I was impressed by Hikaru Nakamura’s play at the London Chess Classic (December 2009), even though he didn’t win any games.

He has certainly made up for that aspect of his performance since then, with some really aggressive chess at the World Team Championship and Wijk aan Zee.

Here’s a few lively snippets with a recommendation to all readers: track down the original games and play them from start to finish.  And keep an eye on the H-Bombs!

Gelfand – Nakamura

World Team Championship

09.01.2010

 Gelfand is an extremely strong player but even he isn’t safe when Nakamura gets going. In this position, the American champion ripped a hole in the Kingside with 23 …Nxg2!

Gelfand – Nakamura

World Team Championship

09.01.2010

In this position, Black has just offered his Queen with 28 …Qd3!!  The game ended in a win for Black on move 33.

Nakamura continued to sacrifice throughout January.  His games at Wijk aan Zee (which is still going on) have been some of the most entertaining of all.  He hit van Wely very hard…

Nakamura – Van Wely

Wijk aan Zee 17.01.2010

The first bomb was a typical Sicilian sacrifice.  15 Nd5! and the e-file is prised open after 15 …exd5 16 exd5

Nakamura – Van Wely

Wijk aan Zee 17.01.2010

A few moves later, Black has been trying his best to keep the e-file closed. However, 22 Rxe5+!! blasted it wide open again. After 22 …Bxe5 23.Re1 Bg4 24.Qf4 0–0 25.Rxe5, White was no doubt hoping for 25 …Ra8 26 Rxh5!!, with threats against both the King and the Queen.

 

Nakamura – Van Wely

Wijk aan Zee 17.01.2010

(Analysis Diagram)

Black sidestepped that particular bomb but he was still far from safe.

Nakamura – Van Wely

Wijk aan Zee 17.01.2010

This time the Bishop gets in on the act: 29 Bxg6! Once again, Black struggled on… 29 …Qh1+ 30.Kb2 Qxd5

Nakamura – Van Wely

Wijk aan Zee 17.01.2010

…but Nakamura still wasn’t finished: 31 Bxf7+!  and 1-0 (39)

As I write this, Nakamura has just inflicted a fist defeat on tournament leader Shirov at Wijk aan Zee.

Expect some further examples from the H-Bomber in a future post here at Mongoose Times.

The Staunton Memorial tournament, which has run every year since 2003, is looking for a new sponsor.

See here for further details:

http://marshtowers.blogspot.com/2010/01/save-our-staunton.html

A draw in the final game of the London Chess Classic was just enough to earn Magnus Carlsen first place after an exciting tournament full of entertaining chess.

Here are the final standings:

(All photos in this report are courtesy of  Robert Konieczny)

13 points: Carlsen – a sensational performance

12: Kramnik – just not quite enough!

9: Howell, Adams – both unbeaten

7: McShane – only one draw; the lowest non-decisive game rate by far

6: Ni Hua, Nakamura – both battled away throughout the tournament

5: Short – a last round victory against Carlsen would have changed so much

For full details of the Chess Classic, including game scores, please see the official site at:

http://www.londonchessclassic.com/

For more photos and reports by me, pop along to:

http://marshtowers.blogspot.com/

The London Chess Classic now moves into its final two rounds.

(Pictures courtesy of John Saunders)

Yesterday’s games saw two more decisive results, with McShane beating Nakamura and Carlsen outplaying Ni Hua.  The games Adams v Short and Howell v Kramnik were both drawn after very exciting battles.

With three points for a win, one for a draw and nothing for a loss, a single victory can make a huge difference to the tournament table.

Current Standings

11: Carlsen
8: Kramnik
7: McShane
5: Howell, Adams
4: Short
4: Nakamura
3: Ni Hua

For full details, including the games,  pop along to:

http://www.londonchessclassic.com/

Further updates will appear here at Mongoose Times and also here:

http://marshtowers.blogspot.com/

Here’s some photos from the first half of the Chess Classic.  All photos in this post are used with the kind permission of John Saunders.

First round games don’t get much tougher than this!

