7 September 2016
Tea Worthy of Gold
Round Three of the Baku Olympiad in the review of Vladimir Barsky.
The journalists are allowed working in the playhall of the “Crystal Hall” for the duration of only the initial 15 minutes since the start of each round, upon which they are bound to move into the press center. However, there is a choice of various sources of information at present. Thus, it is very interesting to read through the Facebook daily notes by grandmaster Emil Sutovsky. Here is one quote of his:
"…There are some captains who almost never step down from the bridge. In this regard standing out is Andrey Filatov - not only is he on duty the majority of the time, but he also serves tea from a thermos brought along with him, thus lending support to his players at crucial moments. Chess Olympiad is a wonderful event and is perhaps the only place where people from the list of Forbes have been seen serving tea in public. They do it for their own people only, however. All others are doomed to meet a stony captain’s stare - the best testimony to Russia’s having arrived here for nothing but victory.“
Alexander Grischuk and Andrey Filatov with a special thermos
In round three the Russian men’s team was paired against Moldova - a strong grandmaster team, which features the highly experienced Victor Bologan on board one. Restraining his onslaught fell to the fate of our leader Sergey Karjakin. Sure enough, the Berlin endgame soon arose on the board. This said, it turned out to be one of its lines which the modern theory believes the struggle to proceed towards two outcomes only - i.e. whether Black will or will not manage to bail out. However, Sergey would not agree to this status quo and went on to outsmart his opponent somewhere, having overtaken initiative by move 20. It was already Viorel’s turn to demonstrate tenacity in the defense; He coped with this task, and immediately after the time control move the grandmasters agreed to a draw.
On board two the game Evgeny Tomashevsky - Viorel Iordachescu inspired the memories of the epochal battles between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. To be more precise, it reminded of game four of the very first match, which went down into the golden fund of chess under the name of “light-squared symphony”. It looked as though Evgeny was doing everything right: by trading his d4-knight for the e6-bishop he weakened the opponent’s light squares along the b1-h7 diagonal and embarked upon building up the “bishop+ queen” battery for the purpose of invading the opponent's camp. However, the battery would somehow refuse to line up and some miracle would invariably come to Iordachescu’s rescue when it came to covering his vulnerable spots. White’s winning a pawn proved insufficient to convert the game since the opposite-colored bishops helped Black escape with a half point.
A reminder of the glorious matches of the past
The match victory to our team was fetched by Ian Nepomniachtchi and Alexander Grischuk. On board three Dmitry Svetushkin started by carelessly allowing Ian getting the advantage of a bishop pair, then topped it off by getting himself into time trouble and was finally unable to keep his position together. As for Grischuk, he won his game thanks to the timely central breakthrough.
Grischuk – Hamitevici
Despite the forking threat on e4 being in the air, White simply ignores it.
33.fxe5! Ne4 34.Qf3 Nhxg3+
In the case of 34...Nxd2 35.Bxd2 Ng7 36.e6 Black drops a piece anyway since after 36…Bc8 37.Nxf5 he falls prey to the devastating offensive.
35.hxg3 Nxd2 36.Bxd2 Qxe5 37.Bc3 Qe4 38.Qxe4 fxe4 39.Kg2 Kh7 40.Be2 Rg8 41.Rh1 Rg5 42.Rf1. Black resigns.
The overall 3-1 victory looks quite convincing.
The same score was achieved by our women defeating the team of Uzbekistan. The only difference lied in the fact that the girls won their games on the first two boards with Alexandra Kosteniuk and Valentina Gunina distinguishing themselves.
Tokhirjonova – Gunina
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.c4 Be7 6.d4 0-0 7.Bd3 d5 8.Qc2 Nc6 9. a3
Even if Valentina employed the Petroff Defence, it was on rare occasions. It looks as though this choice of opening came as a surprise to her opponent, who reacted not in the best of ways. Gunina plays to overtake initiative and comes up with a cool-headed knight sacrifice for that purpose.
9…Bg4!? 10.cxd5 Bxf3 11.dxc6 Nxf2! 12.Kxf2 Bxc6 13.Bxh7+ Kh8
Black is down a whole piece, but her bishops are very powerful and the white king is stuck in the center.
14.Rd1 Bd6 15.g3 f5 16.Nc3
The extra piece will not be retained since 16.Bg6 runs into the defeating 16...f4. However, after 16.d5 Bd7 17.Nc3 Kxh7 White could still put up a stubborn defense.
16...Kxh7
This move shows the inspired play of Valentina to be pure in-the-process improvisation rather than home-made preparation by a stern coaching staff. The engine shows 16...f4! as giving Black an irresistible attack.
17.d5 Be8 18. Ne2 Bh5
Black won her piece back while retaining strong initiative. Valentina ended up winning the game.
Our girls showed up for round three in new clothes - it turned out that not only do they have dark-colored forms, but the light-colored ones as well -- no less elegant and stylish. As rumors have it, a weekend wardrobe of the Russian female players will be enriched with new shoes; if you chose to watch our reviews with attached pictures, you will be the first to learn its color and style!
Valentina Gunina performed with inspiration in a new form!
The World Champion Hoy Yifan joined the battle from round three. Despite her winning the game from Vietnam, her teammates were less successful so that after two draws and one loss the match ended in a 2-2 draw. Thus, rating favorites have lost their first match point.
We continue acquainting our audience with the participants’ reviews of the Olympiad.
Anna Zatonskih (USA) (США):
– I like this Olympiad! It is very well organized and I am really impressed with how popular chess is in Baku! It’s nice to see things like chess buses, it’s incredible, big posters too. And I was surprised that ordinary people on the street know who Mamedyarov and Radjabov are! I doubt that you would find similar attitude in the United States or Ukraine.
It is difficult combining participation in the Olympiad and your motherhood duties. I don’t have much time for my preparation, but I didn’t have any choice, my child is too little to leave at home. But I hope it’s good motivation; I want to prove that being a mom and playing chess, representing my country in the Olympiad, is possible. I will try hard to prove that you can combine motherhood and kids with chess on a very high level!
