Friday 6 May 2016

Boom goes the dynamite! (twice)

Yesterday saw an absolute cracker of a game between Alexi Shirov and Sam Sevian. Playing a slightly unusual line of the Scotch, Shirov followed his patented plan of seeing which side of the board his opponent puts his king and then throwing all his pieces at it. The fun started with a rook sacrifice on g7, and it looked like it was to be another brilliant win to Shirov. However two can play that game and Sevian decided to follow the same script, sacrificing his rook on b2 after Shirov castled queenside. All things being equal (ie you sac, I sac), the game should have remained equal (37.Qe7+), but Shirov decided to push for more, and Sevian pounced. After 37.Nb5, Sevian reeled off 010 checks in a row, and Shirov was forced to resign a move before mate.

Shirov,Alexei (2686) - Sevian,Samuel (2589) [C45]
Hasselbacken Open 2016 Stockholm SWE (5.4), 04.05.2016


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