Russian Championship: Svidler makes it eight

Excitement, rises and falls!

Those who may have seen our report after five rounds of the Russian superfinal would remember my praise for a godly performance to the point by the young and strong Vladimir Fedoseev and Daniil Dubov. Yet, little I knew that the event would take such drastic turns in the second half. Dubov got back to earth almost immediately after he literary tried to play against a player of Tomashevsky class like a 'hustler'! After a dubious choice of opening ( Vienna defense) from the white side of 1.e4 ( Dubov is a classical 1.d4 and 1.c4 player) he soon found himself in a difficult position or maybe even strategicilaly lost position.

If this was a sad hiccup for Dubov things went rogue for Fedoseev as he scored -2 in round five to eight! Soon, the uncompromising yet unstable young GM found himself in shared first with two other grandmasters: Nikita Vitiugov who ended the tournament as the only undefeated player (at least until the playoff) with three wins with eight draws, and Dubov of course who drew his games after losing to Tomashevsky.

Things went from bad to worse for Fedoseev | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

Fedoseev first went down at the hand of highly experienced and solid Malakhov in the sixth round "battle of the Vladimirs". Malakhov, who at the time had also -1 like Tomashevsky, won comfortably with black pieces in a theoretical line in Slav. Let us have a look how things started to go wrong for the leader.

Vladimir Fedoseev 0-1 Vladimir Malakhov (annotated by Elshan Moradiabadi)

An effective way of meeting the 6.Ne5-Slav

After the moves 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5 the second most frequent reply is 6.Ne5 (after 6.e3) and it is especially popular with strong players. Danielsen recommends in his suggested repertoire 6...Nbd7, and 7.Nxc4 should be followed by 7...Nb6 (instead of the classical 7...Qc7). After 8.Ne5 a5 we have an important starting position on the board. White now has the alternatives 9.e3, 9.Bg5, 9.g3 and 9.f3, but as has been shown above all by the top Chinese players Wang Yue, Bu Xingzhi and Ni Hua, Black can hold his own in every case.

Earlier I mentioned about three victories by Vitiugov. One of them had in fact a crucial role in the standings as the long-term member of 2700+ club of players won in round seven against Fedoseev to move into a tie for first along with Dubov!

Nikita Vitiugov 1-0 Vladimir Fedoseev (annotated by Elshan Moradiabadi)

The Beasty Botvinnik Variation in the Semi-Slav!

On this DVD you will be taken on a journey through what is arguably the sharpest opening line known to men.

One might think that this could be it — the end of story for Fedoseev but the Russian warrior showed great fighting spirit. After almost winning (with a completely crushing position) against Dubov, Fedoseev fought a long game against experienced underdog Sergey Volkov, and after a long marathon in round nine he managed to once again rejoin the lead, and with only two draws!

Sergey Volkov, one of the countless 2650-ish Russian GMs, many people have never heard of! | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

Dubov lost (again with white pieces!) to Malakhov (who seems to know how to handle black against leaders!) and fell completely out of the title contest.

Vladimir Fedoseev ½-½ Daniil Dubov (annotated by Elshan Moradiabadi)

Dubov has yet to have his day | Photo: Eteri Kublashvili

Enter Svidler

While one could say that Fedoseev "peaked" too soon, Peter Svidler was biding his time in the field. After the second round mishap against Dubov, he picked up a win here and there interspersed with draws, until round ten when it was clearly a now-or-never situation for adding to his seven Russian Championship titles.

Facing Fedoseev with black, Svidler equalised easily, and even had a slight edge at times, but the game veered into a drawish-looking rook and bishop ending, where White's only problem was a pair of doubled g-pawns. Svidler shook loose his e-pawn, which quickly became dangerous, but white's undoing came only in the following position:

Fedoseev erred with 63.Ra5? one of those positions where a natural looking check is bogus. The rook must stay on the first rank guarding the queening square. After 63...Kf6 the rook returns to a1 which proves to be a vital tempo. Replay the whole game to see why:

Vladimir Fedoseev 0-1 Peter Svidler

Maxim Matlakov and Svidler after Round 9 | Photo: Boris Dolmatovsky

This win was absolutely crucial, but Svidler's spurt to the finish was far from over. His last round assignment was white against Malakhov, who had a heck of a tournament as we've already noted.

