Zurich Rd3: The bluff pays off; Nakamura 2800!

Round Three

Arturo Perez-Reverte is one of the most influential contemporary Spanish novelists and journalists. His book, The Flanders Panel, deals with a mystery hidden in an art masterpiece named The Chess Game. He is currently in Zurich spectating the games, and he tweeted the above, which translates to:

For those that substitute chess for God, being at the Savoy hotel in Zurich only one meter away from Viktor Kortschnoj, is the equivalent of attending mass.

Sagar Shah will be bringing us the results of the Kortschnoj-Uhlmann match momentarily!

The Skvortsovs discussing the current positions

The playing hall at the Savoy hotel

Aronian, Levon ½-½ Kramnik, Vladimir
The Catalan is an interesting opening in chess fashion. Sometimes it seems like it is the only 1.d4 opening that is being played, while at other time it seems completely abandoned. The Catalan is not exactly at its peak of popularity, mainly because Black has figured out more than one way to nearly equalize (most prominently these ideas of a quick Bb4+ followed by Be7 instead of trading bishops on d2). That being said, if there are two people in this World that can bring new spice into the Catalan, they are Aronian and Kramnik... it just so happens that they faced each other today!

It's clear that Big Vlad did not equalize fully from the opening; Aronian's pressure kept mounting all over the board and his control over the d-file was more than annoying. With a good sequence he placed his pieces in perfect squares, first winning a pawn and then trading it for domination over the board and good chances to attack the enemy king.

Levon Aronian pressed hard against Vladimir Kramnik

Kramnik defended cleverly; he sacrificed his pawn again and traded queens. The resulting two pawns against one on the kingside gave White some chances to win, but not many. The Russian defended comfortably and earned his draw.

Caruana, Fabiano ½-½ Anand, Viswanathan
What is happening to Caruana? The talk of the town back in September during the Sinquefield Cup has slowly shed away rating. Some attribute it to the massive amount of games he has been playing recently, other say that the Sinquefield was just a fluke and he is back to his usual level. This doesn't seem true, however, as Caruana consistently shows good preparation and excellent technique - but as of late he has been faltering at some point during the game. Blunders or minor errors are costing him half points and sometimes full points here and there.

Viswanathan Anand got outplayed for a bit, but came back into the game with a nice tactic

Today was one of those cases. A complicated opening idea netted Caruana an extra exchange, but Anand had a pawn and excellent piece placement for it. The Italian defended valiantly, pushing Black back step by step. Just when Caruana was getting everything under control, the blunder 24.Nc2?! allowed Anand to jump back into the game with the excellent 24...Ne3! Luck was on Caruana's side in that the move wasn't quite lethal, and that Anand was in serious time pressure. Instead of suffering for a long time, as he should have, Caruana escaped with an easy draw - and even had some very slight pushing chances near the end.

Nakamura, Hikaru 1-0 Karjakin, Sergey
Talk about throwing the dice! Or perhaps The American went for a line that should be a forced draw; even though the drawing line has never been played, it is a variation that has been considered by several grandmasters. It seems as if Karjakin entered massive complications without a sure footing - he did not know (or more accurately, he did not remember) the drawing line and was forced to try to calculate it over the board.

The first player in the Americas to cross 2800: Hikaru Nakamura!

However, this proved to be an impossible task! The drawing variation (which you can find below on the game annotations) is a series of computer moves that don't make that much sense. White's king is in the middle of nowhere, getting mated in several instances, but White is up a massive amount of material. A specific sequence forces a perpetual and it is the only way for both sides to survive.

Since Karjakin did not find this variation, he ended up down the exchange and also down a tremendous amount of time on the clock. Nakamura did not forgive such a situation and won very easily; he had over an hour left on the clock when the game ended!

Galia Karjakina is not thrilled with her husband's memory

To confirm the suspicions that the position was indeed a draw, Nakamura showed the variations in the press conference, while Karjakin tweeted about it...

Replay Round Three Games

New Live Ratings

Thanks to the different results in Tbilisi and in Zurich, the live rating list keeps shuffling widly! Here is the latest update, courtesy of 2700chess. This already takes into account the Tbilisi Grand Prix round of today and today's games in Zurich.

Classical Standings

Note: Games played in the Classical will count for double

Blitz Final Standings

Note: Blitz points do not count for the final tally

Schedule

With the blitz finished the pairings are as follows in the classical portion of the tournament, which starts tomorrow:

The Rapid portion will be on February 19th.

Schedule of Commentary on www.playchess.com

Links Official tournament site Classical games in PGN All Blitz games in PGN The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess 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 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.