Gibraltar Rd07: With Love, from Hou Yifan

Photos by John Saunders and Sophie Triay

Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2017

The Tradewise Gibraltar Open is one of the strongest and best organised events of its kind in the world. Anyone who knows the moves (and pays the entry fee) can take part, and perhaps face top participants like Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave or Hikaru Nakamura. The tournament lasts from January 23 (opening) to February 4. The location is very balmy: ten hours of daylight, average day temperature 16° C, warm sea temperatures, beautiful scenery. Paradise!

Gibraltar 07: With Love, from Hou Yifan

Report by Aditya Pai

The sixth round had witnessed carnage on the top boards with grandmasters going for each other’s throats. Three grandmasters — Hikaru Nakamura, David Anton Guijarro, and Michael Adams — were left in the lead at the beginning of the seventh round. Admittedly, it is fun to watch such a bloody battle for the first prize. As a chess fan, watching a tournament like Tradewise Gibraltar is more like watching several gladiators fight each other in the Roman Colosseum. They battle to their death, not settling for anything less than a victory.

However, wouldn’t it be funny to watch two such gladiators shake hands and announce peace while the rest kill each other around them?

Round seven of the Gibraltar Masters witnessed another short draw on board one.

Just one hour into the round, on move 14, Hikaru Nakamura and David Anton Guijarro shook hands having repeated the position of an unorthodox Queen’s Gambit played by Nakamura. The American usually fights for blood, but it may have been that Nakamura saw this as an opportune moment to recharge his batteries.

It remains to be seen how goddess Caissa deals with this ‘sin’, as our friend Nigel Short would put it.

On board two, however, things were different. Maxime Vachier Lagrave proved yet again that the almost equivocally dreaded Berlin wall can be broken.

In a 55-move-long game against the Michael Adams in the mainline endgame, MVL was able to keep constant pressure on the English veteran’s position and made him crack eventually.  With his win against Adams, Vachier Lagrave has climbed up to 6.0/7 and has joined the leaders.

A surprising feature of this round was that Veselin Topalov and his longtime friend Ivan Cheparinov decided to fight a proper game instead of settling for a draw.

Topalov, unlike many of his colleagues, doesn't need to do anything special to play interesting, edge-of-the-seat chess. A gladiator is a painter with a sword, or to put it in a couple of words, Veselin Topalov. Cheparinov, on the other hand, has helped Topalov prosper at the top with entertaining novelties like the Nxf7!! against his bête noire Vladimir Kramnik — an idea that Veselin is grateful for to this day. (The entire game with annotations by Michael Krasenkow can be found in your Mega Database).

They started off with an anti-Gruenfeld with 3. f3, but the game soon transposed into a King’s Indian wherein Topy missed a tactical shot by Cheparinov on move 24. Fortunately, for him, he was able to exchange queens in the nick of time and hold his compatriot to a draw.

Topalov explains the game

China’s Yu Yangyi was paired against the only international master playing on the top 10 boards, the Austrian IM Valentin Dragnev.

In a crazy position that cropped up from the Paulsen variation of the Sicilian, Dragnev threw his h-pawn forward allowing his opponent a broad center. The Chinese no. 2 made the most of the broad center given to him and won the game in 26 moves.

Having lost to Nigel Short in the last round, tournament’s top seed, Fabiano Caruana beat Russia’s Kateryna Lagno on board 15.

Hungry for a win, he grabbed the opportunity with both hands when his opponent made an inaccuracy in the middle game of a Ruy Lopez. Having lost both — the game and his World No. 2 spot, Fabiano will be eager to do a Caruana in the remaining games of the tournament.

Peter Svidler, with white, had been ahead in his encounter against Nigel Short until things began to turn around.

In fact, Peter had a stunning win that is very difficult to calculate. Some would argue that it is too ‘computerish’ to expect humans to see everything, but, maybe, this just means that the benchmark to achieve aesthetically pleasing games has risen above the level that was acceptable in the past or even in the present.

Boris Gelfand returned to winning ways with a nice trick at the end of his game with Sebastien Mazé.

Game of the Tournament? John Saunders Explains...

The Women’s World Champion Hou Yifan showed her class by winning a brilliant game against the French IM Borya Ider. John Saunders reports on the game in detail:

Hou Yifan played a truly astonishing game against the French IM Ider Borya. First, she went in for an unusual queen sacrifice for which the material return was only two minor pieces and a pawn, but she had seen further and realized that she could maintain a positional grip almost indefinitely. Then she crowned the achievement by coolly ignoring what looked like a devastating double check, which would cost her a rook and allow her opponent to pursue her king up the board with queen and rook.

Again, she had seen further and worked out that her king was headed for a safe haven on g4, and that her own less obviously lethal counter had a sting in the tail.

Yifan talks about her victory.

Charming! Beautiful! Ingenious! We are referring to the game, of course. This remarkable performance must be in the running for the £1,000 best game prize.

Signing off: An American, a Frenchman, a Spaniard, and a Chinese are tied for the first place and the battle in the Colosseum is poised to get bloodier from this point onward.

Gibraltar's Minister of Equality, Samantha Sacramento, was the guest of honour.

A One Hour Masterclass with Hou Yifan!

A fun little video where Tania Sachdev asks quick questions!

Watch LIVE with commentary!

Top pairings and results of Round 07

Top standing after seven rounds

Top pairings for Round 08 on 2017/01/31 at 15.00

Get the complete results and pairings: Masters + Challengers A + Amateur A

Official tournament site All games in PGN The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.