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World Team Championship 2010
The World Team Championship, which is organized every four years, but has been delayed by one year this time, is taking place in Bursa from January 3rd to 14th 2010. The teams are from Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Israel, USA, India, Brazil, Egypt, Turkey and Greece. Top players are Levon Aronian (2786), Vugar Gashimov (2758), Boris Gelfand (2758), Alexander Morozevich (2750), Teimour Radjabov (2748), Alexander Grischuk (2736), Dmitry Jakovenko (2736), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2719), Hikaru Nakamura (2715), Evgeny Tomashevsky (2708), Vladimir Malakhov (2706), Vladimir Akopian (2700), Nikita Vityugov (2694), Gabriel Sargissian (2676), Pentala Harikrishna (2672), Alexander Onischuk (2672), Emil Sutovsky (2666) and Krishnan Sasikiran (2653).
Round five
No big surprises in this round, with Russia beating Turkey, Azerbaijan beating Egypt, Greece beating Brazil, and Armenia drawing against India. Notable was Aronian’s loss to Indian GM Krishnan Sasikiran. The players entered into a Slav Defence, reminiscent of the drawing effort Prudnikova-Stepovaia Dianchenko, from the 1997 Russian Women’s Championship, where 14…Bb4 saw simplification to a theoretical draw before the thirtieth move. Aronian opted to preserve his bishop with the retreat, 14…Be7; however, after entering into a challenging rook ending, Sasikiran managed to go up a pawn. Though the position was objectively drawn, Aronian blundered with 53…Rg8+, and, with Lucena’s position on the horizon, capitulated after 69…Kd6.
Now for the sensation of the round: the team US team beat the substantially higher-ranked Israelis. And that encounter contained a sensation – the game of the tournament.
Boris Gelfand had been having a bittersweet tournament experience, while Hikaru Nakamura entered the fifth round having scored 2.5/3. With their respective teams in contention for the top of the tournament table, it was a foregone conclusion that these two players would seek to contribute to their teams’ success. For the first twenty moves, the game followed a transposition of Arbakov-Gufeld (Soviet Championship, 1986), which saw White pull through in a complicated struggle. With 21.d6, Gelfand left the game referenced, leaving Nakamura to think on his own for a few moves.
Gelfand,B (2761) – Nakamura,Hi (2708) [E97]
7th World Team Championship Bursa TUR (5), 09.01.2010
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Nd2 Ne8 10.b4 f5 11.c5 Nf6 12.f3 f4 13.Nc4 g5 14.a4 Ng6 15.Ba3 Rf7 16.b5 dxc5 17.Bxc5 h5 18.a5 g4 19.b6 g3 20.Kh1 Bf8. So far all theory. Now Boris Gelfand plays a new move: 21.d6 axb6 22.Bg1 Nh4 23.Re1
23…Nxg2!! Double exclamation for this beautifully unexpected move, and for the courage to play this against the world’s number six player, who is 53 rating points above the American. 24.dxc7? We cannot be sure – that has to be left to the next Chess You may be forgiven for feeling a bit nervous about the white pawn poised to take the black queen on d8, but White must attend to the threat of 28…Bxg2 mate first. 28.Bf1 Qd3 (threatening 29…Qxf3+ and mate in one) 29.Nxe5 Bxf1 (threatening once again 30…Bg2#, which is why the white knight cannot touch the hanging queen) 30.Qxf1 Qxc3 31.Rc1 Qxe5 32.c8Q Rxc8 33.Rxc8 Qe6
Base Magazine – but after 24.Kxg2 the white prospects look better than after the text move. 24…Nxe1 (threatens simply 25…g2 mate!) 25.Qxe1 g2+ 26.Kxg2 Rg7+ 27.Kh1 Bh3.
And White, a full knight down, resigned. 0-1. This game reminds us that the US has another big star whom international organizers must consider if they are interested in exciting fighting chess.
This report is from Chess Base website, if you want to read the original article you have to go to the following webpage: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6049
cafwheeme
Posted on August 7th, 2010 at 3:37 pmreally?