Monday 1 February 2010

Carlsen wins Shirov's tournament

While the win by Magnus Carlsen in the 2010 Corus Tournament is yet another outstanding result for the undoubtedly future World Champion, in later years this event may be more remembered as Shirov's tournament. Not for his placing in the event (equal second with Kramnik), but for both how he started the event, and then how he finished it.
After beginning the tournament with 5/5, Shirov began to slow up before two losses allowed the other contenders to catch up. However he almost had a chance to reclaim a share of first place if he could win his final round game against Dominguez. Following the standard Shirov strategy of waiting until the opponent commits his king, and then going the hack, he almost pulled it off in game full of sacrifices. However the calculation ate up all of Shirov's time and he played it safe by agreeing to a draw. Unfortunately in the position where he halved the point, he had a winning move. This missed half point allowed Carlsen to take first place after he drew a messy game with Caruana.

Shirov - Dominguez
Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (4), 19.01.2010
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 Nbd7 7.Bc4 Qb6 8.Bb3 e6 9.Qd2 Be7 10.0-0-0 Nc5 11.f3 Qc7 12.Kb1 0-0 13.g4 b5 14.a3 Rb8 15.h4 Bd7 16.Bxf6 Bxf6 17.g5 Bd8 18.h5 a5 19.g6 Nxb3 20.Nxb3 fxg6 21.hxg6 h6 22.Nxa5 Rxf3 23.e5 Be8 24.exd6 Qxa5 25.Rxh6 gxh6 26.Qxh6 Bf6 27.d7 Bxc3 28.dxe8Q+ Rxe8 29.Qh1 Re7 30.Qxf3 Bg7 (D) 1/2-1/2

31.b4 wins on the spot, as the quuen is driven away from the defence of a8 eg 31. ... Qc7 32.Qa8+ Bf8 33.Rf1 winning.

2 comments:

Paul said...

Sometimes a game of Chess will break your heart!

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