Movsziszian perfect in Alicante

A 5-day Easter tournament

The “Semana Santa” over-the-board tournament is taking place in La Nucía, Alicante. Organized by Patricia Claros Aguilar with the support of the Valencian Chess Federation, the event is a 9-round Swiss open with a time control of 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and 30 minutes for the rest of the game plus 30-second increments from move 1. 

Miguel Santos is the top seed, followed by Russian GM Daniil Yuffa and a trio of experienced Spanish grandmasters — Marc Narciso, Salvador del Río and José Cuenca. Former world senior chess champion Karen Movsziszian arrived in La Nucía as the sixth seed and is currently the only player to have won all five of his games.

With four rounds to go (two will be played each day over the weekend), six players are chasing the leader on 4½/5 points. Movsziszian will face his highest challenge so far in round 6, when he will have the black pieces against Narciso. Cuenca v Del Río and Santos v Yuffa are key encounters that will also take place on Saturday morning.

In the following video report, Movsziszian says: “It’s been a year since I last played a tournament, it’s the first game I’ve played in a year. I’m very happy”.

Movsizian, who won the Armenian Championship 30 years ago (in 1981), defeated Cristian Aranda in round 5. The experienced grandmaster played an Anti-Sicilian with g3, and the following position was reached after 14 moves:

A dangerous Anti-Sicilian: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.g3!

Play like Carlsen, avoid theory but without being passive or losing the initiative.

Aranda did not sense the danger and played the developing move 14...Rac8. In hindsight, it’s clear that Black should go for either 14...h6 or 14...Qc7/14...Qe8, removing the queen from the d-file. The point is that White now has 15.c4

At this point, Black should cut his losses and give up a pawn with 15...Nf6 16.Bxf6 Bxf6 17.Nxc5. Instead, going for 15...Nb6 allows 16.cxb5 axb5 and yet another strong central pawn break — 17.d4

Again, the best alternative was to give up material with 17...cxd4 18.Qxb5 and the d-pawn will fall soon — of course, a sad continuation as White gets two connected passers on the queenside. Aranda instead opted for 17...c4, to which White responded with the forceful 18.Nc5

A Black Repertoire versus the Anti-Sicilians

In this video series Pert gives a strong and practical Black repertoire against the Anti-Sicilians such as the Bb5 Sicilian, the Grand Prix Attack, the Alapin and many more, from my years of experience playing the Sicilian.

Now we see why removing the queen from the d-file was necessary a few moves ago. The game continued 18...Qc7 19.Bf4 Bd6

Black has kept the material balance, but his pieces are cramped and unable to deal with White’s attack after 20.Nxe6 fxe6 21.Qxe6 Kf8 22.Ng5

White threatens mate with Nxh7, while after 22...g6 he has 23.Qf6+ Kg8 24.Bh3, and the light-squared bishop is set to join the attack. Black resigned.

The playing hall

Standings after round 5

And Action! - How to crown positional play by tactics

There are few names which, like that of Alexei Shirov, can be associated with fantastically imaginative and tactically influenced play. Now the Latvian grandmaster is presenting a DVD on precisely that element of the game of chess. And one that is completely based on his own games.

...180 players

All available games

Links

• More photos at Eventos de Ajedrez
• Full results at info64.org
• Replay the games and follow the rounds live at Live.ChessBase.com