CHESS #635

The Medias Tournament of Kings in Rumania ended in a spectacular triumph for Carlsen. He outdistanced a strong field, winning with 7.5 points from 10 games. The outstanding (+5, =5) result amounted to a 2913 tournament performance and it should push his rating to 2825.

Radjabov and Gelfand shared second with 5.5 each. Ponomariov, Nisipeanu and Wang Yue brought up the rear. Amazingly, there was a 50 per cent decision rate and black won more games (8 black wins versus 7 white wins).

The last round featured much blood and thunder with black victorious on all three boards. Carlsen grafted out the full point in a rook ending against Wang. Gelfand lost with white in 30 moves against Radjabov in a very high-stakes game. A draw would have clinched clear second for Gelfand and also qualified him for the Grand Slam final. Radjabov's win clinched the Grand Slam spot for him instead.

Truly spectacular was Nisipeanu Vs Ponomariov. Pono found a novelty that improved on a variation of the four Knights that was last played in 1923. The 4Kts is generally avoided as boring as it leads to symmetrical drawish positions. Here, black won in 23 moves. It was an odd situation. Nisipeanu played an unusual system in order to confuse his opponent and then put his own king at risk.

Speaking of preparation, the new Rybka 4 comes with an excellent opening book. Jiri Dufek, who programmed the book, did a fascinating two-part interview on the Chessbase website, highlighting how he used the program to find and test new ideas. (Chessbase markets the Rybka series).

Most engine opening books tend to be probabilistic compilations of moves tried out in some game or another. They rate moves by success rates. Dufek, who was part of Topalov’s team in the last match, developed and optimised an opening repertoire that would suit the new engine. As a result, the Rybka4 book contains many interesting novelties (with over 700 original lines of analysis), including stuff not yet tested in human practice. Over the next few months, it will have a significant impact on tournament practice, especially in correspondence.

THE DIAGRAM, BLACK TO PLAY (Nisipeanu Vs Ponomariov, Medias 2010) was probably “out of book” for both players though Ponomariov played a novelty on move 11 improving on Tarrasch Vs Yates, Karlsbad 1923 (!). On his last move white has played 17. d4? .

This has a devastating refutation in 17...f5! 18.Nxf5. 18.Nxg6+ fxg6 19.Qe2 fxe4 is horrible 18...Nf4 19.Qh6 Rg6 20.Qh4 Bxf5 21.Qxd8+ Rxd8 22.exf5 Rxg2 23.dxe5 Rdg8 (0-1). White is dead-lost facing threats like 24. c4 Nh3 and 24.Rg1 Rxg1+ 25.Rxg1 Rxg1+ 26.Kxg1 Ne2+ 27.Kf1 Nxc3. The Bishop on a2 may as well not exist.