24. Kxg2 h4 would have held. According to the engines, it offers better chances of defending.

After the text, white cannot cope with repeated threats of checkmate on g2. Play continued with the forced 25.Qxe1 g2+ 26.Kxg2 Rg7+ 27.Kh1 Bh3 28.Bf1 Qd3! — the queen hits f3 and it remains untouchable due to Bg2#. Now after 29.Nxe5 Bxf1 (threatening again 30...Bg2# ) 30.Qxf1 Qxc3 31.Rc1 Qxe5 32.c8Q Rxc8 33.Rxc8 Qe6 (0-1). Black’s a piece up.

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player

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