Tal-Mem R5: All games drawn

The Tal Memorial chess festival is being held in Moscow from November 5th to 19th, 2006. It is a round-robin super-tournament of Category 20, with participants from seven countries. The rating favorite is Peter Svidler, 2750, Russia, the dark horse is 15-year-old Magnus Carlsen of Norway, at 2698 the only participant rated below 2700. All games start at 15:00h Moscow time (= 13:00h CET, 12:00 noon London, 7 a.m. New York). There is live broadcast on the official site and on Playchess.com.

Round five

Aronian-Leko was a Queen's Indian that followed Rodshtein-Pashikian, Yerevan 2006, 1-0 in 34 for 10 moves, when Peter Leko deviated. The game ended in after 27 moves in a draw by repetition, but there were some cool tactics involved.

Carlsen-Shirov was one of the two Petroffs we have seen in this tournament so far, and ended on move 30 in a repetition. This game too contains points of tactical interest.

Ponomariov-Svidler, and Exchange Grünfeld, was less noteworthy and ended after a flurry of exchanges in a draw on move 30.

Grischuk-Mamedyarov was the third Breyer in this tournament, the second with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov playing black. It followed Shirov-Mamedyarov from round one up to move 23 and ended in a similar kind of draw on move 34 (the round one game had also been a 34-move draw).

Grischuk,A (2710) - Mamedyarov,S (2728) [C95]
Tal Memorial Moscow RUS (5), 11.11.2006
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.h3 Nb8 10.d4 Nbd7 11.Nbd2 Bb7 12.Bc2 Re8 13.Nf1 Bf8 14.Ng3 g6 15.b3 d5 16.Bg5 h6 17.Bh4 g5 18.Nxg5 hxg5 19.Bxg5 exd4 20.e5 Rxe5 21.Rxe5 Nxe5 22.cxd4 Nc6 23.Qd3 [23.Nh5 Be7 24.Bxf6 Bxf6 25.Qd3 Kf8 26.Qh7 Bxd4 27.Qh6+ Ke8 28.Re1+ Ne5 29.Bf5 Qd6 30.Qg5 c5 31.Nf6+ Kd8 32.Nxd5+ Ke8 33.Nf6+ Kd8 34.Nd5+ 1/2-1/2 Shirov,A (2720)-Mamedyarov,S (2728)/Moscow RUS 2006] 23...Nb4 24.Qf3 Be7 25.Bb1 Bc8 26.Qf4 Ne4 27.Bxe7 Qxe7 28.a3 Nc6

Here Grischuk could have played for a win: 29.Nxe4 dxe4 30.Bxe4 Nxd4 31.Qg3+ Kf8 32.Qe3 Nf5 33.Qf4 Rb8 34.Bxf5 Qd6 35.Qh4 Qe5 (35...Bxf5 36.Qh8+ Ke7 37.Qxb8) 36.Qd8+ Kg7 37.Rd1 Qxf5 38.Qxc7 Ra8 39.Rd8 Qf6 40.Qg3+ (40.Rxc8 Rxc8 41.Qxc8 Qa1+ 42.Kh2 Qxa3 43.Qc3+) 40...Kh7 41.Rg8. But the young Muscovite played 29.Bxe4 and the game was soon drawn: 29...dxe4 30.Nh5 Qd6 31.Nf6+ Kf8 32.Qh6+ Ke7 33.Ng8+ Ke8 34.Nf6+ Ke7 ½-½.

Gelfand-Morozevich was a Semi-Slav and the longest game of the day: draw in 43 moves. It was 18 moves of theory and then a bit of maneuvering, but nothing to open that bottle of single malt for.

Statistics Of the 25 games played in the first five rounds at the Tal Memorial in Moscow 68% were drawn. The average length of all games was 41 moves, the shortest being Gelfand-Ponomariov in round 2 (23 moves, ½-½) and the longest (80 moves, ½-½) Mamedyarov-Ponomariov in round 4. The latter had the longest header so far, but will be caught, we believe, by Morozevich-Mamedyarov in round seven. Naturally it will never reach the immortal Chiburdanidze-Gaprindashvili. We can call four games at most unfought draws, and in spite of the 68% overall drawing average there has been plenty of excitement. So it is not appropriate for us to ask for our money back

Standings

Links

• Official web site – slowly improving
• All games so far in PGN

Photographic impressions

Provided by Misha Savinov

Leaving the Metro station for the Central Chess House

Autumn in Moscow, cold and drizzly

Art displayed and sold at the streetside

Landscapes in blue, to take your mind off the winter that is approaching

The front desk of the Tal Memorial tournament

In the office you see former FIDE president Florencio Campomanes (right) hard at work

Chess fans – or to be more precise: future WGMs from St. Petersburg

Just arrived: GM Vadim Zvjaginsev

Former world chess champion Vassily Smyslov and his wife (left)

Schedule and results