CHESS #626

Linares remains off the boil with only two decisive games in the first four rounds — a 1:6 decision ratio. Topalov and Grischuk share the lead with one win each. However, many of the draws have been hard fought with chances missed in complications.

Topalov has been his usual sharp self. This paid against Vugar Gashimov who was pushed over the edge in a heavy piece ending. However, he was also lucky against Aronian, where he found a miracle draw. Defending champion Grischuk has also saved a couple of inferior positions as well as winning an excellent game against Gelfand.

The Aeroflot Open was a triumph for Le Quang Liem of Vietnam who made first with 7 points from 9 rounds. This could be what the talented Vietnamese teenager needs to move into the big league. In the past six months, he's won the strong Kolkata Open, the Moscow Open and then Aeroflot, which usually has the strongest Open field on the circuit.

Liem produced a 2871 rating performance. He was followed by Anton Korobov (6.5) and the pack of Nguyen Son, Motylev, Grachev and Zhou Jianchou sharing 3-6 with 6 points each. Bigger, high- rated names like Cheparinov, Bacrot, Vachier Lagrave, Sasikiran, Bu Xiangzhi, etc were trailing.

Winning opens requires a different attitude and repertoire from round robins. In opens, a high win ratio is mandatory and black systems tend to be more risky. There is less scope for opponent-specific preparation - pairings are known only a few hours before play.

Some open specialists are unable to scale down the aggression or to focus prep more when they play round-robins. This can become a national disease in the US and UK, when there are many Open tournaments and very few round robins.

However, at some stage, every big player has graduated from playing opens (if only the World Junior or national championships) to round-robins. Given Liem’s spurt in the past six months, he definitely won't disgrace himself in that transition.

The diagram, BLACK TO PLAY, (Aronyan Vs Topalov, Linares 2010) is the aforementioned miracle “save”. Black finds 38...Nd6! Stopping passers in a radical way. The response is forced. Anish Giri pointed out that 38...a3! 39.Nxa3 Nd6! 40.Nc3 Bxe5 41.Rxb5 Ra8! 42.Rb3 c4 is another way to make a similar drawing idea work.

Play continued 39.Nxd6 a3 40.Ra2 Bxe2 41.Rxe2 Bxe5! with the idea 42. Rxe5? a2 43. Re1 Rb1. Now 42.Nc4 Bb2 43.Nxa3 Bxa3 44.Re6. The opposite bishops make progress impossible for white after 44...c4 45.Rxg6+ Kf7 46.Rc6 Rh8 47.Rc7+ Kf8 48.Rxc4 Be7 49.Rc8+ Kg7 50.Rxh8 Kxh8 51.h5. Black can sacrifice his B for the c-pawn. The h-pawn+ light Bishop is trivially drawn.

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player