Sinquefield Cup: Round 4 - Vachier-Lagreat!

by Venkatachalam Saravanan
8/6/2017 – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave became "the Frenchman with two names...and three points"! On Saturday he eked out a win with Black over World Champion Magnus Carlsen. He now leads Fabiano Caruana, who drew, and five players with an even score a point back. Hikaru Nakamura slipped to -1 with a loss to Neponiachtchi. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

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Sinquefield Cup

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave on his way to defeating the World Champ. | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Round 4

After benefitting from a humble knight fork tactic in the third round, it was the turn of Mighty Magnus himself to fall to the ruse, when he overlooked a simple detail and lost to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the fourth round, thus allowing the Frenchman to gain the sole lead. The game also reinforced for the umpteenth time the all-too-often repeated and glorified cliché that chess is 99% tactics.

When Tony Miles passed away prematurely in 2001, Mathew Sadler, his teammate from the Elista Olympiad recollected how the legendary grinder unexpectedly played 6.dxc3 (instead of the established 6.bxc3) in an English Opening game and then went on to slowly outplay a Lithuanian International Master in a queenless grind of a game, much to the amusement of his colleagues. Carlsen chose exactly the same path in the same position on Saturday, only he chose one of the top five in the world for the treatment, and one who may soon be reaching 2800 himself, thanks to this victory and form in this tournament.

By move 17, with Black’s pieces looking more harmoniously placed towards the centre against his own uncoordinated army, it didn’t look like Carlsen was the one to be grinding this time.

 
Carlsen - Vachier-Lagrave, position after 17...Ne5
White to move

Except for the bind on the queenside, there seemed almost nothing for White to be happy about in this position. But mercifully for Carlsen, in the words of Anatoly Karpov, it seemed to be one of those typical minus positions where White could improve his pieces whereas it was difficult for Black to chalk out a path of play, when you are not sitting with an engine next to you.

Carlsen continued nonchalantly, concentrating on improving his pieces in deliberate fashion, stopping Black from achieving anything meaningful.

Vachier-Lagrave and Carlsen

Starting up slowly, game between the joint leadersdeveloped into a gripping fight | Photo: Lennart Ootes

 
Carlsen - Vachier-Lagrave, position after 33...Rg8
White to move

Now there is dynamic parity, but this is where Carlsen starts with his ‘little’ games. 34.Ka4 (just checking!) Rgd8 35.Kb3 (fine thank you!)

It is in such probing and rearranging that the World Champion excels, constantly unsettling his opponents, not allowing them to let their guard down even for a moment. Ultimately, after the time control was reached, he managed to extract an edge and once again looked to be taking over the initiative. Getting desperate, Vachier-Lagrave took his chances:

 
Carlsen - Vachier-Lagrave, position after 45.Bg5
White to move

Carlsen

‘Great eagles fly alone; great lions hunt alone’ | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Understanding that he was not doing well tactically, MVL went for 45...Bxg3?! (The forced 45...Bf6 will run into 46.Bc6 when black will have scrap for compensation for the exchange). And now, disaster struck:

46. Rg2? A rare tactical blunder by Carlsen. Later, MVL would explain the fundamental flaw which happened in Carlsen's calculation. (Forced was 46.Rd2 Rb8 [46...Rg8 47. Nxb6 !! axb6 48.Bc4] 47.Ka3! and Nd3 is in trouble.)

46...Bh3 47.Rxg3 Bxf1 48.Rf3? Blunder number 2! But this was follow-up of the flawed calculation which started off with Rg2 earlier (48.Bxd8 Rxd8 49.Rf3 Be2 50.Rxf5+ would have still led to equality)

 
Carlsen - Vachier-Lagrave, position after 48.Rf3
White to move

48... Be2 and only now did Carlsen realise that he missed a simple tactic here, the reason for his misery: 49.Re3 f4 50.Rxe2 Nc1+ and this knight fork nets the rook.

Remarkably, the position was beyond repair and the Frenchman triumphed.

Carlsen and Vachier-Lagrave

‘I held you in my hands / Oh how did I lose you? ’ | Photo: Lennart Ootes

After the game, Maxime visited the webcast studio:

Vachier-Lagrave interviewed by GM Maurice Ashley | CCSCSL

Needless to say, the victory has been noted by all and sundry:

Earlier in the day, drama had already been sparked elsewhere, and the perpetrator was Nepomniachtchi, who showed no signs of the impulsiveness which made him lose the first two games.

Pursuing a slight advantage from an Orthodox Queens Gambit Declined, 'Nepo' exploited Nakamura’s inconsistent play very energetically and was playing fast, taking just 33 minutes for the whole game.

 
Nepomniachtchi - Nakamura, position after 20.axb4
Black to move

Nakamura made life difficult for himself with 20...b6? (20...h6 or 20...g6 would have maintained parity) after which, 21.Rcc1 g6 22.Ba6! and Black was in trouble. The variation which Nakamura could not go into was quite pretty: 22...Ra8 23.Rxc6 Rxa6 24.Bd6 Qb7 25.Bf8 Qc6 and now the pretty fork 26.b5 wins the game for white!

To his credit, Nepomniachtchi played flawlessly and fast to win the game in just over two hours of play.

Nakamura

Nakamura (above) making life difficult for himself | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Elsewhere, Levon Aronian overcame his sluggishness of the last two days to once again start playing a favourite piece of wood on the board: the h-pawn!

 
Aronian - Anand, position after 6...g6
Black to move

Aronian echoed his first round pawn thrust, and played 7.h4!? Bg7 8.h5 Bf5 9.Ng5 e6 10.h6!? and seemed to be working on another creative concep.

But to his credit, the former World Champion remained calm and went back to his trusted ways...giving up the bishop for the knight.

