Daniël Stellwagen wins Complete Chess match

Complete Chess Match in Maastricht (NL)

From February 10-13 2004 Daniël Stellwagen (Netherlands) and David Baramidze (Germany) are playing a complete chess match in Maastricht, The Netherlands. This event, organised by the Chess Events Maastricht foundation, is a four-game encounter between two of the brightest young talents from The Netherlands and Germany.

Thursday, Feb 12, 2004: Quick but exciting draw in game three

The youngsters seemed to be in a hurry in game three: the first 20 moves in the third game of their Complete Chess Match were thrown on the board with enormous speed. However, after 24.Rg3 Daniel Stellwagen checked the difficult position with the engines Shredder 8 and Fritz 8. Both players were following the rapid game Lutz-Ye Jiangchuan, Europe-Asia 2001, but Stellwagen played 24...Qc7! after 45 minutes instead of the bad move 24...Rxc4? Baramidze could not find a way to keep an advantage and with an elegant combination he forced a draw by repetition. After 35 moves and two hours of play the game was over.

Daniël Stellwagen and David Baramidze during game three

Baramidze,D - Stellwagen,D [B49]
Chess Events Maastricht 2004 Maastricht (3), 12.02.2004 [Jan van Reek]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Be2 a6 7.0-0 Nf6 8.Be3 Bb4 9.Na4 Be7 10.Nxc6 bxc6 11.Nb6 Rb8 12.Nxc8 Qxc8 13.Bd4 c5 14.Be5 Rb6 15.Qd3 d6 16.Bc3 0-0 17.b3 d5 18.e5 Nd7 19.f4 c4 20.bxc4 Rc6 21.Qh3 Nb6 22.Bd3 g6 23.Rf3 Re8 24.Rg3. The dangerous alternative 24.cxd5!? Rxc3 25.d6 Bxd6 26.exd6 [Lobron - Stellwagen, Wijk aan Zee 2004] 26...Nd5! 27.d7? Qxd7 28.Bxg6? hxg6 29.Rxc3 is refuted by 29...Qa7+! 30.Kf1 Qd4]

24...Qc7! Stellwagen plays the right move after 45 minutes. "Theory" from a rapid game is 24...Rxc4? 25.Bxc4 Qxc4 26.f5? [Lutz - Jiangchuan, Europe-Asia 2001]. Black avoids 24...Nxc4?! 25.f5! exf5? 26.e6! fxe6 27.Rxg6+ hxg6 28.Qh8+ Kf7 29.Qg7#

25.Bd4 Nxc4 26.c3 Nb2 27.f5 Nxd3 28.fxg6 hxg6 29.Rxd3 Bc5 30.Bxc5 Rxc5

31.Rf1! Baramidze plays an exciting move. The game revives. 31...Qxe5 32.Rxf7 Kxf7 33.Qh7+ Kf6 34.Rf3+ Qf5 35.Qh4+ Kf7. Black accept the repetition of moves because 35...Kf7 36.Qh7+ Kf8?! 37.Qxg6! Qxf3 38.gxf3 Ke7 39.Qg7+ Kd6 40.f4 looks suspicious.½-½.

So what was your program doing? Daniël check our David's machine

• Click here to replay and download the game on our JavaScript board.

Friday, Feb. 13, 2004: Daniël Stellwagen winner of the first Complete Chess Match

The fourth game in the match seemed to end in a short draw, because Baramidze chose a quiet opening. He surprised his opponent by playing the rock-solid Petroff defence and the young Dutchman looked surprised. He played an unusual line with 5.Nc3 instead of 5.d4.

In the early middlegame the “Dutch incarnation of Boris Spasski” (Jan van Reek), started an attack with 14.h4 and pushed another pawn on the kingside with 17.g4. Baramidze, who is an excellent defender, played an inaccurate move, 22...Qd6 after which Daniel could start a ferocious attack with f4 and f5. (Maybe he has got his inspiration from the movie “The last Samurai”. He visited that movie on Thursday together with match manager Hans Adriaanse and press officer Eric van Reem).

Organisers Daniel Brorens, Jos Uiterwijk und Jan van Reek

The engines in the analyses room showed a big plus score for white, but Daniël had not sufficient time to check the variations with his computer. After the game he told us that Shredder showed +2 on his computer, but that evaluation was completely wrong, according to Stellwagen. He played a few inaccurate moves between move 30 and 40 and suddenly Baramidze had a defendable position. He missed an opportunity to draw the game but he or the engines missed the line with 36...Qf3! The queen endgame was clearly better for white and after 49 moves David Baramidze had to resign.

