11 March 2016
Evgeny Najer: Looking Forward To Testing My Strength In Dortmund
The Aeroflot Open winner answered the questions of Vladimir Barsky.
– Evgeny, please accept my congratulations on your victory! How do you evaluate your result?
– This is a great achievement, comparable to winning the European Championship in terms of the event’s toughness. Those are two roughly equal Swiss Opens; of course, they differ from each other, but they share a lot in common. The Aeroflot is a slightly more solid event since the European Championship features more crowd participating, amateurs included, thus making an occasional chance of sniping a random opponent not out of the question. In Moscow, however, it is impossible as you are invariably faced off with none else but nine professionals.
– How was the tournament unfolding for you?
– I started great with three out of three, but then came a very long period when I would not only fail to win, but rather being in proximity to any "scoring chances" at all. However, this tournament’s peculiarity is that it doesn’t rule out agreeing to a draw at any time. Some of my games ended prematurely, so to speak, as I used to agree to draws in positions that were not to my liking. At one moment I offered a draw as White to Boris Gelfand for tactical considerations because of being a half point ahead while playing against the strongest participant of the tournament, so figured it was something I could afford. The game against Vladimir Fedoseev proved a key one since he launched quite an interesting attack against me.
– Was it a somewhat reckless attack?
– This is what I thought at first as well: he rushed in against me recklessly, while I took everything that was offered me and the situation was more or less under control. However, as was shown later by the computer, White's attack was correct and quite well thought-out, just one wrong move ruining it all. You could even say that it was a stunning attack!
Fedoseev – Najer
Round Eight
Caro-Cann В10
1. e4 c6 2. Be2 d5 3. e5 c5 4. f4 Nc6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. 0-0 e6 7. d3 Nh6 8. Be3 Nf59. Bf2 Be7 10. Nbd2 h5 11. c3 g6 12. c4 Qd7 13. Rc1 b6 14. cxd5 exd5 15. d4 c416. b3 b5 17. bxc4 bxc4
18. Nxc4 dxc4 19. Rxc4 Nb4 20. Qb3 Nd5 21. Rc5Nc7 22. e6 fxe6 23. Ne5 Nxd4
24. Qb2?
– To be honest, at that moment I was sure that in a couple of moves I will just end up two pieces up, but after 24.Qb7!! the computer evaluation is zero! It is clear that White’s attack is ferocious and I was simply lucky that Vladimir missed 25...Bf6.
24... Nxe2+ 25. Kh1 Bf6! 26. Nxd7 Bxb2 27. Rxc7 Rd8 28. Rb7 Bc3 29. Nb8 Rc8 30. Nd7 Rd8 31. Nb8 Rf8 32. h3 Rxf4 33. Nc6 Rd6 34. Re7+ Kf8 35. Rc7 Bf5 36. Kh2 Rc4 37. Rc8+ Kg7 38. Rc7+ Kf6 White resigns.
– Winning the Aeroflot lands you in the Dortmund event. It seems like it is going to be one of your first elite tournaments, isn’t it?
– I have never participated in elite tournaments. I have played only in two strong round-robins in my entire chess life: the Russian Championship Superfinal, which is best forgotten about, and the Poikovsky. There I did fine, on the whole, but the Dortmund has a somewhat higher status nevertheless.
– What mood will you take with you to the tournament?
– I haven’t thought about that yet, as after all it was only a couple of hours ago that I realized I’d qualified for the event. Of course it’ll be extremely interesting to test out my strength.
– You combine coaching and playing. Will you follow up this success with shifting your focus on the practical aspect of the game?
– The fact is that I am engaged in coaching on a quite moderate basis - only for the women's team and, perhaps, with some minor exceptions other than that. The national team, as is well known, features three main events: an Olympiad, a European Championship and a World Championship, all that coupled with training sessions in between so that this work can’t be described as ongoing nonstop throughout the year. At least it is true for me because I'm not a head coach.
– So, a player's career is still your main occupation?
– By and large, there is nothing that gets in the way of its progress.
– Would it be legitimate to assume your having moved on to the next level following your two major victories over the past year in the European Championship and in the "Aeroflot Open"? Have you come to feature a more stable type of performance?
– It is hard to say anything definite at the moment. Following the European Championship I used to play not especially well in certain tournaments, whereas in the "Aeroflot Open", as it seems to me in the immediate aftermath of the event, I have done just great. Some of my decisions proved not so great after all, but no disastrous games have been generated by me for that matter. Even in the ultimate round, when I found myself in a rather unpleasant position and believed at first that Gata Kamsky had me outplayed, I managed to pull myself together, not allowing my opponent creating truly dangerous threats. All in all, I have had a good tournament.
