Sunway Sitges: Alekseenko grabs the lead

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
12/18/2022 – By beating former co-leader Karthikeyan Murali, Kirill Alekseenko became the first sole leader at the main event of the Sunway Chess Festival in Sitges. After six rounds, the Russian grandmaster still has a perfect score. Standing in sole second place is Karen Grigoryan, who defeated Anton Demchenko on Saturday. Nine players stand a half point further back, including top seeds Yu Yangyi and Hans Niemann. | Photo: Biel Chess Festival
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Beating the Rossolimo

In the latest instalment of his weekly show, Daniel King looked at what he dubbed as the “raging Rossolimo”, where he analysed a game from the Sitges tournament, in which Aditya Samant managed to upset Adhiban from the white side of the Sicilian system. A few days later, Karthikeyan Murali opted to use the same opening with black in the all-important encounter against co-leader Kirill Alekseenko. The Russian prevailed to keep his perfect score and go into the rest day as the sole leader. 

Before Friday’s round, the co-leaders had five players standing a half point behind. Only one of them managed to score a full point, though, and is now in sole second place — Armenian grandmaster Karen Grigoryan, who defeated 2021 European champion Anton Demchenko with the white pieces.

With four rounds to go, set to take place between Monday and Thursday, nine players are sharing third place on 5 out of 6, including the top two seeds in Sitges, Yu Yangyi from China and Hans Niemann from the United States.

 
Alekseenko, Kirill26871–0Karthikeyan, Murali2623
VIV Chessable Sunway Sitges Open 2022
17.12.2022[Besenthal,Klaus-Günther]
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 e6 4.Bxc6 bxc6 5.d3 Qc7 6.0-0 Ne7 7.Re1 e5 8.c3 d6 9.d4 Ng6 10.dxc5 dxc5 11.Nbd2 Be7 12.Nc4 0-0 13.Be3 Be6 14.Qa4 a5 15.Nfd2 Qb7 16.b3 Rfd8 17.Nb2 Qc8 18.f3 h5 19.Rad1 Nh4 20.Nbc4
In this position, with the black pawn weaknesses on the queenside and a certain absence of white pieces on the kingside, Karthikeyan steps up a gear. 20...Bh3! Diverting White's attention from the queenside for the time being. 20...Qc7 was more solid, though - presumably White will struggle to make any progress on the queenside . 21.Re2 21.gxh3 Qxh3 22.Re2 Nxf3+ 23.Kh1 Nxd2 24.Rdxd2 Qf3+ 25.Kg1 Rxd2 26.Rxd2 Qg4+ 27.Kf1 Qxe4 results in a balanced position, but it is hardly possible for a human being to calculate or judge all the ramifications. However, Karthikeyan was able to assess the situation to the extent that the bishop sacrifice would at least not be disadvantageous for him if accepted by White - and the Indian was right. 21...Bxg2 Whoever says A must also say B... 21...Be6 was objectively better, but is also a passive variation, and who wants that! 22.Rxg2 Nxg2 23.Kxg2
23...Qe6 The computer gives 23...Rd3 24.Re1 Qd8 25.Nf1 Rxc3 White also has some advantage here. Black must try to activate his rooks, but that is not easy to do. 24.Nb2 Now the d3-square is covered. Rd6 25.Qc4 Qg6+ 26.Kh1 Bg5
27.Qxc5?! Strong was 27.f4! Bxf4 28.Bxf4 exf4 29.Rg1 Qe6 30.Qe2 Rad8 31.Nf3± The bishops begin to make their presence felt. 27.Rg1?! is not as strong: Bxe3! 28.Rxg6 Rxg6 27...Rad8 28.Rg1
Now we find this move after all. 28...Bxe3? And what was good in the other line is bad here. The correct path: 28...Rxd2! 29.Bxd2 Rxd2 30.Qxe5 Qf6 31.Qxf6 Bxf6 32.Rg2 Rxg2 33.Kxg2 Bxc3= 29.Qxe3 Qxg1+ 29...Qf6 30.Ndc4+- loses: White captures the a5-pawn and then runs with his own a-pawn. The black rooks cannot be easily activated. 30.Qxg1 Rxd2
We now see another virtuoso move by the white queen, which does not allow the d2-rook to capture on b2 - and collects a few pawns in the process. 31.Qb6 R8d7 32.Qxc6 Rd8 33.Qc7 R8d7 34.Qxe5 Rd8 35.Qe7 The knight intervenes decisively via c4 and possibly d6. 1–0

A game from the fifth round illustrated how important it is to calculate precisely in pawn endgames. Our in-house expert, GM Karsten Müller, looked at a position with only kings and pawns on the board which saw a 2400+ rated player faltering and losing the game.

