Chess: How does White win?

RATHER than being the highlight of the year, as we would normally expect, the candidates' matches in Kazan largely bored chess fans who instead were left collectively wondering what Ukraine's Vassily Ivanchuk was up to during the 46th Capablanca Memorial in Havana.

Ivanchuk is supremely talented and was tipped to become world champion from a very early age, but he had the gross misfortune to see his peak coincide with the dominance of Garry Kasparov. Ivanchuk was also regarded as a "choker": for one so gifted, he had it in himself to press the self-destruct button during world championship and major elite events.

Ranked No 5 in the world, Ivanchuk is the top-rated player who failed to qualify for the final eight in the candidates' – a great loss as generally he plays in a more enterprising style than anything we witnessed in Kazan.

Now 42 and nearing the end of his career, we can only reflect on what could have been had he the nerves to handle elite and world championship events.

But just to prove that chess games at the elite level do not have to be boring draws Ivanchuk stormed home, winning his last three games to snatch a record-breaking fifth Capablanca Memorial title. It was also a tournament that showed the positive side to chess, with lots of good, fighting games on offer. We saw one of Ivanchuk's fine wins yesterday, but here's another from the young Czech Republic grandmaster David Navara.

D Navara - L Bruzon

46th Capablanca Memorial, (2)

Semi-Slav Defence

1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 Qc2 dxc4 5 Qxc4 Bf5 6 g3 e6 7 Bg2 Be7 8 0–0 Nbd7 9 e3 0–0 10 Rd1 Qc7 11 Nc3 e5 12 e4 Bg4 13 Be3 exd4 14 Bxd4 Bxf3 15 Bxf3 Ne5 16 Qe2 Nxf3+ 17 Qxf3 Rad8 18 Rac1 Qa5 19 a3 Rfe8 20 Kg2 h6 21 h4 a6 22 Rc2 Nh7 23 e5 Nf8 24 Ne4 Ne6 25 Bc3 Qa4 26 Rcd2 Rxd2 27 Rxd2 c5 28 b3 Qxb3 29 Rb2 Qxa3 30 Rxb7 Nd4 31 Qg4 Qa4 32 Rxe7! Rxe7 33 Nf6+ 1–0