Qatar 2015 Round 5: The Magnus Attack

Qatar Masters 2015 Round five – the Magnus attack

Full report from Doha will follow...

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The Torch, Doha – one of the official hotels in this event

That guy on e8, I am going to get him today! Magnus Carlsen before the start of ...

... the game of the day, which was Carlsen’s emphatic kingside attack against Li Chao

Slow positional grinds, ultra-prophylactic moves and exploiting minute edges – this is what Magnus Carlsen excels in. But when the opponent waves a red flag at him, it is obvious that the World Champion doesn’t hold back! He goes for his opponent’s throat, and what we get is a beautiful attacking game where it’s one tempo that makes all the difference. The fifth round game against Li Chao was one of the most entertaining games of the Qatar Masters Open 2015. It started with the f3 system against the Grunfeld. There was a small positional battle for one tempo that went on for quite a while. Magnus wanted to play Nf4 only when Li Chao had committed himself with …Be6. Both players made plenty of preparatory moves and when they finally ran out of it Li Chao had to play …Be6. Magnus replied with Nf4 and the opposite side attack began. Li Chao grabbed the a2 pawn and pushed his a-pawn down the board, while Magnus did the same with his h-pawn. It was just so exciting, everything hinged on one tempo. Magnus was the one who reached Black’s gates first and with some wonderful sacrifices ended the battle in his favour. On the surface it seems as if the game is too complicated for mere mortals like us to understand. But if you spend some time and break it down move by move, as done in the analysis below, you will understand that it is all so very logical.

The super-elite encounter between Anish Giri and Wesley So ended in a tame draw

Vladimir Kramnik displayed some high-class endgame technique to beat Maxim Matlakov

The thing that separates players like Vladimir Kramnik from other strong grandmasters is that he always knows what he is trying to achieve in a specific position. Take for example today’s game against Maxim Matlakov. After 31 moves it was as good as drawn. Both sides had a queen, bishop and five pawns each. By the time we reached the 50th move Kramnik had centralized his bishop, activated his king and fixed his opponent’s pawns. It was one of those cases where you just couldn’t understand where the opponent (Matlakov) had gone wrong. At the end of 73 moves Kramnik had pushed his d-pawn all the way up to the queening square and Maxim could do nothing better than to resign. How does he do it? Well, have a look at the game and see for yourself!

Breaking just about every rule in the book: Shakhriyar Mamedyarov beat Denis Khismatullin

When a beginner learns chess one of the first thing he is taught is to take care of his f2/f7 point. This Achilles heel in the position is only defended by the king. But when you become a 2750+ super GM these general rules are no longer so important. What matters is the concrete situation and accurate calculations. So when Khismatullin moved his knight to g4 and bishop to c5 in order to attack the f2 pawn, Mamedyarov, without a care in the world, played b4!? and after Bxf2+ moved his king to e2. It was a wild and crazy game where Denis was surely better for quite some time. In the end he blundered and Shakhriyar scored the full point. After his crazy game against Lenderman, Mamedyarov adds one more to his list of creative attacks.

Although it is always a sad feeling to lose a game, the creative soul
inside Denis Khismatullin must have enjoyed the see-saw battle

Surya Shekhar Ganguly beat David Howell to move on to 4.0/5
and currently leads the Indian challenge at the event

The 6…dxc4 variation in the Catalan has come under a cloud from the black side thanks to the 8.a4!? variation followed by Bg5. Many strong players like Giri, Nakamura, etc. have used it from the white side to beat stalwarts like Leko and Anand. It was a refreshing change to see the black side emerge victorious for a change. David Howell had an acceptable position out of the opening but soon went wrong and not only lost a pawn but also had his king exposed. It was a smooth victory for Surya Shekhar Ganguly.

So after five rounds we finally have a sole leader in Magnus Carlsen, who has 4.5 points. Nine players – Anish Giri, Wesley So, Vladimir Kramnik, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Sergey Karjakin, Yu Yangyi, Dariusz Swiercz and Surya Shekhar Ganguly follow the World Champion, with 4.0/5. 25th of December is a rest day. On the 26th we have a very interesting top board pairing for the sixth round.

Wesley So with white will battle it out against Magnus Carlsen on the first board in the sixth round

Kramnik taking on Mamedyarov is another interesting encounter. Giri will face Ganguly and Karjakin will be up against Swiercz. Defending Champion Yu Yangyi will face stiff challenge from Li Chao.

Standings after five rounds

Standings for all 132 players here

Zhang Zhong, Wei Yi and Ni Hua chat before the start of the game. While many wanted a Carlsen- Wei Yi encounter at the Qatar Masters, this no longer seems possible as the Norwegian is 1.5 points ahead of the Chinese.

India number two Pentala Harikrishna is happy to receive an early Christmas gift from the organizers

All the players at the event were gifted a power bank embossed with Qatar Masters on it

Alexander Moiseenko and Pavel Tregubov analyze like in the good old royal days

“Stare as much as you want to, I am not going to look back!”
Alex Lenderman beat Aleksandra Goryachkina in round five

A chess family: 2013 French Champion GM Hichem Hamdouchi,
his wife WGM Adina-Maria Hamdouchi and their son.

One of ChessBase’s finest authors Viktor Bologan is back in form
after his second round loss, and is currently on 3.5/5

Three super performers of the event who have a rating performance of above 2750:

1. IM N.R. Vignesh has 3.5/5 and a performance of 2809. He has beaten Wei Yi and Mateusz Bartel and drawn against Truong Son Nguyen Ngoc, Samuel Shankland and Vladimir Fedoseev.
2. IM Shardul Gagre (upper right) is on 3.0/5 and has a performance of 2756. After beating Wei Yi in round one, he has drawn against Daniil Dubov, Hou Yifan, Truong Son Nguyen Ngoc and Vasily Ivanchuk.
3. Xu Yinglun has 3.0/5 and a rating performance of 2750. He lost to Yu Yangyi in the fifth round but prior to that he had already beaten Nikita Vitiugov and S.P. Sethuraman and drawn with Sanan Sjugirov and Vidit Gujrathi.

Le Thao Nguyen Pham (2319), wife of Truong Son Nguyen Ngoc,
is playing a great tournament. She is on 3.0/5 and has a performance of 2614.

The super solid Sarasadat Khademalsharieh has faced five higher rated opponents
and has scored four draws against them

Black and white squares are everywhere – Harikrishna’s pen,
Natalia Zhukova’s purse, David Howell’s wrist band and Bela Khotenashvili’s shirt.

After an action packed football session it was time for basketball. Sergey Karjakin was the big star,
with Official Qatar commentator and ChessBase author Alejandro Ramirez not giving him an easy time!

Karjakin is pretty good at it …

… but GMs Daniel Naroditsky and Vidit Gujrathi were surely the best players

Football with Magnus, basketball with Sergey, ten-year-old
Nodirbek Abdusattorov is having the time of his life in Qatar!

All photos by Amruta Mokal of ChessBase India

Video impressions of Round five by Vijay Kumar

Christmas puzzle

Before we end this article we would like to wish all the readers a Merry Christmas. Here’s a beautiful Christmas puzzle for you to solve. I gave this position to GM Vidit Gujrathi (2644) and he solved it in 20 seconds! I also gave it to Wesley So blindfold, and he called out the correct first move in eight seconds.

Lu Shanglei – Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh

White to play

Pairings/Results Round 5 on 24.12.2015

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