Chess - The Scotsman 10/08/2012

How Does Black win?

THE Soviet Union dominated chess for so many years partly because it could tap the talent pool in such a vast area. But after the Soviet system collapsed, many of those players began playing for the independent countries that rose from the ashes.

Russia and Ukraine have often jockeyed for first place in international competitions. This week, GM Anton Korobov turned out to be the big surprise winner of the 81st Ukrainian Championship in Kiev. But even Ukraine, the world’s No 2 chess nation, can’t really compete with the world’s top dogs, Russia.

Their championship is normally in December or late November – but this year, owing to what originally was going to be a clash with the Fide Candidates tournament, it switched to August. But this left a tight schedule fitting around other elite tournaments, such as the Bilbao Grand Slam Final and the London Chess Classic, so the Candidates was wisely switched to the glaringly vacant period of the elite chess calendar of March 2013.

Defending six-time champion Peter Svidler, Alexander Grischuk and Sergey Karjakin are the favourites in the Russian Championship Superfinal in Moscow, but they all drew their first 5 rounds. And, just like the Ukraine Championship, we could have a surprise winner in Russia, as Evgeny Alekseev leads on 3.5/5.

S Sjugirov - E Alekseev

Russian Ch. Superfinal, (5)

Queen’s Indian Defence

1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 b6 4 g3 Bb7 5 Bg2 Be7 6 Nc3 Ne4 7 Bd2 Bf6 8 0–0 0–0 9 Rc1 c5 10 d5 exd5 11 cxd5 Nxd2 12 Nxd2 d6 13 Nde4 Be5 14 Qd2 Ba6 15 Rfe1 g6 16 g4 Qe7 17 f4 Bg7 18 g5 Nd7 19 a4 Rae8 20 e3 Rd8 21 h4 Rfe8 22 b3 Nf8 23 Ng3 Bc8 24 Bf3 h6 25 Nce4 Nh7 26 Qd3 f5 27 Nd2 hxg5 28 hxg5 Nxg5 29 fxg5 Qxg5 30 Ndf1 Kf7 31 Rc2 Rh8 32 Rg2 Be5 33 Qd2 Qf6 34 Ree2 Rh3 35 Bg4 Rh4 36 Bf3 Rh3 37 Bg4 fxg4 38 Ref2 Bf5 39 e4 Qh4! 40 exf5 g5 41 Qd3 Rh8 42 Re2 Bd4+ 43 Re3 Re8 44 Kf2 Rh1 45 Ke2 Qh3 46 Kf2 Rxf1+ 47 Kxf1 Bxe3 48 f6 Qh6 49 Re2 Qxf6+ 50 Qf5 Re5 0–1