Tal Memorial category 20 starts in Moscow

The Tal Memorial chess festival is being held in Moscow from November 5th to 19th, 2006. It is a round-robin super-tournament of Category 20, with participants from seven countries. The rating favorite is Peter Svidler, 2750, Russia, the dark horse is 15-year-old Magnus Carlsen of Norway, at 2698 the only participant rated below 2700. All games start at 15:00h Moscow time (= 13:00h CET, 12:00 noon London, 7 a.m. New York). There is live broadcast on the official site and on Playchess.com.

The Tal Cup blitz tournament, which will be held after the classical chess contest, will inclued 18 Grandmasters, including the specially invited participants Anatoly Karpov, Vishy Anand and Judit Polgar.

Participants of the Tal Memorial 2006

Round one

Svidler-Leko was a 24-move draw, with one bishop and one pawn off the board for each side. Shirov-Mamedyarov followed the game Polgar,Ju-Mamedyarov, round five of Essent Hoogeveen ten days ago.

Shirov,A (2720) - Mamedyarov,S (2728) [C95]
Tal Memorial Moscow RUS (1), 06.11.2006
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.h3 Nb8 10.d4 Nbd7 11.Nbd2 Bb7 12.Bc2 Re8 13.Nf1 Bf8 14.Ng3 g6 15.b3 d5 16.Bg5 h6 17.Bh4 g5 18.Nxg5 hxg5 19.Bxg5 exd4 20.e5 Rxe5 21.Rxe5 Nxe5 22.cxd4 Nc6

In Essent Judit Pogar had played 23.Nf5N?! and lost after 40 moves [23...Bc8 24.Rc1 Bxf5 25.Bxf5 Qd6 26.Bh4 Ne7 27.Bg3 Qb4 28.Bb1 c6 29.Be5 Bg7 30.a3 Qxa3 31.Rc3 Nd7 32.Rg3 Nxe5 33.dxe5 Qb4 34.Rg4 Qc3 35.f4 d4 36.Kh2 Nd5 37.f5 d3 38.Qxd3 Qxe5+ 39.Rg3 Nf6 40.Qf3 Rd8 0-1]. In Moscow Shirov took the normal route, played a couple of times in 2005 and strongly recommended by Fritz: 23.Nh5 Be7 24.Bxf6 Bxf6 25.Qd3 Kf8 26.Qh7 Bxd4 27.Qh6+ Ke8 28.Re1+ Ne5N. In the previous games 25...Ne7 was played and Black scored a win in Fedorov,Alexei (2602) - Inarkiev,Ernesto (2612), RUS-chT Sochi (10), 28.04.2005. After the text move the game was quickly drawn with 29.Bf5 Qd6 30.Qg5 c5 31.Nf6+ Kd8 32.Nxd5+ Ke8 33.Nf6+ Kd8 34.Nd5+ ½-½

Aronian-Morozevich was a Queen's Gambit Accepted that turned into a prime-time slugfest – very exciting to watch.

Aronian,L (2741) - Morozevich,A (2747) [D27]
Tal Memorial Moscow RUS (1), 06.11.2006
1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 e6 3.c4 dxc4 4.e3 a6 5.a4 Nf6 6.Bxc4 c5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.Qe2 Be7 9.Rd1 Qc7 10.dxc5 0-0 11.b3 e5 12.h3 e4 13.Nd4 Ne5 14.b4 b6 15.Nd2 bxc5 16.bxc5 Bxc5 17.Ba3 Bxa3 18.Rxa3 Ng6 19.Nf1 Qc5 20.Rc3 Qg5 21.Ng3 h5 22.Kh1 Nh4 23.Qc2

As so often it is Morozevich who picks a fight: 23...Nxg2 24.Kxg2 h4 25.Bxf7+ Kxf7 26.Rc5 Bxh3+ 27.Kxh3 Qg4+ 28.Kg2.

28...hxg3? This give the white king protection and allows 29.f3 and the continuation: 29...exf3+ 30.Nxf3 Kg8 31.Qa2+ Kh8 32.Rc4 Qf5 33.Rf4 Qh7 34.Rh4 Nh5 35.Rd5 Rf5 36.e4 Nf4+ 37.Kxg3 Rh5 38.Rxf4 Rh3+ 39.Kg4 Re8 40.Rdf5 Rg8.

41.Qxg8+ Qxg8 42.Rf8 1-0. Bozhe moi – what a game!

Carlsen-Gelfand saw the Norwegian wonderboy play an unconvincing novelty on move 12 of a Slav. After his bishop retreat to f1 the experienced Boris Gelfand picked up a pawn and then proceeded to outplay his opponent with two knight against Magnus Carlsen's two bishops. Very interesting to watch. Ponomariov-Grischuk, a Slav, was decided by some very fine endgame technique on the part of the Ukrainian former FIDE world champion (Ponomariov for the uninitiated).

Links

• Official web site – very slow and very sparse
• All games so far in PGN

Schedule and results