Chess - The Scotsman 04/07/2012

By JOHN HENDERSON
Published on 04/07/2012 00:00

THE story is told of a Chinese peasant invited to the emperor’s palace to be rewarded for his loyal service. Would he rather be paid in gold or rice? Seeing the emperor at his chessboard, the peasant chooses rice, requesting one grain for the first square, two for the second, four for the third, and so on. Laughing at the man’s stupidity, the emperor agrees but discovers that by the 64th square the multiplying reward now totals more than all the rice in China.

And like the fabled rice story, the Chinese league continues to rise at an exponential rate, and has grown into a marathon event held over 22 rounds and shared between the cities of Beijing (28 Apr - 1 May), Taizhou (27-29 June), Shanghai (11-13 July), Shenzhen (14-17 Sept), Hangzhou (6-9 Oct) and Tianjin (19-22 Dec).

The former Russian champion, Alexander Motylev is one of a very small band of non-Chinese players who have committed to the long-haul of playing in the league, and in the Beijing leg he was involved in two exciting back-to-back games.

In today’s diagram, Motylev delivered the devastating coup de grâce with 19 Bxa6! to beat China’s leading player, Wang Hao, who immediately resigned as 19...Kxa6 (19...Bxa6 20 Nc6 checkmate) 20 Ke2! Bb4 21 Rxb4 Ka7 22 Nc6+! Bxc6 23 Ra1+ followed by checkmate. But with China being a nation potentially full of many more as-yet unknown chess stars, in the next round he was on the receiving end of a mauling by one of those “unknown” and lowly rated juniors, Ma Qun.

A Motylev - Ma Qun

Chinese Team Ch., (4)

King’s Gambit Accepted

1 e4 e5 2 Nc3 Nc6 3 f4 exf4 4 Nf3 g5 5 h4 g4 6 Ng1 d6 7 d4 Bh6 8 Nge2 f3 9 Nf4 Nf6 10 Qd3 Bd7 11 a3 Rg8 12 Ne6 fxe6 13 Bxh6 e5 14 d5 Nd4 15 0–0–0 Nh5 16 Bg5 Rxg5 17 hxg5 Qxg5+ 18 Qd2 Qg6 19 gxf3 g3 20 Bg2 Nf4 21 Kb1 0–0–0 22 Rh4 Rf8 23 Rdh1 h5 24 b3 b6 25 Kb2 Nxg2 26 Qxg2 Rxf3 27 Nd1 Bg4 28 Re1 Qg5 29 Rhh1 h4 30 Ref1 Kb7 31 Rhg1 h3 0–1