London Classic: Aronian close, but classical games all drawn

by Macauley Peterson
12/12/2018 – Those who fear the "draw death" of classical chess gained a bit more ammunition today after both semifinal games ended drawn. In light of the 12 draws in the World Championship, four more in London so far is a bit disappointing. The game between Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana ended quickly and without even a hint of fireworks. Levon Aronian (pictured) surprised Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the opening and got an advantage, but could not exploit it. | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

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All tied heading to rapid and blitz

Day 2 of the classical games at the 10th London Chess Classic is in the books and both semifinal matches remain all square at 6 points for each player after a second pair of draws. Draw offers are not allowed in the Grand Chess Tour except in the case of a clearly theoretically drawn position, but the players reached dead endgames and repeated moves in just the third hour of play (the Americans were done in an hour). So, no excuse for the children who came to watch them to shirk on their homework assignments for tomorrow!

The strategy in both games seemed to be not to take excessive risks when a single win is worth 6 points, and instead rest up for a long day of rapid and blitz tomorrow. There are two rapid games (worth 4 points each) and four blitz games (worth 2 points each) on the agenda. These would have been played regardless of the result of today's games — it's not a tiebreak day, like the World Cup (or the recent Women's World Championship) knockout tournaments. So, at least we're in for some Thursday action!

Hikaru Nakamura vs Fabiano Caruana

Even the live commentators Jen Shahade and Yasser Seirawan agreed this one was a "snoozefest". Nakamura was just fine with going toe-to-toe in rapid and blitz against Caruana. He said it was not his intention, but was nevertheless satisfied with making a simple draw with White — it took less than an hour in all! "Rapid is different and I like my chances."

Nakamura played 1.e4 and Caruana defended with his favourite Petroff. Nakamura followed well-known predecessors but consistently refrained from any opportunity to sharpen the game and after numerous exchanges, and 33 moves, the players shook hands. Nakamura still had 1 hour and 31 minutes on the clock at the end, while Caruana's clock read 1 hour and 14 minutes.

"Fabiano has basically proven that the Petroff again is completely fine", said Nakamura after the game.

Caruana put the onus on Nakamura to mix things up: "It's not really my job to create excitement with Black is it...you can play the Sicilian, you can play anything, and White can steer the game towards equality", he said immediately after the game on the live webcast. "I'm happy I didn't have to suffer today."

 
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1.e4 0 e5 0 2.Nf3 30 Nf6 30 3.Nxe5 30 d6 30 4.Nf3 30 Nxe4 30 5.Nc3 30 Nxc3 30 6.dxc3 30 Be7 30 7.Be3 30 0-0 30 8.Qd2 30 C42: Petroff Defence: 3 Nxe5 and unusual White 3rd moves Nd7 30 9.0-0-0 30 c6 30 10.h4 30 d5 32 11.Kb1 36 Re8 1:01 12.Bd3 1:01 LiveBook: 4 Games Bc5 32 13.Bd4 30 Bxd4 58 14.cxd4 30 Nf6 35 15.Rde1 35 Ne4 2:33
16.Qf4N 1:32 Qf6 35 17.Qxf6 30 Nxf6 30 18.Kc1 30 Rxe1+ 6:56 19.Rxe1 1:32 Kf8 8:38 20.Kd2 3:06 h6 1:18 21.Ne5 58 Ng4 4:14 22.Nxg4 2:27 The position is equal. Bxg4= 30 Endgame KRB-KRB 23.c3 30 Re8 42 24.Rxe8+ 30 Kxe8 30 KB-KB 25.Ke3 30 g5 2:47 26.hxg5 30 hxg5 30 27.f3 52 Be6 41 28.f4 30 f6 31 29.g3 30 Ke7 30 30.a3 30 Bd7 30 31.Bc2 30 Be6 30 32.Bd3 30 Bd7 30 33.Bc2 30 Be6 30 Ke4 Precision: White = 82%, Black = 75%.
½–½
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Nakamura,H2746Caruana,F2832½–½201810th LCC GCT Finals 20181.2

Caruana

Levon Aronian vs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Much more exciting and interesting was the game between Aronian and Vachier-Lagrave. The Armenian made the first big surprise in the opening. After 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nb4 6.Bc4 Nd3+ 7.Ke2 Nf4 8.Kf1 Ne6:

 

Aronian quickly uncorked 9.d4!?, exactly the move that Black actually aimed to prevent. Vachier-Lagrave thought for nearly 24 minutes before taking 9...cxd4 10.Bxe6 Bxe6 11.Nxd4 and now, 'MVL' avoided the complexities of 11...Bc4+, opting instead to tread lightly with 11...Nc6 12.Nxe6 Qxd1+ 13.Nxd1 fxe6 for a slightly worse position and a long-suffering defence.

