Redeeming moment

For the most part of the past week, I’ve been trying to follow the Medias Kings tournament that was going on in Romania. The first time that I heard about this tournament, I thought that it would be an interesting event, seeing how the organizers had managed to invite some of the top players in the world to compete.

Leading the pack of six players in this double round-robin event was the Norwegian grandmaster, Magnus Carlsen who is currently the second highest rated player around. Then there was Russia’s Sergey Karyakin who was once the youngest grandmaster in the world and is still an immensely talented player.

Also in the field were Vasily Ivanchuk, the Ukrainian grandmaster who has climbed back to being number five in the world, top American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura who had won the strong Wijk aan Zee tournament earlier this year and the Azerbaijan grandmaster Teimour Radjabov who had recently competed in the Candidates elimination tournament.

Of course, this event being held in Romania meant that there would also be a place for a Romanian in the tournament and it fell to Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu to complete the sextet of players. Nisipeanu isn’t very well known but he is not unknown either. In 1999, he made it to the semi-finals of the FIDE world chess championship and six years ago, he had won the European individual chess championship.

But former successes counted for nothing in this Medias Kings tournament as Nisipeanu, the lowest rated player in the field of six players, found himself outclassed by most of his rivals. Most of his rivals, that is, except one. If not for Ivanchuk’s form, Nisipeanu could have found this tournament an embarrassment. Ivanchuk was so listless that I kept getting the impression that his mind was elsewhere and that he was in Romania only to fulfil an obligation to compete. 

However, the Ukrainian grandmaster was not the only disappointment of the tournament. Broadly, I found the excitement of the whole event rather below my expectations and uninspiring. Still, there were some redeeming moments, such as in this game below, which was played in the fifth round.

Vasily Ivanchuk – Sergey Karyakin

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d3 0-0 6.0-0 d6 7.h3 (In case you are wondering what the players are up to, they are playing an ultra slow variation of the Guioco Piano. In my opinion, a not very inspiring choice except that soon, I was surprised by the exciting direction that the game was going to turn.) 7…Ne7 8.Re1 Ng6 (Even Black has the luxury to waste two moves in relocating his knight to a presumably better square on g6.) 

9.Nbd2 c6 10.Nf1 d5 (By allowing this centre pawn thrust, White indirectly admits that Black has already equalized.) 11.exd5 Nxd5 12.Ng3 (White cannot win the e5-pawn by 12.Nxe5 Nxe5 13.Rxe5 because of 13…Bxf2+ and the bishop cannot be captured due to the queen check on f6.) 12...h6 13.Bb3 Re8 14.Bd2 (I really don’t know. Until here, White’s game has really looked passive to me. Wouldn’t 14.d5 be a better choice?) 14…Bb6 15.Qc2 Be6 16.Rad1 (White continues to play mechanically but with this move, he totally cuts off his queen from the main play ground which is the kingside. But then, 16.Nxe5 is still not possible because of 16…Nxe5 17.Rxe5 Bxf2+, etc) 16...Bxh3! (See Diagram One)

(Black does not miss the opportunity. After this sacrifice, White is in deep trouble. Capturing the bishop loses, for example, 17.gxh3 Qf6 18.Kg2 Nh4+ 19.Nxh4 Qxf2+ 20.Kh1 Qxg3 and threatens checkmate next with …Qxh3.) 17. c4 Ndf4 18.c5 Nxg2 19.cxb6 Qf6 20.Nh2 Nxe1 21.Rxe1 axb6 (Only a miracle can save White now. Despite the recent pieces exchanges, Black hasn’t let up on his attack on the white king. The position is close to winning.) 

22.Bc3 Be6 23.Re3 Nf4 24.Rf3 Qh4 25.Bd2 Bg4 26.Qc4 Be6 (With this move, Black exchanges off the bishop and removes possible counter-threats against his f7-square.) 27.Qc2 Bxb3 28.Qxb3 Re6 29.a3 (White cannot afford to allow the black rook to capture the a2 pawn which would then expose his king to a back rank mating attack.) 29...Rae8 30.Qb4 (White tries to keep control of the e1 square but it is useless. Note that 30.Qxb6 loses to 30…Qh3 31.Bxf4 exf4 32.Rxf4 Re1+ 33.Nhf1 Rxf1+ 34.Nxf1 Re1) 30...Rf6 31.Qe4 Ree6 32.Ne2 (See Diagram Two)

(With his next move, Black signals his readiness to simplify into a winning endgame.) 32…Nxe2+ 33.Qxe2 Rxf3 34.Qxf3 Rg6+ 35.Kh1 Rf6 36.Qg3 Qxg3 37.fxg3 Rd6 (Faced with the prospect of losing a fourth pawn to Black, White decided to give up the game.) 0–1

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Nakamura nails it

Take note of the name Hikaru Nakamura. For years, he has been skirting around the peripherals of true chess fame but finally, he has arrived to claim his place in history.

