Sunway Sitges: Former winners held to draws

Most favourites prevail

The main tournament at the Sunway Chess Festival kicked off on Monday. A 10-round Swiss open, it saw four players tying for first place on 8 points last year. Thus, few mistakes can be made throughout — especially in the first round, when the top seeds are paired up against much lower-rated opposition.

The Ruy Lopez Breyer Variation

Pavel Eljanov explains in depth what Gyula Breyer already saw in 1911 and what became an opening choice of the likes of Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand or Carlsen. The Breyer Variation, which is characterised by the knight retreat to b8.

This year, opening day saw 16 out of the top 20 seeds grabbing victories. The one player from the top 10 who lost a full point was Amin Tabatabaei, whose game against Netanel Levi finished after just one move — the most likely scenario is that the Iranian star could not make it in time to the event (*).

Other than that, three games finished drawn on the top 20 boards, as Ivan Cheparinov (2020 winner), Jules Moussard and Anton Korobov (2019 winner) only managed to get half points.

Big rating differences will also be seen in the second round, although it will be certainly more difficult for the top guys to score wins.

(*) It most likely had to do with the fact that Levi hails from Israel, unfortunately.

...158 boards

The second seed in sunny Sitges is none other than US rising star Hans Niemann. Playing black against Susanna Gaboyan, the 19-year-old had no trouble making the most of his opponent’s weakening pawn push early in the game.

9.h4 has only been tried by players rated below 2300 in the recent past, as it has the major drawback of leaving g4 open for a black piece to infiltrate, with the white king already castled on that side of the board.

The move did not grant Black a decisive advantage, but it did give Niemann a straightforward plan: to look for direct attacking chances right from the get go. Four moves later, he began to expand on the kingside.

Although Black has also pushed his h-pawn and castled on the kingside, his pieces are better placed to look for an attack. Niemann’s 13...f6 is not the strongest move in the position, but it does pose difficult questions to an opponent that already needs to face the difficult psychological task of having a much higher-rated player across the board.

Gaboyan’s 14.Bf4 was already not the most precise, as it just lost a tempo to 14...g5.

Soon after, the f-file was opened up, and Niemann found a couple of nice moves to further weaken his opponent’s king position.

After 19...Bh6, Black cannot go for 20.Bxf2 due to 20...Qxf2 21.Kh1 Qxg3, while 19...Nf4, as played in the game, can be replied by 20...Rxg2+, forcing matters.

There followed 21.Kxg2 e5 22.Nxh5 Nxe3+ 23.Rxe3 Bxe3 24.Qg4+

Black has a piece for a pawn but, more importantly, he has foreseen that his king can escape White’s short-lived attack (the a1-rook was transferred to h1 two moves later), and it is the opponent’s monarch the one which is, after all, in bigger trouble.

23...Kh7 24.Qd7+ Kh8 25.Rh1 Qf2+ 26.Kh3 Rg8

Resignation came after 27.Qxd6 Bf1+, as the light-squared bishop joined the attack with decisive effect. There is mate-in-six on the board.

Standings after round 1

...326 players

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Links

• Official site
• Abdusattorov clinches first place in thrilling playoff (2021)
• Ivan Cheparinov prevails in Sitges (2020)