Tal 03: A trio of precise wins

by ChessBase
6/15/2013 – In an elegant display of endgame precision, Caruana pounced over Carlsen's fatal mistake to transpose into a rook endgame in which Black's h-pawn was unstoppable. Nakamura played a nearly impeccable game himself against Karjakin, while Anand slowly outplayed Morozevich. The other games saw Black getting equality out of the opening and a quick draw. Pictures and games.

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The Eighth International Tal Memorial Chess Tournament is being held from June, 13 to 24, 2013, with a rest days on June 16 and June 20. The rounds generally start at 15:00h (=3 p.m.) Moscow time, with the first round starting at 6 p.m. and the final round at 1 p.m. Accommodation is in the Ritz-Carlton, Moscow, Tverskaya str. 3, while the event takes place in the in New Technologies Center Digital October, in Moscow. The tournament has ten invited players and is a round robin with time controls of one hour and 40 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds for each move starting from move one. Full information on special rules, regulation, prize money, etc. can be found in our initial report.

Round three report

Round 03 – June 15 2013, 15:00h
Vishy Anand 2786
1-0
Alexander Morozevich 2760
Boris Gelfand 2755
½-½
Dmitry Andreikin 2713
Magnus Carlsen 2864
0-1
Fabiano Caruana 2774
Hikaru Nakamura 2784
1-0
Sergey Karjakin 2782
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2753
½-½
Vladimir Kramnik 2803

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov - Vladimir Kramnik ½-½
Kramnik came extremely well prepared in this line of the Nimzo Indian. Mamedyarov simply fell into a long and forcing line that the Russian had prepared and decided to bail out with a perpetual as soon as he had a chance. Mamedyarov was never in any real danger, but he was certainly never better either.

Mamedyarov wasn't prepared against Kramnik's Nimzo Indian nor his tea kettle.

Kramnik used almost no time at all in achieving his draw in today's game.

Gelfand, Boris - Andreikin, Dmitry ½-½
Gelfand's opening with white still remains unconvincing. Andreiking enjoyed full equality shortly after the opening, as Gelfand's pair of bishops was not worth much due to the closed structure of the position and Black's dominance of the open d-file. The players repeated moves in a very level situation.

Andreikin hasn't had any exciting games, but he sits at a very respectable 50% score.

The American proved too difficult for Karjakin today, who has had several recent successes.

Nakamura, Hikaru - Karjakin, Sergey 1-0
Nakamura dominated from beginning to end in this Gruenfeld. He employed the somewhat unusual 5.Bd2 and Karjakin was clearly caught off guard. The Russian's reaction was some what questionable, and although he obtained a solid blockade on White's passed d-pawn, through a series of clever bishop maneuvers Hikaru dominated the e8 square and with it the only open file in the game. Nakamura missed a couple of finishing blows in the endgame, but his technique was still good enough and he wrapped up the game without Karjakin ever having a real chance.

"Hmmm was my game really that good...?"

"Yes, yes it was!" - a cheerful Hikaru Nakamura at the postmortem.

