Gibraltar Masters 2018
Caleta, England
Jan. 22-Feb. 1, 2018
Final Top Standings
1-7. GM Hikaru Nakamura USA 2781, GM Richard Rapport HUN 2700, GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave FRA 2793, Levon Aronian ARM 2797, GM Nikita Vitiugov RUS 2732, GM Michael Adams ENG 2709, GM Le Quang Liem VIE 2737, 7.5/10
8-25. GM David Howell ENG 2682, GM Abhijeet Gupta IND 2610, GM Debashis Das IND 2501, GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda POL 2724, GM Grigoriy Oparin RUS 2607, GM Wang Hao CHN 2711, GM Daniele Vocaturo ITA 2609, GM Boris Gelfand ISR 2697, GM S.P. Sethuraman IND 2646, GM Emil Sutovsky ISR 2673, GM Daniil Dubov RUS 2696, Lance Henderson dela Fuente ESP 2429, GM Ori Kobo ISR 2477, GM Ivan Cheparinov BUL 2699, GM Alexander Motylev RUS 2673, GM S.L. Narayanan IND 2573, GM Vladimir Epishin RUS 2536, GM Falko Bindrich GER 2605, 7.0/10
Total of 276 players
Time Control: 100 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 50 minutes for the next 20 moves then 15 minutes play-to-finish with 30 seconds added to your clock after every move starting move 1.
Gladys Knight:
“Hey you know everybody’s talkin’ about the good old days. Everybody the good old days the good old days. Well, let’s talk about the good old days.
“Come to think about it as bad as we think they are these will become the good old days of our children. Why don’t we try to remember the kind of September when life was slow and oh so mellow. Try to remember and if you remember then follow.
“Why does it always seem the past is better. We look back and think the winters were warmer, the grass was greener, the skies were bluer and the smiles were brighter.”
I recently watched a video of Gladys Knight and, boy, past 70 years of age she can still really sing and belt out a good one. She is listed on Rolling Stone’s list of the greatest singers of all time.
But talking about memories, it is quite the opposite in chess. Many people believe that the old masters would not be able to compete with the top players of today. I am not so sure about that. Carl Schlechter, for example, someone who many young players do not know, tied a match for the world championship against Emanuel Lasker in 1910. He was the one who prepared the eighth and final edition of the famous Handbuch des Schachspiels openings treatise, which was published in eleven parts between 1912 and 1916 and totaled 1,040 pages. Do you think he is inferior in opening knowledge to these whiz kids today?
Let us look at the following game played between Maxime Vachier Lagrave and Nino Batsiashvili, and compare it against Bogoljubow vs Alexander Alekhine.
I have always had a great deal of respect for “the Frenchman with two names” GM Maxime Vachier Lagrave (FRA 2793, ranked no. 6 in the world). Still only 27 years old, he is an aggressive matador, the world’s greatest authority in the Sicilian Najdorf, and no matter how good, bad, boring the position on the board might be he always has some hidden tactic you have to watch out for.
Vachier Lagrave, Maxime (2793) — Batsiashvili, Nino (2504) [C76]
Gibraltar Masters 2018 Catalan Bay GIB (4.4), 26.01.2018
WGM Nino Batsiashvili is a Woman Grandmaster (WGM), former Women’s Champion of Georgia, the strongest chess country for women in the world, and, in 2015, 2nd placer in the Women’s European Individual Chess Championship.
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 d6 5.c3 Bd7 6.d4 g6 7.Bg5
Bogoljubow played his move against Alekhine in the 22nd game of their 1929 match and he himself gave it a question mark. Why? Because in their game Alekhine responded f7–f6, Ng8–h6–f7, Bg7 and Black had no problems in the opening. I will be showing you that game later.
7…f6 8.Be3 Nh6 9.Bb3 Bg7
Black’s initiative quickly fizzles out after 9…Ng4 10.Bd2 Na5 11.Bc2 Nc4 12.Bc1 soon both the knight will ingloriously return home with the support of the other pieces.
10.a4 Qe7 11.0–0 Nd8 12.c4!
MVL is going to put his knight on d5.
12…Ng4 13.Bc1 exd4
Vacating the e5 square for her pieces.
14.Nxd4 Nc6?
The correct way is 14…Qe5!? 15.Nf3 (15.f4 inflicts on White a new weakness on the g1–a7 diagonal which Black can immediately exploit with 15…Qc5) 15…Qh5 and now Black completely equalizes after 16.h3 Ne5! 17.Nxe5 Qxd1 18.Rxd1 dxe5.
15.Nc3 Qe5
The same maneuver but this time with knights on c6 and c3. Does it make a difference?
16.Nf3 Qh5 <D>
Position after 16…Qh5
17.c5!!
The big difference. You will see the point next move.
