12 August 2015
Gunina’s Method
Round Three of the Superfinal in Chita reviwed by Vladimir Barsky.
Chita is a small town, no doubt, but walking all the way down from the center to the main point of interest, the Church of the Decembrists, makes it a long distance. It is especially true when the smog hits the ground: somewhere around the Baikal Lake the woods are burning and the wind carries the smoke over hundreds of kilometers. However, the situation is not as alarming as the one that happened five years ago in Moscow, besides that the weather forecasters predict a long-awaited rain in a day or two.
The Michael Archangel Church, built in 1776 and consecrated in the names of St Nicholas the Wonderworker and the Archangel Michael, is located in the oldest part of the city, at the site of the old Chita prison. A low wooden structure is undistinguished in the company of the nondescript five-story Soviet buildings surrounding it, so that even a local taxi driver failed to detect it straight away. If you happen to recall the movie "The Captivating Star of Happiness", then you might also remember that it was in this church that on April 4, 1828 Ivan Annenkov married his fiancée, a Frenchwoman Paulina Gebl, while in August of the year 1839 yet another Decembrist Dmitry Zavalishin and Apollinarija Smolyaninova, the daughter of the ruler of the Chita district, decided to seal their fates together. In 1985, the church permanently hosted the Museum of the Decembrists: the books, paintings, household items of the first Russian revolutionaries and their wives are displayed here. Among personal items are checkers, backgammon and chess. The Central House of Chess museum does not feature a chess set that belonged to Decembrists, but there is similar set that belonged to Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin.
"I used to witness the return of the Decembrists from Siberia, and I used to be familiar with their friends and peers, who betrayed them and remained in Russia to enjoy all sorts of honors and luxury,” as was written down by Lev Tolstoy. “The Decembrists, who led a spiritual type of life while staying in prison and in exile, returned 30 years later full of vigor, intelligence, and happiness, whereas those who remained in Russia and wasted their lives in service, dinner parties, and playing cards, bore resemblance to miserable ruins, being good for nothing and no one, with no kind words that could be attached to describe their lives.”
The is a very interesting museum, and if a guided tour will be organized there on a day-off then I highly recommend to visit it to get in touch with the history, no matter how trite this phrase might sounds. It displays, for example, "The Russian Truth or the Sacred State Charter of the Great Russian People ", one of the paragraphs of which states: "The government exists for the welfare of the people and has no other reason to its existence and formation other than that." All in all, it is not by chance that these people, who stirred Herzen into action, were sentenced to exile...
But let’s go back to chess. Round three was probably not as colorful and dramatic as the previous one, although everyone is likely to hold his own opinion about that. In Alexander Motylev’s game, for example, the scenario from the previous game has repeated almost word for word: using a risky game of his opponent, he managed to gain a large advantage (plus one and change, if you are more accustomed to such terminology), but then committed a one-move blunder.
Artemiev – Motylev
Had Black played a precise move 19...Be7 White would have remained with insufficient compensation for the sacrificed piece, although there remains a lot of fight in this position yet. However, Alexander, who remained with very little time on his clock to contemplate, made a careless move 19...Be6?, missing a relatively easy tactical sequence: 20.Bxe6 fxe6 21.Rxd4!
It is all over now: 21...cxd4 is met decisively by 22.Qxe6+ Kg7 23.Nd5, whereas what happened in the game was no better than that: 21...Bh2+ 22.Kxh2 Qxd4 23.Qxe6+ Kg7 24.Ne2, and Black resigns.
So, Evgeny Tomashevsky has become a sole leader upon having outplayed the reigning national champion Igor Lysyj in a sharp fight. This exciting encounter, which witnessed both original handling of the opening as well as the clash of plans in the middlegame, is impossible to be described in just a couple of words, so we better wait for the detailed review that will be prepared by the grandmaster Sergei Shipov upon completion of round 4. Both players performed at a high level, the offense and defense were worthy of each other. No matter the fact that the computer points out to multiple missed opportunities for both sides: the position was so complex that to err was human.
Valentina Gunina has scored a victory in her trademark "through ur...hardships to the stars" style: having committed a mistake at the end of the opening she emerged with a very precarious position, but managed to confuse the first-timer of the Superfinal.
Savina – Gunina
29...Rxf7! 30.Bxf7 Ng4! 31.Rg3
Much worse is 31.g3 Rxh3+ 32.Kg2 Rh2+ etc.
31...Nf2+ 32.Kh2 Nxd1 33.Qxd1 Nf6 34.Bg6
34...Ng4+! 35.Qxg4 Rxg4 36.hxg4 Qd6, and Black converted her advantage.
Yet another first-timer of the Super Final managed to win her game nonetheless. However, Kateryna Lagno is, among other things, one of the rating favorites of the tournament, so she has proved her rightful belonging to the top class. Her opponent Evgenija Ovod succeeded in skillfully maintaining the tension for a long time, having launched a strong counterplay on the queenside, but when it came to the endgame she started committing inaccuracies and then ended up blundering a pawn to add to other of her grieves.
Thus, after three rounds Olga Girya and Aleksandra Goryachkina are in the lead with 2,5 points, while Valentina Gunina and Kateryna Lagno are trailing half a point behind them.
Pictures by Vladimir Barsky and Eteri Kublashvili