 

This strategy paid off, however, and although the Frenchman stood with his back to the wall, Aronian could not make use of his chances. After the game, he was particularly hard on himself for missing the idea of 28.Rc2, which he called "embarrassing".

 
Position after 27...Na2

The point is that after 28.Rc2 Kxe6 29.b3 White will win back the knight but prevent Black's rook from penetrating on the c-file as occurred in the game after 28.Ra1 Kxe6 29.Rxa2 Rc8.

Aronian played Ra1 in just 15 seconds prompting harsh criticism from GM Cristian Chirila on the live webcast for not using his time more.

 
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1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nb4 6.Bc4 Nd3+ 7.Ke2 Nf4+ A34: Symmetrical English: 2 Nc3, lines with ...d5 8.Kf1 Ne6 LiveBook: 164 Games 9.d4 9.h4 Nd4 10.Nb5 Be6 11.d3 Nbc6 12.Nbxd4 Bxc4 13.dxc4 cxd4 14.Bf4 e6 15.Rh3 0-1 (35) Dominguez Perez, L (2739)-Vachier Lagrave,M (2779) Saint Louis 2018 9...cxd4 10.Bxe6 Bxe6 11.Nxd4 Nc6N Predecessor: 11...Bc4+ 12.Ke1 Qd7 13.Be3 e5 14.Nb3 Bb4 15.Rc1 0-1 (51) Karpeshov,O (2323)-Shomoev,A (2553) Kazan 2016 12.Nxe6 Qxd1+ 13.Nxd1 fxe6 14.Bd2 e5 15.f3 e6 16.Be3 Bb4 17.Nf2 Ba5 18.Ke2 Bb6 19.Rhd1 Bxe3 20.Kxe3 Ke7 21.Rac1 Rhd8 22.Rxd8 Rxd8± Endgame KRN-KRN 23.Nd3 Kd6 24.Nc5 Rb8 25.h4 Nb4 26.a3 b6 27.Nxe6! Of course not 27.axb4 bxc5 28.bxc5+ Kc6 27...Na2 28.Ra1 Kxe6 29.Rxa2 KR-KR Rc8 30.Kd2 Rd8+ 31.Ke2 Rc8 32.b3 Rc1 33.Rd2 33.Kd3± 33...Ra1 34.a4 Rb1 35.Rd3 Rb2+ 36.Kf1 a6 37.Kg1 b5 38.Rd8 bxa4 39.bxa4 Ra2 40.Rh8 h6 41.Re8+ Kf6 42.Rb8 Rxa4 43.Rb6+ Kf7 44.h5 a5 45.Ra6 Ra2 46.Kh2 a4 47.Kh3 a3 48.g3 48.Ra7+ Kf6 49.Kg3 48...Ra1!= The position is equal. 49.Kg4 a2! 50.Kf5 Strongly threatening Ra7+. Rf1 51.Rxa2
Ra3 is the strong threat. 51...Rxf3+ 52.Kxe5 Rxg3 53.Ra7+ Kg8 54.Kd6 g6 55.Ra8+ Kf7 56.Ra7+ Kg8 57.Ra8+ Kf7 58.Ra7+ Accuracy: White = 77%, Black = 67%.
½–½
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Aronian,L2765Vachier Lagrave,M2781½–½201810th LCC GCT Finals 20181.2

Aronian and MVL


Standings after game 2

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Live commentary webcast

GM Yasser Seirawan, WGM Jennifer Shahade, GM Cristian Chirila and GM Alejandro Ramirez

Johannes Fischer contributed to this story

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Macauley served as the Editor in Chief of ChessBase News from July 2017 to March 2020. He is the producer of The Full English Breakfast chess podcast, and was an Associate Producer of the 2016 feature documentary, Magnus.

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