Fire on board...

2/4/2010 – ... has become Alexei Shirov's trademark. In the tournament in Wijk aan Zee, which Shirov started with five wins in a row, the 37-year-old chess magician from Riga once more justified this reputation. In many middlegame positions he managed to put his opponents under pressure with inventive attacking play. And even in the endgame, one always has to take into account that Shirov might set the board on fire. This happened in the eleventh round in his game against Vladimir Kramnik, where he played 35.c5! in the diagram position. GM Karsten Müller has analysed the endgame for ChessBase Magazine Online.