8/30/2012 – In the first "clashes of the titans" we saw a number of board one wins that led to team victory. The dynamics of this are explained to us by GM Alejandro Ramirez, who has picked such a board one win for his game of the day – from the women's section. Andrew Martin shows us a loss by the veteran Alexander Beliavsky to the young Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna in his video analysis.
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The 40th Chess Olympiad is scheduled to take place in the Turkish metropole
of Istanbul, from August 27 to September 10th, 2012. A record of 158 national
chess federations have brought teams to Istanbul to participate in this prestigious
event, which is being staged in the WOW Hotel and Convention Center, just minutes
away from the airport.
Round three
This saw the first real clash of the intellectual titans, in which higher rated
teams were pitted against each other. Many matches could have swayed in either
direction, and the close contests made it a delightful joy for chess fans.
The Ukrainian team squeezed out a victory against Israel from a very suspicious
position: GM Ruslan Ponomariov (above) was clearly worse against his Israeli
counterpart GM Maxim Rodstein, but the former World Champion somehow turned
the tables after the first time control and managed to win the game. GM Boris
Avrukh ground down GM Pavel Eljanov, but...
... GM Andrei Volokitin (above) showed no mercy against GM Evgeny Postny.
With Ivanchuk and Gelfand drawing on the top board, Ukraine won the match by
2.5-1.5.
Russia again played safely, scoring three draws and a win by Jakovenko (above)
in their match against Latvia.
After yesterday's exhausting game with Lithuania, USA top board Hikaru Nakamura
(above) played the necessary 30 moves to take a draw with GM Eduardo Iturrizaga
of Venezuela. Nakamura's team-mates cleared the rest of the opposing team for
the convincing 3.5-0.5 victory.
Levon Aronian (above with a fan) led the Armenian team to a narrow victory
against Spain...
Aronian defeated Paco Vallejo with white, while the remaining three boards
were drawn.
You guys miss me? This is the first Chess Olympiad for Spain without Alexei
Shirov-
Azerbaijan readily dispatched the Faroe Island team with 3.5-0.5. England won
the derby match against Cuba 3-1 with two full points by the most experienced
players Adams and Short.
Thanks to a rook endgame win by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (above) against Veselin
Topalov, France scored a victory against Bulgaria, as the remaining Frenchmen
drew their games.
In the Women's Section World Champion Hou Yifan took the helm of team China
for one of the greatest challenges in the whole Olympiad – the match against
the 4th seed Ukraine. IM Mariya Muzychuk won another nice game as she brought
down the higher rated GM Zhao Xue, but Yifan struck back and defeated Kateryna
Lahno on the top board. With the other two games drawn the match ended with
a 2-2 score. Ukraine, a medal contender, neutralized one of their main competitors.
Women's World Champion Hou Yifan brought home a vital point in round three
Top Ukrainian women's player GM Kateryna Lahno in her game against Hou Yifan
Georgia and Germany traded punches but neither could deliver a knockout, ending
their contest in a drawn match. Poland and France pushed ahead by defeating
their respective opponents Hungary and Austria by a score of 3-1. Serbia demolished
the higher rated Spain with 3.5-0.5, with Russia and Greece doing the same to
Mongolia and Peru respectively. The Czech Republic edged the higher-seeded Romania.
India narrowly defeated Armenia, thanks to Tania Sachdev
A match that was not supposed to be exciting had people on the edge of their
seats. The underrated Uzbekistan held the USA to a draw delivering losses to
Foisor and Goletiani. When all looked lost or suspect at best, Zatonskih and
Abrahamyan brought home the full points to tie the match and avert a devastating
loss to a low seeded team. Team USA will have to regroup after this knowing
that China, Russia, and Ukraine will show no mercy and give no opportunity to
come back from behind.
Game of the day commentary by GM Alejandro Ramirez
For people watching the Olympaid, specially for the first time, it might seem
that all boards are the same. After all, a point scored on board 4 is worth
exactly the same as one scored on board 1. However, having played in different
boards throughout my Olympic experience, I have always felt that this is not
the case. There is a special prestige of playing board one, but it is not just
that. Board 1 in many ways sets the pace. It's the game everyone is watching.
