7th Gibtelecom Chess Festival Kicks Off!

The opening ceremony of the 7^th Gibtelecom Chess Festival was special for two reasons.  Firstly, special guest was the 10th World Chess Champion Boris Spassky who was able to take a couple of days out to visit Gibraltar for the first time and enjoy the chess – this time as a spectator rather than as a player!

The second reason that the ceremony was special was the draw.  Usually the top player draws for colour to see if he will be white or black in the first round.  In Gibraltar, not only did the players draw for colour, but the top seeds also drew for opponents just as in football’s F A Cup!

The players came up on stage and drew their opponents out of a hat – or rather, a very large brandy glass!  Ladies first was the order of the day, and former world champion Antoaneta Stefanova was drawn against German FM Florian Armbrust and then Pia Cramling also drew a German FM, this time Stefan Fruebing.

Then the men came up and drew out their opponents for the following afternoon :

Quillan, Gary (ENG)-v--Gashimov, Vugar (AZE)
Svidler, Peter (RUS)-v--Van Eijk, Sander (NED)
Leniart, Arkadiusz (POL)-v--Nakamura, Hikaru (USA)
Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime (FRA)-v--Kharous, Ernest (RUS)

Drawing lots like this certainly added some excitement to proceedings and it will be interesting to see if this idea is extended in future, or indeed catches on elsewhere.

Antoaneta was right to approve – she won the game in a ruthless fashion!

And so the position below was reached after Black had played 23...Kg8:

Gary pondered a while and then played the crushing 24.Re6!!

The game continued: 24...hxg4 25.Rxd6 exd6 26.hxg4 Bxb3 27.axb3 Rxc3 to reach the following critical position:

In the must-win world of the open Swiss, experienced players playing with the Black pieces would rather face an aggressive strategy than rely on grinding out a win against a passive opponent.  American GM Hikaru Nakamura, the defending champion, had to face an attack from Polish FM Arkadiusz Leniart that appeared at first to be quite dangerous.

Closer examination, however, revealed that White's lack of development seriously impaired his chances of success from the outset. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Bg5  One of a number of less common lines against the King's Indian.  4...c5 5.Nf3 [5.e3 is a good alternative.] 5...cxd4 6.Nxd4 0–0 7.Qd2  It appears that White may be intending a direct assault on Black's castled position. 7...Nc6 8.Nf3 d6 9.Bh6  White's intentions are now clear. 9...Bxh6 Black calmly draws White's queen away from the center before launching a counter-attack. 10.Qxh6 Be6  Black could have set a trap with 11...Qb6 hoping for 12...Qxf2+ followed by 13...Ng4+, but White could have handled this easily with 12. Qd2. 11.Ng5 Ne5 A strong defensive move which permits Black to support the knight on f6 with either ....Neg4 or ....Ned7. 12.f3 Qb6 13.Nce4 Qb4+ 14.Kd1 Ned7 15.h4

Dutch IM Gerard Welling shows more patience with the white pieces against his compatriot Ivan Sokolov in completing his development but he is still tempted to launch a premature attack. 1.e4 c5 2.d3 Nc6 3.f4 d5 4.Be2 Nf6 5.e5 Nd7 6.c3 e6  The game which started as a Sicilian has taken on some characteristics of the French. 7.Nf3 Be7 8.0–0 b5  Black begins an immediate queen-side expansion as he is surrendering some space on the other flank. 9.Na3 b4 10.Nc2 bxc3 11.bxc3 Nb6 12.Qe1 Na4  Though not strictly an outpost, the knight is not vulnerable here. 13.Bd2 Rb8 14.Qg3 0–0

Sokolov decides instead to introduce a powerful intermediate move. 17...Nxc3 18.Bxe7? The point of no return.  Although definitely worse, White must be willing to admit his mistake and return his queen to e1. 18...Nxe2+ 19.Kf2 Nxg3 20.Bxd8 Nxf1 21.Bf6 Nxh2 22.Nxh2 Rb2 The extra piece will not last long. 23.Rc1 Nb4 24.e6 d4 25.e7 Bd7 26.Kg1 Rxc2 27.Rxc2 Nxc2 28.Nf3 Nb4 29.Ne5 Ba4 30.g4 Nd5 White sees that the queening square is being controlled and that his passed e-pawn is about to fall.  Despite the presence of opposite color bishops, he therefore chooses to resign. 0–1

Elsewhere, results went pretty well as one might have expected although there were a couple of shocks as FM Stefan Fruebing (GER) beat Pia Cramling with the black pieces and Hungarian FM Attila Istvan Csonka did the same to Jonathan Speelman whilst Jovanka Houska drew as black with Vadim Milov and Spanish GM's Josep Lopez Martinez (2540) and Gabriel Del Rio (2532) could only draw with lower rated opposition in Anthony Stebbings (ENG) and Benjamin Bok (NED) respectively.

Report compiled by Sean Hewitt with games annotated by Sunil Weeramantry.  Full details can be found at www.gibraltarchesscongress.com.
 

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