17…Qxc5 18.Nd5
Now the Black’s queen cannot go back to the kingside and in fact may be in danger of being trapped.
18…Ne7
Here is one way the Black queen can get trapped: 18…0–0–0 19.h3 Nge5 20.Be3 Qa5 21.Nxe5 dxe5 22.Rc1! followed by Bd2.
19.h3 Nxd5
And here is another 19…Ne5 20.Be3 Qa5 21.Bd2 Nxf3+ 22.gxf3 Qc5 23.Rc1 Black has to give up her queen to destroy the White knight. Otherwise it will be a rout: 23…Qa7 24.Nxc7+ Kf8 25.Be3 Qb8 26.Qxd6 mate cannot be prevented.
20.Bxd5 c6 21.b4! Qb6
Taking the pawn 21…Qxb4 allows White to put his rook on the 7th rank. 22.Ba2 Ne5 23.Rb1 Qc3 24.Nxe5 Qxe5 25.Rxb7 Black is still up a pawn but her position is very bad, might be losing already.
22.Bb3 Ne5 23.Nxe5 fxe5
[23…dxe5 24.Bf7+! Ke7 (Or 24…Kxf7 25.Qxd7+ Kg8 26.Be3 Qxb4 27.Rab1) 25.Be3 Qc7 26.Qb3 b6 27.a5! White’s dark-squared bishop will soon be settling on c5]
24.Qxd6 Qd4 25.Qc7! Rf8
If 25…Qxa1 26.Rd1 Rd8 27.Bg5 Qxd1+ 28.Bxd1 0–0 29.Bb3+ Kh8 30.Bxd8.
26.Bg5 Bf6 27.Bxf6 Rxf6 28.Rad1 1–0
After Alexander Alekhine won the world championship against Jose Capablanca in 1927 he refused to give the great Cuban a rematch and instead defended his title against Efim Bogoljubow in 1929. Bogo was an extraordinarily strong player, but clearly Capa’s inferior. Alekhine outclassed him 15.5-9.5 (11 wins, 9 draws, 5 losses). The following was his final win.
Bogoljubow, Efim — Alekhine, Alexander [C76]
World Championship 14th GER/NLD (22), 03.11.1929
This match was scheduled in several venues in Germany and the Netherlands. This particular game was played in Amsterdam.
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 d6 5.c3 Bd7 6.d4 g6 7.Bg5
Alekhine had an interesting comment here: “As the following shows, White has no means of exploiting the b3–g8 diagonal, and, on the other hand, f7 will prove a suitable square for Black’s king knight. It looks as though, after 5.c3, White’s opening advantage is bound to vanish within a few moves and that, therefore, the usual 5.B×c6+, followed by 6.d4, offers him more fighting chances.”
7…f6 8.Be3 Nh6 9.0–0 Bg7 10.h3 Nf7 11.Nbd2 0–0 12.dxe5?!
Another point of divergence. Most contemporary annotators have said that relieving the tension in the center is a mistake, but this is what Aleklhine has to say: “White — rightly — recognizes that a further maintaining of the tension in the center would be rather to Black’s advantage and aims at simplification. The problem of the defense has been solved in this game in quite a satisfactory way.”
12…dxe5 13.Bc5 Re8 14.Bb3 b6 15.Be3 Qe7 16.Qe2 Ncd8 17.Bd5 Bc6
[17…c6? loses a pawn to 18.Bxf7+ Nxf7 19.Bxb6]
18.c4 Bxd5 19.cxd5 f5 20.Nc4 Nb7 21.Rac1 Rad8
Alekhine: Deliberately permitting the following transaction that only apparently relieves White from his troubles in the center.
22.d6?! Nbxd6 23.Nxd6 Rxd6 24.Qxa6 Qd7! 25.Rc2 c5 26.a4 f4! 27.Bd2 g5
With the follow-up Rd6–g6, h7–h5 and g5–g4..
28.Qb5?! Qxb5 29.axb5 Rd3!
The idea behind this move is not so apparent, but it is to vacate the d6–square for his knight.
30.Ra1 Nd6 31.Ra6 Rb8 32.Bc3 Nxe4 33.Bxe5 Bxe5 34.Nxe5 Rd1+ 35.Kh2 Nd2!
Threatening mate starting with Nf1+.
36.h4 Re8! 37.Nf3 Nxf3+ 38.gxf3 Ree1 39.Kh3 h5! 0–1
Mate can no longer be prevented.
So what do you think? The old masters have a thing or two to say about “modern” opening theory as well.
Bobby Ang is a founding member of the National Chess Federation of the Philippines and its first Executive Director. A Certified Public Accountant, he taught accounting in the University of Santo Tomas for 25 years and is currently Chief Audit Executive of the Equicom Group of Companies.