And, usually, it is the closest game.
For this reason, many, many matches are not decided until board one finishes.
In today's matches in the men's section, Spain was only slightly outrated against
Armenia, and it was Levon Aronian on board one that took out Vallejo Pons to
secure the 2.5-1.5 for the Armenians. After Adams sealed the deal against Dominguez,
no one would have bet on a Cuban comeback no matter the odds. Indeed, England
took the match comfortably. In matches where relatively weak countries face
stronger ones, it is not unusual for their first board to be the one to take
a half or even full point. For example, Venezuela is not a chess powerhosue,
but Iturrizaga with his 2650 rating is a strong match for any player in the
world. Today he was pressing but unable to create anything against USA's Hikaru
Nakamura. Lastly, let us not forget the super classical match between Kramnik
and Shirov, probably the only interesting game in the Russia-Latvia matchup.
The game I present to you was the last one played in the match, and the World
Champion was in a must-win situation to tie the match after Muzychuk handily
beat Zhao Xue.
[Event "40th Olympiad 2012 Women1"] [Site "Istanbul"] [Date "2012.08.30"] [Round
"3"] [White "Hou, Yifan"] [Black "Lahno, Kateryna"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B47"]
[WhiteElo "2599"] [BlackElo "2542"] [Annotator "Ramirez,Alejandro"] [PlyCount
"115"] [EventDate "2012.??.??"] [EventCountry "TUR"] [WhiteTeam "China"] [BlackTeam
"Ukraine"] [WhiteTeamCountry "CHN"] [BlackTeamCountry "UKR"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3
e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nc3 Qc7 6. g3 {Fianchetto setups against the Paulsen/Taimanov/Kan/Scheveningen
set-ups are not the best scoring, but the always retain a serious amount of
poison.} a6 7. Bg2 Nf6 8. O-O Nxd4 9. Qxd4 Bc5 10. Qd3 {Arguably an opening
inaccuracy. I do believe it is accepted that the intermediate Bf4 is slightly
slightly superior, but it's not a big deal. Maybe Yifan wanted to get Lahno
out of book as soon as possible.} (10. Bf4 d6 11. Qd2 {the point is that the
queen is better placed on d2 for a series of reasons.}) 10... d6 11. Na4 O-O
$6 {I can't agree with this move. Whereas Qd3 was a stylistic choice, this seems
to me to be a mistake. The pair of bishops will be a difficulty for Black the
entire game. You just don't give the pair of bishops to a world champion...}
(11... Ba7 12. Rd1 $2 Bd7 $1 13. Nc3 Ng4 $1 $15) 12. Nxc5 dxc5 13. Rd1 e5 14.
Be3 Ng4 15. Bd2 Be6 16. Qe2 Nf6 17. a4 Rad8 18. f3 {White is only slightly better,
but the Chinese player impressively makes her advantage stronger by the move.
First, she controls the queenside activity possibilities, then she crushes the
kingside.} Nd7 19. Be3 Nb8 $6 {I guess the Ukrainian superstar wanted to transfer
the knight to c6 and d4 (?) at some point, but because of the weakness of c5
this is easier said than done.} 20. Qe1 a5 (20... b6 21. a5 $1 {Qe1's point.
Nice prophylaxis. }) 21. f4 f6 22. f5 Bf7 23. g4 b6 24. Qh4 (24. g5 {seemed
more exact to me. From now on Lahno has a couple of chances to defend better,
as it seems that the opening of the h-file was not as dangerous as Yifan thought,
but Black is still far from being out of danger.}) 24... Rxd1+ 25. Rxd1 Rd8
26. Re1 {Of course White doesn't want to trade rooks. She has a clear plan to
advance on the kingside. For some reason computer's show this as equal. Practically
I'm not feeling Black's position.} h6 27. Qf2 {h4-g5. Not a secret.} Kf8 28.