Stellwagen,D - Baramidze,D [C42]
Chess Events Maastricht 2004 Maastricht (4), 13.02.2004 [Jan van Reek]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 Baramidze plays a surprising opening. 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3!? White avoids sharp variations. 5...Nxc3 6.dxc3 Be7 7.Bf4 0-0 8.Qd2 Nd7 9.0-0-0 Re8 10.Kb1 [10.Bd3 was played in Zapata - Morovic, Mario Covas 2003.] 10...Nc5 11.Be3 c6 12.Nd4!? [The exchange 12.Bxc5 dxc5 13.Bd3 keeps an even game.] 12...d5 13.f3 Qb6 14.h4!? Stellwagen plays a courageous move. Both players plan an attack on the hostile king. 14...Bd6 15.Bf4 Qc7? A passive move. 16.Bxd6 Qxd6 17.g4 Ne6 18.Nxe6 Qxe6 19.Bd3 Qf6. Baramidze has chosen for the defence. He avoids 19...Qe3?? 20.Rhe1!

20.Rdf1 Bd7 21.g5 Qe5 22.f4 Qd6? Another passive move. More active is 22...Qe3 23.Qd1 b5. 23.f5! f6 24.gxf6 gxf6 25.c4?! The attack goes on with 25.Rhg1+ Kh8 26.Qh6 Rg8 27.Rg6 Raf8 28.Re1.

25...Kh8 26.cxd5 cxd5 27.Rhg1 Rg8 28.a3? An advantage is kept by 28.Rg6! 28...Rxg1 29.Rxg1 Rg8 30.Rxg8+ Kxg8 31.Be4 Kg7! 32.h5. The point is 32.Qxd5 Qxd5 33.Bxd5 b6! and Black regains the pawn.

32...b6 33.h6+ Kf8 34.Bd3 Qg3 35.Qb4+ Kf7 36.Ka2

36...Qg5? Black can force a draw by 36...Qf3! 37.Qd6 Bxf5 38.Qc7+ Kg6 39.Qg7+ Kh5 40.Qxf6 Be4 41.Qxf3+ Bxf3 42.Bxh7 Kxh6.

37.Qd6 Bxf5 38.Qc7+ Kg6 39.Qg7+ Kh5 40.Qxa7 Bxd3 41.cxd3 Kxh6 42.Qxb6. White has a better pawn structure after the exchanges. 42...Qf5 Baramidze does not trust 42...Kg6 43.a4 h5 44.a5.

43.a4 Qxd3 44.Qxf6+ Kh5 45.Qc6 Qd2 46.Qb5 Kg5 47.a5 Qd4 48.a6 h5 49.Qa5 1-0.

• Click here to replay and download the game on our JavaScript board.

The match ended with a 2.5-1.5 victory for the Dutch player Daniël Stellwagen.

A trip to the old city: Daniel Brorens with the two players and David Baramidze's father

Some information about Complete/Advanced chess

Advanced chess was conceived and introduced in the international tournament circuit by Gary Kasparov, who played the first public match in June 1998 against Veselin Topalov. The match was organised in the city of Léon, Spain. Since then, Léon has hosted more Advanced Chess matches, in 1999 Anand won against Karpov and in 2000 and 2001 the Indian grandmaster won again. Shirov was his opponent in those matches. In 2002 Vladimir Kramnik won a match against Anand. But not only in Léon Advanced Chess has been played. During the Chess Classic Mainz in August 2002 Peter Svidler played two Advanced Chess handicap games against Professor Eckhardt Freise. The Russian champion was allowed to use Fritz on a slow laptop and the strong amateur Freise played with the same program on a very fast Pentium PC. At the same time Vishy Anand played a handicap match against the Mayor of Mainz, Jens Beutel. The amateurs, however, had no chance against the pros, even with fast computers. In Maastricht we play Advanced Chess with the time limits from classical chess and the result is Complete Chess. As we could see in the third game today, we can see that certain positions need more analyses and time.

Links

• First report on games one and two
• Chess Events Maastricht (official web site)
• More pictures from the event