The American Champion Hikaru Nakamura

has drawn his first three games in London

Ni Hua

The view of the stage with all of the games in action

There’s more photos here:

http://marshtowers.blogspot.com/2009/12/live-from-olympia_6523.html

Follow all the action and catch up with games from previous rounds here:

http://www.londonchessclassic.com/

More updates to follow!

The first three rounds of the Chess Classic have produced lots of good, fighting chess.  Quick draws are outlawed and the scoring system is unusual for chess:  three points for a win, one for a draw and nothing for a loss (just like football).

World Number 1 Magnus Carlsen got off to a flying start with two straight wins, including a significant victory over former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik.  Magnus looked set to run away with the tournament when he built up a winning ending against British Champion David Howell in the third round, but the latter battled away magnificently and managed to hold on to draw.

Meanwhile, Kramnik has recovered well from his loss and scored wins in rounds two and three.

Apart from the top two players, only Luke McShane has so far won a game.  That was against Nigel Short in the first round, in a game lasting over 160 moves!

David Howell, Michael Adams and Hikaru Nakamaru have drawn all their games to date.  Ni Hua and Nigel Short have each drawn two games and lost one.

Friday is a rest day for the top section but the battle in the Open tournament – featuring several Grandmasters and numerous other titled players – rages on.  Indeed, they will play two games today, making a potential 10-hour playing day for them.

Elsewhere, the chess festival includes lots of junior coaching sessions, blitz tournaments and Grandmaster commentary.

Coming up over the next few days:  a weekend congress, a junior tournament and two simultaneous displays by guest of honour, Viktor Korchnoy.

Event organiser Malcolm Pein opens the press conference

Nigel Short at the drawing of lots

World No.1 Magnus Carlsen picks the pawn he opened with in his first game

The big game – in the very first round!

For more of my photos and reports, please go to:

http://marshtowers.blogspot.com/2009/12/live-from-olympia_11.html

To follow all the action, pop along to the official site:

http://www.londonchessclassic.com/

I am off to London this weekend to watch and write about the London Chess Classic.

The quality of the field is very impressive indeed.  Former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik will be hoping to continue his recent excellent form but there will certainly be no easy games.

The last time I saw Kramnik play ‘live’ was in 2000 when he defeated World Champion Kasparov in a sensational title match.

I was fortunate in being able to witness this convincing demolition of the Black defences…

Kramnik – Kasparov

Game 10

BGN World Championship Match 2000

The opening was a Nimzo-Indian – never a particularly happy choice for Kasparov.  Detailed notes on the game are easy to find so I’ll just present a few key positions to whet the appetite.

14 Bxf6 Nxf6

I remember Kasparov looking very upset prior to playing this move and his mood didn’t get any better as the game went on.  After 14…Bxf6 Black must reckon on the annoying 15 Nb5, with ambitions against d6 and a7. However, subsequent analysis supported the notion that 14…Bxf6 was still Black’s best try.

15 Bxe6 fxe6

16 Qxe6+ Kh8

17 Qxe7 Bxf3

18 gxf3 Qxd4

19 Nb5

So the Knight lands powerfully on b5 after all.  The body language at the time clearly showed what each player thought of the position.  The atmosphere in the room felt electrically charged and there was a general feeling that something major was about to happen.

19…Qxb2    20 Rxc8 Rxc8   21 Nd6 Rb8

22 Nf7+ Kg8  23  Qe6 Rf8

Apparently 23…h5! would have given a glimmer of hope – but Kasparov was blatantly depressed by now.

24 Nd8+ Kh8 25 Qe7

When 25…Rxd8 is the best move, it’s time for: 1-0

An historic final position – the last game Kasparov lost in a World Championship final after an incredible adventure going all the way back to 1984.  Indeed, it was also his last decisive game in a World Championship final as the match against Kramnik concluded with a series of draws.

I recently had the pleasure of reviewing ‘The Complete Hedgehog (Volume 1)’ by GM Shipov.  You can read my thought about the book here: http://marshtowers.blogspot.com/2009/11/chess-reviews-116.html

Quite a long time ago, I found out for myself – the hard way – that the Hedgehog is a dangerous beast.  I suffered a couple of defeats against Hedgehog specialists and for a while afterwards I avoided 1 c4 altogether when I thought a repeat was on the cards.