GM Daniel King provides video analysis of Nakamura vs Karjakin 

[Event "8th Tal Mem"]
[Site "Moscow RUS"]
[Date "2013.06.15"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Nakamura, Hi"]
[Black "Karjakin, Sergey"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "D85"]
[WhiteElo "2784"]
[BlackElo "2782"]
[PlyCount "103"]
[EventDate "2013.06.13"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. Bd2 {An interesting move that is
designed to avoid further weakening of the a1-h8 diagonal. It has been seen at
the top level a few times before.} Bg7 6. e4 Nxc3 (6... Nb6 7. Be3 O-O 8. h3 e5
{was Anand-Svidler in 2009. The World Champion took that game in convincing
fashion.}) 7. Bxc3 c5 8. d5 Bxc3+ 9. bxc3 O-O 10. Nf3 (10. Qd2 e6 11. d6 e5 $6
12. h4 $5 {led to victory again for Anand in Anand-Hammer from the Norway
super-star tournament earlier this year.}) 10... e6 11. Be2 exd5 12. exd5 Bg4
13. O-O Nd7 14. h3 Bxf3 15. Bxf3 Ne5 16. Be2 {White can't really complain
about the result of the opening. He has a passed pawn on the d-file, but the
most important thing is that he has not been forced to play c4 just yet, so
his bishop will have the ability to be active as opposed to being stuck behind
the pawn chain.} Qd6 17. Rb1 b6 18. Re1 Rfd8 19. Ba6 $1 {A key move. The d5
pawn is poisoned which allowed Hikaru to follow up with c4.} Rab8 (19... Qxd5
20. Qxd5 Rxd5 21. Bb7 Rad8 22. Bxd5 Rxd5 23. Rbd1 $18 {is a completely winning
endgame.}) 20. c4 Nd7 21. Bb5 Nf6 {With only a few moves of normal chess,
Hikaru has secured a huge advantage. Black has no counterplay, no hope of
breaking the queenside, no control over the only open file. Karjakin's
position is not good and Hikaru starts piling the pressure.} 22. Qe2 Rb7 23.
Rb3 Nh5 24. Re3 {Why did Hikaru triple on the e-file? because he could, that's
why.} Ng7 25. g4 {Black has successfully fiianchettoed the knight on g7, but
this achieved nothing.} Kf8 26. a4 f5 27. Re5 (27. Qb2 $5 Kg8 28. gxf5 $1 {
would have won a pawn. A nice geometrical sequence.}) 27... fxg4 28. hxg4 Rf7
29. Qe3 Qf6 30. Re2 Qf4 31. Qxf4 (31. Re4 $1 Qxe3 32. R2xe3 {also traded
queens but Black would have been less active.}) 31... Rxf4 32. R5e4 Rxe4 33.
Rxe4 h5 34. f3 Kf7 35. Kg2 Kf6 {Notice how Black would absolutely love to have
a knight on d6, and how Hikaru is careful to never allow this.} (35... Ne8 36.
Rxe8 Rxe8 37. Bxe8+ Kxe8 38. gxh5 gxh5 39. f4 $18 {is an easily winning pawn
endgame.}) 36. Re1 g5 37. Kg3 Rh8 38. Bc6 Kf7 39. d6 h4+ $6 {makes White's
life easier, but Black's position was becoming increasingly hard to hold.} 40.
Kh2 Kf6 41. d7 Ne6 42. Bd5 (42. f4 $1 gxf4 43. g5+ $1 Kf5 44. Bd5 Nc7 45. g6
Kxg6 46. Bg8 $1 Rxg8 47. Rg1+ {wins instantly but this is obviously a
ridiculous line for a human to find.}) 42... Nc7 43. Be4 Ne6 (43... Ke7 44.
Bc6+ {wins instantly so Black might as well repeat moves.}) 44. Bd5 Nc7 45. f4
gxf4 46. g5+ Kg6 (46... Kxg5 47. Bg8 {is the point, which is much easier to
see than on the previous variation.}) 47. Re5 Rd8 48. Be4+ Kf7 49. Bf5 Rh8 50.
Kg2 a5 51. Kf2 f3 52. Re1 {Black has no good moves, and his pawns will fall
one by one, and he can't really stop the pawns. A clean win by Nakamura who
has bounced back from his first round loss with two wins.} 1-0

 

Anand, Vishy - Morozevich, Alexander 1-0
A very slow and positional Spanish opening was level for a long time. Anand started slowly outplaying Morozevich starting on around move 30, and soon afterwards Morozevich lost his patience with the move 37...f5?! Afterwards Anand played a very precise game, took advantage of his opponent's weaknesses as well as his exposed king and won without too many issues.

Maybe Carlsen should consider bigger bottles of orange juice, as he ran out of energy in the endgame and made an inexplicable blunder.

Carlsen, Magnus - Caruana, Fabiano 0-1
Carlsen's less than stellar opening left him with an equal position which he tried to complicate by sacrificing a pawn in order to leave Black's rook on b5 in a dubious post. Caruana had calculated deeper and saw that he could retain the pawn without any problems. The queen and rook endgame that resulted gave Black the upper hand because of the extra pawn, but was extremely difficult to win due to the blockade on the d-pawn. The game transposed into a known rook endgame which is theoretically drawn. White's demise began with thet almost incomprehensible decision to play 49.Rf8? instead of the more natural 49.Rb8, which would have maintained the pressure on the b-pawn. The endgame with the passed h-pawn was a win for Black since White's king was cut off on the 5th rank, which makes it impossible for him to reach any of the known draw setups. Caruana showed that he knows this endgame perfectly and found some important and precise moves; namely 59...Re4! after which it was all over.

