Chess: How does black win? 03/06/2011

WE ALL whined about the high percentage of draws during the candidates matches. But the ingredient missing to mix things up was an inventive and entertaining player such as the Latvian-born Spanish GM Alexei Shirov – now he's a player with fighting spirit who certainly would have livened up the proceedings in Kazan.

Shirov always lives up to his autobiography title of "Fire on Board", and in an earlier column during the candidates we witnessed him skating on thin ice by opting to play a King's Gambit against the Russian GM Evgeny Alekseev in the Lublin Union Memorial round-robin grandmaster tournament in Poland.

That game was played in the penultimate round, with first place on the line, adding to the drama. It helped Shirov go on to take clear first with 5/7 half a point clear of the field. His three wins in the tournament were vintage Shirov – and today we show another, with a bolt from the blue in today's diagram with 24 ...Rxa2!!

Everyone viewing online thought this was a mistake, and white could simply take the rook and likely draw – but Shirov hadn't missed a trick, as the engines soon discovered: 25 Kxa2 Qa8+ 26 Kb1 Qa3 27 Nc5 Ra8 28 Qd4 Qa2+ 29 Kc1 Nd7!! 30 fxe6 (30 Nxd7 b3! 31 Qc3 d4! wins) 30 ..fxe6 31 Qb2 Nxc5 32 Qxa2 Rxa2 and white has too many weaknesses to survive the ending.

Final standings: 1. A Shirov (Spain), 5/7; 2-3. B Garchev (Russia) and S Zhigalko (Belarus), 4.5; 4-5. M Roiz (Israel) and K Sasikiran (India), 4; 6-8. B Socko (Poland), R Wojtaszek (Poland) and E Alekseev (Russia), 2.

S Zhigalko - A Shirov

3rd Lublin Memorial, (3)

French Defence

1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 e5 Nfd7 5 f4 c5 6 Nf3 Nc6 7 Be3 cxd4 8 Nxd4 Bc5 9 Qd2 0–0 10 0–0–0 a6 11 Nb3 Bb4 12 Bd3 b5 13 Qf2 Bxc3 14 bxc3 Bb7 15 Rhg1 Rc8 16 g4 b4 17 Bd2 a5 18 cxb4 Nxb4 19 Bxb4 axb4 20 Rde1 Ra8 21 Kb1 Ba6 22 f5 Bxd3 23 cxd3 Nb6 24 Qf4 Rxa2!! 25 f6 Qc8 26 Rc1 Qa6 27 Qxb4 Rxh2 28 Rc2 Rxc2 29 Kxc2 Qa2+ 0–1