'The Nutcracker' to end year in style

On Friday, December 19, the Central House of Chess hosted the opening of the generations tournament "The Nutcracker." This new spin on a well-established formula will play out from December 20-25 with a team composition and structure that promise great excitement. The senior team "Kings" is composed of Alexander Morozevich, Alexey Dreev, Peter Leko and Alexei Shirov, and for the "princes" there are Russian talents Daniil Dubov, Vladislav Artemiev, Gregory Oparin and Vladimir Fedoseev.

Many times the senior teams have been made up of great champions well past their primes, which against a younger player on the rise can be an uneven prospect, especially in today’s age where young players can fulfill their potential much earlier. Here we see the seniors all of whom are still active and in the top 100 and better, and it promises to be a worthy end to an exciting year of chess.

Mark Glukhovsky, Oleg Skvortsov and his wife Natalia Shevando

The idea of ​​the match and organizer is the ever active entrepreneur Oleg Skvortsov. Last year, also in Moscow, Skvortsov organized the match between the highly experienced Alexei Shirov (Latvia) and the young Russian talent Daniel Dubov. This battle betAfter the ween the representatives of two generations aroused great interest among fans, and thus was born the idea for a more "populated" competition following the same format - a meeting of youth and experience. 

This year, "The Nutcracker" will follow the original formula: the first four days the team members will fight each other in classical time controls; and then the last two two days will be devoted to rapid chess. The competition will follow the Zurich scoring system: two points for each classical chess win, with one for a draw, and in rapid each win will be worth one point and a draw only half. This means that short of a disaster from either team, the rapids will be the final decider in which team wins.

Emil Sutovsky, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Daniil Dubov and Valentina Gunina

Sergey Karjakin and his wife Galia

Alexander Nikitin, the former trainer of Garry Kasparov, and Olga Lillienthal

At the opening of "The Nutcracker" Great Hall of the Central House of chess was filled to capacity with a Whos Who in Russian chess. Among the guests of honor were Oleg Skvortsov and his wife Natalia, the 12th world champion and Vice President of the Russian Chess Federation Anatoly Karpov, the general director of the Franco-Russian Chamber of Commerce, the Vice President of the Russian Chess Federation Paul Shinsky, not to mention a slew of outstanding GMs, coaches, and organizers: Yuri Averbakh, Anatoly Avraamovich Bykhovsky, Mark Dvoretsky, Evgeni Vasiukov, Alexander Nikitin, Galina L. Dvorkovich, Yuri Dokhoyan, Emil Sutovsky, Sergey Rublevsky, Alexander Volzhin, Sergey Karjakin, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Valentina Gunina, Sergey Shipov, Vladimir Potkin and many others.

Alexei Shirov and world-renowned trainer and author Mark Dvoretsky

Yuri Averbakh, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Daniil Dubov, Gregory Oparin and Vladislav Artemiev

Oleg Skvortsov (middle) and his wife Natalia Shevando, next to Peter Leko

The draw took place with the Chief Arbiter of the tournament IA Alexander Tkachev inviting the participants to pull off a Christmas trees decoration in which their starting number would be found.

12th World Champion Anatoly Karpov

Vladislav Artemiev draws his number and faced Alexey Dreev in the openng round

After the draw the guests were treated to some classical music with works by Beethoven, Mozart and more, performed by young musicians Ilya Schmukler (piano) and Karen Asatryan (clarinet).

A video of the opening ceremony. The classical music presentation begins at 26:50 with
Ilya Schmukler playing Beethoven's Appassionata sonata

The first round saw action befitting the lineup and investment of the organizers, ending in three decsive games out of four, and easily could (should) have been four. The first game saw a repeat of last year when Alexei Shirov faced Daniil Dubov with white. Dubov came out swinging as he played a Modern Benoni with black. The opening did not go as well as he might hope, and he soon found himself in a very restricted position, but he did get chances to restore balance that he failed to find at the board.

The next game to end was the surprising win by 17-year-old Gregory Oparin (2543) over Alexander Morozevich. At least it was a surprise before the game got underway, but the opening soon made it clear that something had gone quite wrong Rocket Morozevich failed to take off, restoring the balance for a win each in the teams.

Grigoriy Oparin came as the lowest rated player and promptly took down one of the highest rated

The only draw of the round was between Alexey Dreev and Vladislav Artemiev, which by all means should never have drawn. The younger player built up a monster advantage with a clean two extra passed pawns on ‘a’ and ‘b’ and may have thought anything should win, a notoriously dangerous frameset, since the minute you believe that, life has this nasty habit of explaining how wrong we were.

The first round is officially started

This left things all tied up with one game to go, Vladimir Fedoseev against Peter Leko, and what an epic battle they put on. The game started as a slightly offbeat Torre with 3.Bg5, but then transitioned to classical structures with c3-d4-e3 for White, seeking the ideal breakthrough. Unfortunately for Fedoseev, this is the sort of subtle tug-of-war battle that Leko lives for, and the Russian found himself outfoxed and trying to break out of a boa constrictor position in which the Hungarian had the ideal breakthrough chances. The former Challenger failed to find the most precise method and after seeing his advantage mysteriously dissipate, lost control of the position and went from equal to worse to lost, concluding the day with a minute edge by Team Prince.

Photos by Eteri Kublashvili and Vladimir Barsky

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.