Correction: Magnus Carlsen has informed us that he did not, as we claimed, sacrifice the pawn. He simply blundered it. We apologize for the incorrect interpretation. We tend to forget that this player can blunder anything at all – ed.

The new number three in the live ratings, displacing Vladimir Kramnik: Fabiano Caruana.

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Schedule

Round 01 – June 13 2013, 15:00h
Dmitry Andreikin 2713
½-½
Alexander Morozevich 2760
Vishy Anand 2786
0-1
Fabiano Caruana 2774
Boris Gelfand 2755
½-½
Sergey Karjakin 2782
Magnus Carlsen 2864
1-0
Vladimir Kramnik 2803
Hikaru Nakamura 2784
0-1
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2753
Round 02 –June 14 2013, 15:00h
Alexander Morozevich 2760
½-½
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2753
Vladimir Kramnik 2755
0-1
Hikaru Nakamura 2784
Sergey Karjakin 2782
½-½
Magnus Carlsen 2864
Fabiano Caruana 2774
0-1
Boris Gelfand 2755
Dmitry Andreikin 2713
½-½
Vishy Anand 2786
Round 03 – June 15 2013, 15:00h
Vishy Anand 2786
1-0
Alexander Morozevich 2760
Boris Gelfand 2755
½-½
Dmitry Andreikin 2713
Magnus Carlsen 2864
0-1
Fabiano Caruana 2774
Hikaru Nakamura 2784
1-0
Sergey Karjakin 2782
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2753
½-½
Vladimir Kramnik 2803
Round 04 – June 17 2013, 15:00h
Alexander Morozevich 2760
-
Vladimir Kramnik 2803
Sergey Karjakin 2782
-
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2753
Fabiano Caruana 2774
-
Hikaru Nakamura 2784
Dmitry Andreikin 2713
-
Magnus Carlsen 2864
Vishy Anand 2786
-
Boris Gelfand 2755
Round 05 – June 18 2013, 15:00h
Boris Gelfand 2755
-
Alexander Morozevich 2760
Magnus Carlsen 2864
-
Vishy Anand 2786
Hikaru Nakamura 2784
-
Dmitry Andreikin 2713
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2753
-
Fabiano Caruana 2774
Michael Adams 2727
-
Sergey Karjakin 2782
Round 06 – June 19 2013, 15:00h
Alexander Morozevich 2760
-
Sergey Karjakin 2782
Fabiano Caruana 2774
-
Vladimir Kramnik 2803
Dmitry Andreikin 2713
-
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2753
Vishy Anand 2786
-
Hikaru Nakamura 2784
Boris Gelfand 2755
-
Magnus Carlsen 2864
Round 07 – June 21 2013, 15:00h
Magnus Carlsen 2864
-
Alexander Morozevich 2760
Hikaru Nakamura 2784
-
Boris Gelfand 2755
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2753
-
Vishy Anand 2786
Vladimir Kramnik 2803
-
Dmitry Andreikin 2713
Sergey Karjakin 2782
-
Fabiano Caruana 2774
Round 08 – June 22 2013, 15:00h
Alexander Morozevich 2760
-
Fabiano Caruana 2774
Dmitry Andreikin 2713
-
Sergey Karjakin 2782
Vishy Anand 2786
-
Vladimir Kramnik 2803
Boris Gelfand 2755
-
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2753
Magnus Carlsen 2864
-
Hikaru Nakamura 2784
Round 09 – June 23 2013, 13:00h
Hikaru Nakamura 2784
-
Alexander Morozevich 2760
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2753
-
Magnus Carlsen 2864
Vladimir Kramnik 2803
-
Boris Gelfand 2755
Sergey Karjakin 2782
-
Vishy Anand 2786
Fabiano Caruana 2774
-
Dmitry Andreikin 2713

All pictures by Etery Kublashvili

 


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