Alekhine R03: Gelfand beats Adams

The Alekhine Memorial is taking place from April 20th to May 1st 2013. The first part of the event takes place in Paris, France, (April 21-26, rounds one to five), the second in Saint Petersburg, Russia, (April, 26-May 1, rounds six to nine). The super tournament is dedicated to a great Russian chess player Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine, a citizen of Russia and France, and is held at the initiative and with the support of Russian businessmen Gennady Timchenko and Andrey Filatov. Ten grandmasters from seven countries are playing in the Memorial starts with with five rounds in the Louvre Museum in Paris and ends with four rounds in Saint Michael’s Castle in Saint-Petersburg.

Round three report

The excitement in Paris was turned down a notch as the players settled down somewhat and had more peaceful games. However, some of the ones that ended in peace were as wild as the games we have been seeing in previous rounds.

Anand, Vishy – Aronian, Levon ½-½
As has been the norm this year, White fought the Spanish with an early d3 system. Aronian proved again that such systems don’t really give White any chance to fight for a strong advantage from the opening, and after many quick trades the game was drawn in a lifeless position.

Ding Liren – Fressinet, Laurent ½-½
A very wild game ended in a disappointing result. Fressinet was relentless with his pawn grabbing, and although it seemed that his position was always on the verge of collapse, it never actually fell apart. Ding kept putting up pressure, but at no point did he have a break-through. In the final position, Fressinet had the option of repeating again for a three-fold repetition or looking to get out of it with the move 30… Kc7! The variations are rather wild, and Fressinet would have had to find some very interesting variations which included him sacrificing his bishop with check just to deflect the White queen, but the resources were certainly there.

Laurent Fressinet and Ding Liren analyse in the press conference after their game

Svidler, Peter – Vitiugov, Nikita ½-½
Vitiugov’s poisoned pawn Winawer always promises fun games. Here Svidler castled very early on the queenside. This gave Vitiugov an obvious path for attack as the half open c-file provided many strong targets to compensate for the missing pawn. After some tactical blows Black was forced to sacrifice a rook, but he was on time to deliver a perpetual and seal the draw.

Nikita Vitiugov and Peter Svidler analysing

Kramnik, Vladimir – Vachier Lagraeve, Maxim ½-½
Kramnik continues with his somewhat unambitious setups with White. Vachier Lagraeve, or MVL as he likes to be referred as, was prepared and he valiantly sacrificed a pawn early in the game to obtain good piece placement and pressure on the a-file. Kramnik managed to consolidate his pawn, but Black’s position was still active. Eventually a strange rook endgame was drawn, in which although White had a passed pawn and his rook was powerfully placed behind it, there was simply no way to make progress.

Gelfand, Boris – Adams, Michael 1-0
Black’s unorthodox way of handling the Queen’s Gambit Declined structure landed him in a very passive, though solid, position. The resulting endgame in which White had a knight and a rook against a bishop and a rook was favorable to the White side only because of his piece activity, however it seems that was enough to cause the tournament leader some serious problems. A mistake with the move 24... Kg7? allowed Gelfand to swoop a pawn with a simple combination, and from then on Gelfand started torturing Adams. Eventually the Englishman broke down and committed further mistakes which gave Gelfand the full point.

An illustious GM crowd watching the games: Anatoly Vaisser (France),
Vladimir Tukmakov (Ukraine), Genna Sosonko and Jan Timman (both Holland)

Alekhine's grave at the Cimetière de Montparnasse in Paris. Jeff Sonas has pointed out that the placement of the glass vases on d2, b3, f3, c5, e6, and g5 represent a mini knight’s tour. Clearly a chess fan at work there.

Summary by GM Alejandro Ramirez, pictures by Boris Dolmatovsky

Standings

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You can watch live video of the games, with GM commentary in English, in the above player. Video streams of past rounds can be reviewed on this page. Information and videos provided by Mark Gluhovsky, press attaché of the Alekhine Memorial.

New in Chess editor Dirk Jan Ten Geuzendam and Jan Timman doing English commentary

Ilya Smirin and Alexander Grischuk discussing the games in Russian

Swiss GM Yannick Pelletier analysing with Ukrainian GM Kateryna Lahno

Alekhine Memorial 2013 – Schedule, pairings and results

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN All 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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.