h4 Ke7 {Lacking a clear continuation Lahno escapes the kingside before it blows
up, but her king doesn't make it as far as she wants it to.} 29. g5 hxg5 30.
hxg5 Rh8 31. Rd1 Rd8 32. Rc1 {weirdly, the rook on c1 is microscopically better
on c1, because of potential c3-b4 as opposed to doing nothing on e1. Lahno doesn't
want to go back to h8 with this improvement.} Nc6 33. c3 Rd6 34. Qh4 Qd8 {Black
holds the open file, but it is irrelevant without a penetration spot. For this
reason Bf3 seems very logical, preventing Rd1 and with the idea of Be2, covering
all the squares. But Yifan sensed weakness, and she went for it.} 35. Qh7 Rd1+
(35... Qg8 {was better}) 36. Kh2 Rxc1 37. Bxc1 (37. Qxg7 $1 { Was actually quite
interesting. But this is risky.} Rc2 $1 38. Qxf6+ Kf8 39. Qxc6 Qd3 40. Qh6+
Ke8 41. g6 Rxg2+ 42. Kxg2 Qxe4+ 43. Kh2 Bd5 $13) 37... Qd1 $2 (37... Qg8 {was
now mandatory. Katja overestimates the chances with her lone queen.}) 38. Qxg7
$1 (38. Be3 $2 Qh5+ {would've left White in a miserable endgame.}) 38... Qxc1
39. Qxf6+ Kf8 40. Qh8+ Ke7 41. Qf6+ Kf8 42. Qh8+ $1 { Repeating moves like a
champ before delivering the killing blow.} (42. Qxc6 $2 Qf4+ 43. Kh3 Qe3+ 44.
Kh2 Qf4+ $11) (42. g6 Qf4+ 43. Kg1 Qe3+ 44. Kf1 Qd3+ 45. Kf2 Nd8 {is still rather
unclear.}) 42... Ke7 43. f6+ $1 {Black is beautifully netted by the pawns and
the diagonals. She has no defense.} Kd7 (43... Kd6 44. Qf8+ {drops all of Black's
pieces with check, so there is no time for perpetuals.}) 44. Bh3+ Be6 45. Qg7+
Kd6 46. Qf8+ Kc7 47. Bxe6 {A little calculation shows that White has a escape
route, and no reason to fear perpetuals. On the other side, she has devastating
threats against Black's king.} Qf4+ 48. Kh3 Qf3+ 49. Kh4 Qh1+ 50. Kg4 Qxe4+
51. Kh5 Qh7+ 52. Qh6 Qe4 53. Qg7+ Kb8 54. Qf8+ Ka7 55. Qf7+ Kb8 56. Qe8+ Ka7
57. Qd7+ Kb8 58. Bd5 { Black has no more than a couple of spite checks, so she
resigned. Hou Yifan gave a great fight and a clear showing of why she is World
Champion and the first board. She handily punished Lahno's overaggressiveness.}
1-0
Summaries from the official web site,
photos by David Llada, Arman Karakhanyan, Anastasiya Karlovich
Andrew Martin: Game of the Day Rd 3 – Harikrishna vs Beliavsky
Live video coverage of the Olympiad
Remaining schedule of the Olympiad
There is live commentary of the most interesting games on Playchess.com,
beginning around half an hour after the games have started.
31 August 2012
15.00
4th Round
Daniel King
1 September 2012
15.00
5th Round
Lawrence Trent
2 September 2012
Free Day
3 September 2012
15.00
6th Round
Daniel King
4 September 2012
15.00
7th Round
Yasser Seirawan
5 September 2012
15.00
8th Round
Daniel King
6 September 2012
15.00
9th Round
Yasser Seirawan
7 September 2012
15.00
10th Round
Yasser Seirawan
8 September 2012
Free Day
9 September 2011
11.00
11th Round, Closing
Daniel King
10 September 2011
Departure
Some hours after the end of each round we will be posting video summaries by
Daniel King on our news page. If possible they will appear on the same night,
otherwise early the next morning. We also expect best-game video commentary
from Andrew Martin.
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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
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