The game started slowly, with a Four Knights, and Svidler had once been on the white side of the position that appeared after ten moves against Dmitry Jakovenko in the 2009 Russian Team Championship. Svidler accumulated small advantages, until the turning point 30...Ra8, which he points to as the decisive mistake, but it was another Ra8 a few moves later that the advantage really started to show:

31.Re3! Defends the threat of Bxh3, but as importantly queues up a rook lift after 31...Qg6 32.Nd2. It wasn't long before Svidler's queen, knight, and rook were collecting loose pawns and homing in on black's king.

Misha Savinov for the Russian Chess Federation report sums it up best:

Peter basically stalemated his opponent's queenside, improved his own position to the maximum, and then went on to pick weak pawns. A complete domination!

Peter Svidler 1-0 Vladimir Malakhov

Rocket Repertoire: The Four Knights

Like a fine wine, the Four Knights only improves with age, establishing itself as an extremely effective way of meeting 1...e5. On the outside this opening seems deceptively quiet, yet apparently natural moves can often lead to some devastating attacks.

Playoff

Of the other players who could have reached 7 / 11, only Nikita Vitiugov managed, winning his last round game with black against Volkov. By this point both players were exhausted, but Vitiugov generally has strong nerves, has been a steady 2700 player since 2013 and his last round momentum was equal to Svidler's. It was bound to be tense.

The first tiebreak curiously reached the same material balance as Svidler's eleventh round win, but with colors reversed: Peter had the bishop, and was the one pressing a small advantage. But just when Vitiugov needed to dig in and fight for a draw, he blundered:

Play out your moves on the live diagram!

After 45.Qxe4 Rxe4 46.Rc2, Black is for choice but has a lot of work to do. Instead 45.Nh5+? and it didn't take Svidler more than a few seconds to see there were no tricks. 45...gxh5 46.Qg5+ Kf8. If black's rook were on, say b4, there would be a perpetual, with Qd8+, but instead 47.Qh6+ Ke8 and Vitiugov resigned. There's a nice coup de grâce, by the way, should white play on with 48.Qxh5 Bxg3+! 49.Kxg3 Qe3+ 50.Rf3 Qe1+ when either 51.Kh2 Rh4+ or 51.Rf2 Rd3+ wins one or the other of white's remaining pieces.

The second game, needing a win with black, Vitiugov tried in vain to avoid exchanges but ended up coming out of the opening in such a huge tangle that he was forced to concede on move 18.

After round five we wrote, "one can never underestimate Svidler", and that proved to be true indeed, though as he often does, Peter himself harboured a healthy measure of doubt:

Whoa, I'd have given very long odds against that happening midway through. Off to celebrate, thanks for all the support and kind words.

— Peter Svidler (@polborta) December 14, 2017

(Incidentally, that midway report is worth a look — if you missed it —purely for the interesting historical context from ChessBase German editor Andre Schulz.)

Among the congratulatory public remarks to be found was this one from GM Peter Heine Nielsen, in a riff off the old World Cup soccer adage from former England striker Gary Lineker, who once said: "Football is a simple game where 22 players play against each other and in the end Germany wins."

The Russian Chess Championship is played by 12 players. And in the end Peter Svidler always wins.

— Peter Heine Nielsen (@PHChess) December 14, 2017

Standings after Round 11

Games and commentary

All games (Rounds 1-11)

Goryachkina's second first

In August 2015, Aleksandra Goryachkina, a month shy of her 17th birthday, won the Russian Women's Championship in Chita with 8 / 11. This time her 7 / 11 was only enough for a playoff with Natalia Pogonina. But the end result was the same (and the same as Svidler's — 2 : 0. Interestingly, Svidler, at 41 is easily old enough to be her father. With her youth, and experience, one could imaging her one day gunning for eight Russian Championships among women, or, perhaps even one in the open section.

Aleksandra Goryachkina | Photo: Boris Dolmatovsky

Standings after Round 11

Natalia Pogonina and Aleksandra Goryachkina | Photo: Boris Dolmatovsky

All games (Rounds 1-11)

Players (L to R): Alina Kashlinskaya, Natalia Pogonina, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Daniil Dubov, Nikita Vitiugov, Peter Svidler | Photo: Boris Dolmatovsky

Press officer and photographer Eteri Kublashvili, seen here before a life sized Russian historical photo, reports for the RCF

Macauley Peterson contributed to this report

Correction December 16: An earlier version of this article mistakenly identified Maxim Matlakov as Vladimir Fedoseev in a photo caption.

Links

• Tsar Nicholas II, Matilda and the Russian Chess Championship
• Russian Chess Federation