 "Chess (#1187)")
The Zurich Chess Challenge, starting this weekend has a "new classic" control of 40 minutes, plus 10 seconds increment/move. The control is favoured by Zurich's chief sponsor, Oleg Skvortsov. He has also organised an exhibition match between Boris Gelfand and Alexander Morozevich to demonstrate the new control.
The main event features Vladimir Kramnik, Anish Giri, Levon Aronian, Hikaru Nakamura, Viswanthan Anand and Alexei Shirov. One set of games will be played at this control and the other set will be played at blitz. The new control has preferred weight with 2 points awarded per win and 1 point per draw versus 1 point per win and 1/2 point per draw for blitz.
The new control should favour Nakamura and Giri. Of the older set, Kramnik was in reasonable shape at the Qatar Open. Aronian has come out of a slump with a resounding win at the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis. Shirov is a question mark. The Latvian GM is always dangerous given his tactical gifts and his fearlessness. But he's long since ceased to be a force at the top level and he's dropped out of the #50.
The fourth member, Anand, is in dreadful form going by his performance at Gibraltar where he lost to two players rated far below him. He's set to lose a bushel of ELo and drop out of the #10 for the first time in over 20 years. In fact, he could end up being the #2 player in India by March since Pendyala Harikrishna has been accumulating rating points with consistent performances. Zurich is the former world champion's last chance to tune up before he goes into the Candidates in March. There are plenty of people questioning the 46-year-old's ability to put it all back together again.
At the Moscow Open, two relatively unknown Russians, GM Yuri Eliseev (2582) and FM Dmitry Gordievsky (2506) shared 1-2 with 7.5/9 each with Eliseev up on tie-break. They were ahead of many higher-rated players. In Mumbai, at the IIFL Wealth Open, Swapnil Dhopade won the open while Raunak Sadhwani took the junior title.
THE DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY, (White: David Navara Vs Fabiano Black: Caruana, Wijk An Zee 2016) features an exact, subtle move sequence that turns an edge into assured victory. White played 50.a5! bxa5 51.c5 Kd8?! Caruana had better drawing chances with [51...Rg6 52.h5 Rf6 53.c6 Rd6 54.cxd7 Rxd7 55.Rxa5] when white must hold the h-pawn and keep rooks on since the Bishop cannot control h8. Black hopes for [52. c6 53. Bxc6 Bxc6] with the same endgame. But white can mate if he stops 6th rank checks with 52.h5!! f4 53.Kd6 Bc8 54.c6 Rg5 55.Bf7! (1-0). Now c7# can't be stopped.
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player