Sean Marsh – FM Steve Giddins

Cleveland Open 1991

Can White really lose in just ten more moves?  Of course; this sort of thing happens all the time once the Hedgehog decides to flex its spines. 17.Nxc5? (17 Bb2 looks safer. The Knight exchange just makes it easy for Black) 17… dxc5 18.Qe3 Rd4 (I seem to recall I’d missed this powerful move, thinking I could evict the invader with 19 Ne2.  Unfortunately Black would then be able to reply with 19…Red8, as after 20 Nxd4 cxd4 the Bishop on a3 drops off) 19.Bb2 Red8 20.Bf3 Bc6 21.e5? Bxf3 22.Qxf3 Qxe5 23.Na4 Rxd1+ 24.Rxd1

The plan with 21 e5 was to try and free my game at the cost of pawn and perhaps gain some compensation with a timely Bxf6, compromising Black’s pawn structure. It doesn’t work, of course…I’d missed Black’s extremely strong rejoinder.

24…Qe4! 25.Rxd8 Qxf3 26.Nxb6 Ne4 0–1

Five years later, I was intrigued and impressed to see FM Giddins catch a much bigger fish.  The game is easy to track down in the databases, so here’s just a quick impression of how the Hedgehog sprang into life…

GM Rafael Vaganian – Steve Giddins

Antwerp 1996

30…Nxe5! 30.Bxa8 c3! 31.Qc2? Rxd6 32.Rxd6 Nc4!

33.Ra6 Nxe3 34.Qe4 c2!

35.Ne2 (35.Qxe3 Bd4!) 35…Qb5! 36.Qxe3 Qxa6 37.Bf3 Rd8 38.Kg2 Bb2 0–1

My second big lesson came against a Grandmaster who specialised in the system.

I remember that before this round one encounter I had stayed for tea with one of my chess students.  The Father of the student was willing to drive us both to the tournament in good time.  However, when backing off his drive he managed to bash into an much-loved family car belonging to the next door neighbour. This meant a considerable delay while ’details were exchanged’, despite originally having plenty of time. So I was a few minutes late and found I had been paired against Grandmaster Suba.  Shortly before the tournament, I had purchased a copy of Suba’s ‘Dynamic Chess Strategy’, which contained some fine examples of his favourite Hedgehog defence.  As my preparation had not exactly gone to plan that evening, I was somewhat pessimistic from the start.

After 12 moves we reached this position…

Sean  Marsh – Mikhail Suba

Redcar Open 1992

13.Bf1 (I was worried about 13 b3 b5) 13 …Nbd7 14.Be3 Ne5 (I had been hoping for…14…Nxe4 15.Nxe4 Bxe4 16.Bf4 Bb7 17.Nxe6 but Black has avoided that and once again shown how easy a target the c4 pawn can be) 15.b3 Nxe4 16.Nxe4 Bxe4 (You know those positions which aren’t quite bad enough to resign but offer no hope whatsoever?  Well, this is one of them) 17.f4 Nd7 18.Bf2 Nf6 19.Bh3 Kh8 20.Rad1 Rab8 21.g4 (Instead of this cod aggression, the meek 21 Bg2 may be officially the ‘best move’.  A swift demonstration down the long diagonal brings matters to a swift conclusion) 21…Ba8 22.Be3 Qb7 23.Kf2 Ne4+ 0–1

What a crush!  It is worth pointing out that both of my opponents have always been much stronger players than me and that a different opening wouldn’t have changed the result in either case.  Nevertheless, the games taught me a lot about the Hedgehog’s considerable potential, especially as both of my opponents were happy enough to share some of their knowledge in the postmortems.

Now that I am a member of the Mongoose family I am not so sure a Hedgehog can scare me any more.  Furthermore, as I armed with the excellent notes of GM Shipov, I definitely feel much better equipped to understand the thorny problems presented by the little beast.

Maybe one day I will show you some games in which 1 c4 ended with 1-0!