Aronian and Anand

Levon Aronian (left) back to his first round love, the h-pawn | Photo: Austin Fuller | Vishy Anand (right) had to work hard to beat back Aronian’s unconventional assault | Photo: Lennart Ootes

This was a game in which Anand probably missed some chances opened up by his opponent’s reckless push of the h-pawn in the opening:

 
Aronian - Anand, position after 22.a3
Black to move

Here, Anand could have pursued a push with 22...Nb3 23.axb4 (23.Rcd1 Nc2 24. Rf1 c4 is good for Black) 23... Nxd2 24. bxc5 Bxc5 25. Rc2 Nb3 26. Ne4 Be7 27. Rc3 Nc5 28. Nxc5 Bxc5 and Black still keeps an edge — remember the pawn on h6?! But instead the game ended after five more moves after a three-fold repetition.

Svidler and So

Svidler vs. So wasn’t as tense as the picture would indicate | Photo: Austin Fuller

Peter Svidler against Wesley So was the bane of the spectator’s curse; the chaotic looking attacking game petering out to a simple draw due to the professionals’ deep opening preparation.

 
Svidler - So, position after 25.Kh1
Black to move

Even though the position looks threatening for black, So came up with the coldblooded 25...Qg8 to maintain simple equality.

Caruana-Karjakin and police officer

The bell rang only at the start of the round, not with a knockout | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Caruana - Karjakin was another of those perfect games where even though Black sacficed a pawn, the game never got out of control, ending in a draw in 31 moves.

Current standings 

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Round 4 - Games and commentary

 
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1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e3 Nxc3 6.dxc3 Carlsen sometimes aims for a relatively unexplored position, not bothering about 'objective correctness' Qxd1+ 7.Kxd1 Bf5 8.Nd2 Nc6 9.e4 Bg6 10.Bb5 Rc8 11.h4 h5 12.Re1 e6 13.a4 Be7 14.g3 0-0 15.a5 Rfd8 16.a6 b6 17.Kc2 Ne5 Black’s pieces look more harmoniously placed towards the centre while White looks to have an uncoordinated army. But as described by Anatoly Karpov, it seems to be one of those typical minus positions where White could improve his pieces whereas it is difficult for Black to chart a path of play, when you are not sitting with an engine next to you 18.f4 Ng4 19.Kb3 f6 20.Nc4 Nf2 21.e5 Ne4 22.Be3 Bf5 23.Rg1 Rd5 24.Rae1 Kf7 25.Bc1 Bh7 26.Re3 Rcd8 27.Bc6 Nf2 28.Re2 Nd3 29.exf6 gxf6 30.Bb5 Rg8 As the dust settles, it is clear that the position has achieved dynamic equality, ready for Carlsen to start pressuring the opponent by posing small problems 31.Bd2 Rgd8 32.Be3 Be4 33.Rd2 Rg8 34.Ka4 Rgd8 35.Kb3 Rg8 36.Ka2 f5 37.Rh2 Rc8 38.Rd2 Rg8 39.Re2 Bf3 40.Rh2 Bf6 41.Nd2 Bg4 42.Rf1 Rgd8 43.Nc4 e5 44.fxe5 Bxe5 45.Bg5 Bxg3?! After the forced 45...Bf6 46.Bc6 Black loses exchange 46.Rg2?? A rare tactical blunder by Carlsen. Later, MVL explained the fundamental flaw in Carlsen's calculation 46.Rd2 Rb8 46...Rg8 47.Nxb6‼ axb6 48.Bc4 wins for White 47.Ka3! and Nd3 is in trouble 46...Bh3 47.Rxg3 Bxf1 48.Rf3?? Blunder number 2! But this was follow-up of the flawed calculation which started off with 46.Rg2 48.Bxd8 Rxd8 49.Rf3 Be2 50.Rxf5+ would have still led to equality 48...Be2 49.Bxd8 As Vachier-Lagrave explained after the game, Carlsen missed a simple tactic here, the reason for his misery: 49.Re3 f4 50.Rxe2 Nc1+ and this knight fork nets the rook, which Carlsen seems to have overlooked initially 49...Bxf3 50.Bxb6 axb6 51.Bc6 Be4 MVL handled the technical conversion of the endgame without letups 52.a7 Rd8 53.Nd6+ Rxd6 54.Bxe4 Rd8 55.a8Q Rxa8+ 56.Bxa8 Ne5 57.Kb3 f4 58.Kc2 Kg7 59.Kd2 Ng6 60.Kd3 Nxh4 61.Ke4 f3 62.Ke3 Kf6 63.b4 c4 64.Bd5 Kf5 65.Bxc4 Kg4 66.Kf2 Ng6 67.Be6+ Kf4 68.Bf7 Ne5 69.Bxh5 Nd3+ 70.Kf1 Kg3 71.Bf7 Nf2 0–1
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Carlsen,M2822Vachier-Lagrave,M27890–12017A345th Sinquefield Cup 2017 GCT4
Nepomniachtchi,I2751Nakamura,H27921–02017D375th Sinquefield Cup 2017 GCT4
Aronian,L2799Anand,V2783½–½2017A355th Sinquefield Cup 2017 GCT4
Svidler,P2751So,W2810½–½2017C545th Sinquefield Cup 2017 GCT4
Caruana,F2807Karjakin,S2773½–½2017C655th Sinquefield Cup 2017 GCT4

Commentary by GM Yasser Seirawan, GM Maurice Ashley, and WGM Jennifer Shahade

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Saravanan is an IM from Chennai, the southern-most state of Tamil Nadu, India. He has been an active chess player in the Indian circuit, turning complete chess professional in 2012, actively playing and being a second to strong Indian players. He has been consistently writing on chess since late 1980s and is a correspondent to national newspapers and news channels.

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