He achieved this more than two weeks ago at the Tata Steel chess tournament which was played in the Dutch seaside resort town of Wijk aan Zee. This is a tournament with a long history that goes back to 1938. 

It is a prestigious event; it is already difficult enough for any chess grandmaster to get an invitation into this tournament, what more to win it. But Nakamura did just that. Against all the odds, he played the tournament of his life here. 

For this year’s edition, the organizers had invited the world’s top four chess players to be part of their 14-player field: world chess champion Viswanathan Anand, world number one Magnus Carlsen, former world champion Vladimir Kramnik and world number three Levon Aronian.

Also invited were Alexander Grischuk, Nakamura (former US chess champion), Ruslan Ponomariov, Ian Nepomniachtchi (current Russian chess champion), Wang Hao (current Chinese chess champion), Alexei Shirov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (current world junior chess champion), all top players in their own right. 

Then there were also 16-year-old Anish Giri who had qualified into the main tournament from last year’s B-event, Jan Smeets (current Dutch chess champion) and Erwin l’Ami.

But who exactly is Hikaru Nakamura? His father is Japanese but his mother is American, which qualifies him as an American too. He was born in Japan in 1987 but at the age of two, his family moved to the United States. He started learning chess at five years old and progressed to become a grandmaster at 15 years old. 

He is recognized as a chess prodigy, winning his first US chess championship in 2005. In 2009, he became the US chess champion for the second time. At the end of that year, he played in the London Chess Classic and had indifferent results.

The year 2010 began with Nakamura playing on the first board for the United States at the world team chess championship in Turkey. He then finished tied in fourth position in the 2010 Corus chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee and fourth in the 2010 Mikhail Tal memorial tournament in Moscow which incidentally was the third strongest tournament in chess history.

It was Nakamura’s performance in this tournament that made the chess world sit up to take notice of his potential. In December 2010, he again played in the London Chess Classic. By the time 2011 began, he was already ranked number 10 in the world.

And so we arrive at the present moment. The race for the top honours in the Tata Steel chess tournament has been very close and for Nakamura, he has been playing with the absolute confidence among the world’s best. Except for a slight hiccup – he lost in the eighth round to Carlsen – he has shown an ability to compete with them at their standard. 

Not only that, Nakamura was not awed by the fact that he was racing against no less than the world champion, Anand. Nakamura was running neck-to-neck with Anand after the eighth round and in the 11th round, assumed the sole lead in the tournament. To his credit, he never lost his nerve and romped home as worthy winner.

Here is one of Nakamura’s games from the tournament.

White: Hikaru Nakamura (2751) 

Black: Jan Smeets (2662) 

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5 dxc4 6.e4 b5 7.e5 h6 8.Bh4 g5 9.Nxg5 hxg5 10.Bxg5 Nbd7 11.g3 Bb7 12.Bg2 Qb6 13.exf6 c5 14.d5 0-0-0 15.0-0 b4 16.Na4 Qb5 17.a3 exd5 18.axb4 cxb4 19.Bf4 Bh6 20.Qd2 Bxf4 21.Qxf4 Bc6 22.Qd4 Kb8 23.Rfe1 Rhe8 (White already has the upper hand in this game. Now, 24.Qf4+ would be the strongest move. Instead, Black is allowed back into the game and the win is not so simple anymore.) 

24.Re7 Qa5 25.Rxf7 Bxa4 26.Bxd5 Qc5 27.Qf4+ Ne5 28.Be4 Rd7 29.Rg7 Bb5 30.Rxd7 Bxd7 31.Bg6 Rf8 32.Re1 Qd6 33.Qxe5 Rxf6 34.Qxd6+ Rxd6 (And suddenly the game enters the endgame phase. But although the position is better for White, there’s still a lot of work to convert it into a win.) 35.Bf7 Rd2 36.Bxc4 Rxb2 37.h4 Bg4 38.Kg2 a5 39.Re5 Rc2 40.Rb5+ Kc7 41.Bd5 Rd2 42.Bf7 Bd7 43.Rxa5 Bc6+ 44.Kf1 Bf3 45.Ra1 Kd6 46.Bb3. 46.Re1 Rd3 47.Rb1 Kc5 48.Ke1 Kb5 49.Bd1 Bxd1 50.Rxd1 Rc3 51.h5 b3 52.Kd2 Rc8 53.Rc1 Rf8 54.f4 Kb4 55.Rh1 Ka3 56.Ke3 b2 57.g4 Rc8 58.Rb1 Ka2 59.Rxb2+ Kxb2 60.h6 Kc3 61.g5 1-0

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