The eyes of the chess world will be firmly focused on London for the first half of December, where some of the world’s finest Grandmasters will battle it out at The Olympia in the brand new Chess Classic.

London is no stranger to big chess events. Top tournaments were the norm in the 1980s.  The famous USSR v ROW match was another great highlight in 1984 and Garry Kasparov played three different challengers for his World Championship title there in 1986 (Karpov), 1993 (Short) and 2000 (Kramnik).  I was fortunate enough to be able to go and watch live games from each of the three events.

In recent times it has been left to The Staunton Memorial to keep the spirit of top-level chess alive in London.  This year’s was the strongest to date, with no fewer than four former World Championship finalists taking part.

With the addition of the Chess Classic, 2009 should do down as a special year for British chess.  It is ironic that we should be treated to two great tournaments, given the current state of the English Chess Federation.  The trick is, as always, down to the endeavours of individuals rather than archaic associations.  Grandmaster Raymond Keene deserves great credit for the continuing success of the Staunton series and CHESS Magazine editor IM Malcolm Pein is the driving force behind the Chess Classic.

From December 8-15 we will be able to see a fantastic set of players in action.  Former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik will have happy memories of London and England’s top four players – Nigel Short, Michael Adams, David Howell and Luke McShane – should all feel very much at home.

The US Champion, ‘H-Bomb’ Hikaru Nakamura, will be there too and the field is completed in style with the addition of Magnus Carlsen and Ni Hua.

It’s a mouth-watering mix of styles and personalities.

There are other events too, including a 9-round FIDE-rated Open, which is already attracting some very strong Grandmaster entries.  Casual players will be able to have a go at the blitz events.  There will also be a simultaneous display by Guest of honour Viktor Korchnoi.

Further details can be found here:  www.londonchessclassic.com

I will be there for the duration of the event and will be reporting back here as soon as possible once the smoke has cleared.

I get this question a lot.  Many parents wonder when they should dust off the old chess board in the attic and introduce the game of kings and queens to their child.  I would venture to guess most parents wait too long.  In our household I started teaching our son when he was four.  The lessons were very short and fun, many occurred on the beach.  As he learned more and more of the basics the lessons became longer and longer.  Now that he is five and has more experience we can go 45 minutes without a problem.  He has also played in two tournaments which lasted over 1 hour.

Since we teach our son regularly our 2-year-old daughter started to hop up on the chair in front of the board in the dining room and declare “Chess!” in a quite demanding way.  At first glance this may seem to be an impossible task, but really, if you look at it, any familiarity with the game, with the pieces and board is good.  So what’s the first step?  Introduce and name the pieces.  This is true of any student of any age.  So I started with the pawn.

Holding up the pawn and said, “This is a pawn.  Can you say ‘pawn’?”  She eagerly repeated “Pawn!” and I handed it to her.  Then I picked up another pawn and asked, “What is this?”  “Pawn!” she chirped happily and received another pawn.  I let her place these pawns anywhere on the board that she wanted, after all they were her reward for a job well done.  I repeated this a few times and then I held up a rook.  “This is a rook,” I said.  “Rook,” she repeated and received the treasured piece.  We repeated this a few times and then I held up a pawn to see if she remembered that piece.  Seeing that she was having trouble I reminded her, “This is a pawn.”  “Pawn!” she exclaimed and took it from my hand.  I focused on these two pieces for a few minutes and then ended the lesson, making sure to tell her that she did a very good job and that I was really proud of her.  She, like her brother, request regular lessons from us.

A month or so later she can now name all the pieces.  Her brother helps to teach her.  This will greatly improve his understanding and appreciation of the game.  Any time a child can teach another a skill they will advance immeasurably in that area.

We actually caught a lesson on tape and posted it on YouTube so you can see them in action.  Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIaW0jCNKMc .  You can see here that she is still learning the difference between a king and a queen, but now she has that down.

The next step will be to go over the movement of the pieces.  Patience is the key.  It doesn’t matter how long it takes for your child to grasp the next step.  The only important thing is that he or she fully get one step before moving on.  Remember you are building a foundation of understanding.