 
Moussard, Jules26761–0Baenziger, Fabian2426
VIV Chessable Sunway Sitges Open 2022
16.12.2022[Mueller,Karsten]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.d3 d6 7.c4 Bg4 8.Be3 Nd7 9.Nbd2 0-0 10.h3 Bxf3 11.Nxf3 Bf6 12.Bxc6 bxc6 13.b4 Qb8 14.Qa4 Qb7 15.Nd2 Nb6 16.Qc2 Nc8 17.Rab1 Ne7 18.a4 Qc8 19.b5 Qd7 20.Rb3 axb5 21.axb5 Rfb8 22.Rfb1 h6 23.Qd1 Qe6 24.bxc6 Nxc6 25.Rxb8+ Rxb8 26.Rxb8+ Nxb8 27.Qa4 Kh7 28.Qa8 Nd7 29.Qc6 Bd8 30.c5 dxc5 31.Qxe6 fxe6 32.Nb3 Be7 33.Kf1 Kg6 34.Ke2 Kf7 35.Kd2 c4 36.dxc4 Bb4+ 37.Kc2 Nb6 38.Kd3 Na4 39.Kc2 Nb6 40.Nd2 Bxd2 41.Bxb6 cxb6 42.Kxd2 Ke7 43.Kc3 Kd6 44.Kb4
The fight for spare moves. Pawn endings must be calculated very precisely: 44...Kc6? Only 44...g5‼ defends as White does not have enough spare moves on the kingside now, e.g. 45.Kb5 45.g4 Kc6= 45...Kc7 46.g3 46.g4 Kb7 47.c5 bxc5 48.Kxc5 Kc7 49.f3 Kd7 50.Kb6 Kd6= opposition 46...h5 47.c5 bxc5 48.Kxc5 g4 49.h4 Kd7 50.Kb6 Kd6= opposition 45.h4! Now White wins. g6 45...g5 46.hxg5 hxg5 47.f3 Kc7 48.Kb5 Kb7 49.c5 bxc5 50.Kxc5 Kc7 51.g3 Kd7 52.Kb6 Kd6 53.g4 Kd7 54.Kb7 Kd6 55.Kc8 Kc5 55...Ke7 56.Kc7 Kf8 57.Kd6 Kf7 58.Kd7 Kf6 59.Ke8 Kg6 60.Ke7+- 56.Kd7 Kd4 57.Kxe6 Ke3 58.Kxe5 Kxf3 59.Kf5+- 46.f3!
This wins the fight for spare tempi. 46...g5 46...g5 47.h5 Kc7 48.Kb5 Kb7 49.c5 bxc5 50.Kxc5 Kc7 51.g3 Kd7 52.Kb6 Kd6 53.g4+- opposition 1–0

Standings after round 6

Rk. Name Pts.  TB1 
1 Alekseenko Kirill 6 20,5
2 Grigoryan Karen H. 5,5 21
3 Niemann Hans Moke 5 23
4 Karthikeyan Murali 5 22,5
5 Aravindh Chithambaram Vr. 5 22
6 Yu Yangyi 5 21,5
7 Petrosyan Manuel 5 20,5
8 Esipenko Andrey 5 19,5
9 Dardha Daniel 5 19
10 Tin Jingyao 5 18,5
11 Tabatabaei Mohammad Amin 5 18
12 Puranik Abhimanyu 4,5 23
13 Safarli Eltaj 4,5 22
14 Samant Aditya S 4,5 21,5
15 Demchenko Anton 4,5 21,5
16 Kollars Dmitrij 4,5 21
17 Sumets Andrey 4,5 21
18 Sidhant Mohapatra 4,5 21
19 Adhiban B. 4,5 20,5
20 Svane Frederik 4,5 20,5
21 Durarbayli Vasif 4,5 20
22 Kraemer Martin 4,5 20
23 Aryan Chopra 4,5 20
24 Cheparinov Ivan 4,5 19,5
25 Jones Gawain C B 4,5 19,5
26 Sanal Vahap 4,5 19,5
  Raja Rithvik R 4,5 19,5
28 Tahay Alexis 4,5 19,5
29 Prraneeth Vuppala 4,5 19
30 Korobov Anton 4,5 19

...326 players

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The repertoire against the Giuoco Pianissimo examined on this video course, provides Black with methods of evading this slightly one-sided pattern, yielding sound play in double-edged positions.

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Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.
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