6TH LONDON CHESS CLASSIC (6-14 DECEMBER 2014)
SUPER RAPIDPLAY OPEN (ROUNDS 1-5) - 6 DECEMBER 2014
At the halfway stage of the London Super Rapidplay Open, the six overnight leaders on 5/5 are Hikaru Nakamura
(USA), Fabiano Caruana (Italy), Valdimir Kramnik (Russia), Anish Giri (Netherlands), Matthew Sadler and David Howell
(both of England). Just behind on 4½ are Vishy Anand and Mickey Adams of the elite group, plus Simon Williamsand
Nick Pert of England and Eric Hansen of Canada. The final five rounds will be played on Sunday 7 December, starting
at 12 noon UK time.
Some of the names on the leader board already indicate that this is the open rapidplay to end all open rapidplays. A
reminder of the star names turning out...
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
Name
Fabiano Caruana
Viswanathan Anand
Hikaru Nakamura
Vladimir Kramnik
Anish Giri
Michael Adams
Country
Italy
India
USA
Russia
Netherlands
England
Age
22
44
26
39
20
43
Classical Rating
2829
2793
2775
2769
2768
2745
Classical Ranking
2
6
7
9
10
14
Rapid Rating
2858
2809
2800
2773
2674
2764
Rapid Ranking
1
6
9
13
70
17
Those are the sort of names you don’t see every day in an open competition. But for the immensely strong Qatar
International – which only finished on Thursday and featured both Kramnik and Giri – you could justifiably call it
unique. But in this high-stakes global Swiss tournament poker game, the London Super Rapidplay Open ‘saw’ Qatar’s
Kramnik and Giri, and ‘raised’ them Caruana, Anand, Nakamura and Adams. I think that counts as a bit more than a
‘full house’.
Given that the London Chess Classic is as much about the development of children’s chess as it is about super-GMs,
the tournament started with another novelty: pairings of the super-elite players (who will start playing their own
closed Classic event on Wednesday) and six under 18 players from the host nation. Of course, nobody expected any
shock results, with rating differences of around 1,000 points in some cases; it was just a once-in-a-lifetime chance for
promising juniors to sample the atmosphere of big-time chess, rather like the way children accompany adult players
onto the pitch to take part in the formalities before the start of a big international soccer match.
Naturally the super-GMs didn’t get where they are
today without being able to dispatch sub-2000-rated
players and most of the games were pretty effortless
on their part. One player, Theo Slade, aged 14, who
comes from the same part of the world as England’s
number one player, played a steady Adams-like game
to reach a minor piece endgame against Hikaru
Nakamura with material equality. Not at all a bad
effort but the American had the advantage of the two
bishops and delivered a master class in how to exploit
this positional advantage.
Elsewhere round one pairings were as per normal. There were no major surprises in the first round, except that
Danny Gormally was unable to grind out a rook and knight versus rook against an English amateur, Tony Stewart.
With GMs of the strength of Jon Speelman and Jonathan Parker lurking as low down as board 40 and beyond, the
second round was also a massive win for the higher rated. The only concessions of significance were Nigel Short’s
draw with Johan Salomon of Norway, while Russian GM Alex Cherniaev lost to Astrit Zymberi, an untitled 40-year-old
Albanian, rated 2116.
Daniel Prill, a young German player rated 2193, seemed to be fine against Vishy Anand going into a rook and pawn
endgame but then this happened...
D. Prill - V.Anand
Position after 42...Rb5
Equal, says Houdini, but Black has a little bit of pressure against the pawns on b2 and d5.
43.Rf2 (43.fxg5 fxg5 44.Rf2 Rb3+ 45.Kc4 is OK if you are able to calculate that the white king
is safe up the board.) 43...Rb3+ 44.Kc4?? (Oops. White could still be OK after 44.Ke4 with a
bit of care.) 44...Kd6 0-1 (Suddenly the game is over. White can’t prevent 45...b5 mate.)
The disparity in rating continued into round three, with Mark Hebden becoming
the second GM casualty to the Viking raiders managed by Simen Agdestein and
inspired by Magnus Carlsen (though, as far as I know, these chessboard marauders
don’t arrive on British shores in long boats or sport horned helmets as they did a millennium or so ago). The
victorious Norwegian in this case was Kristian Stuvik Holm.
There were distinct chances of some major casualties in this round, with Fabiano Caruana and Mickey Adams
fleetingly at the mercy of IMs Ali Mortazavi and James Cobb respectively.
J.Cobb - M.Adams
A.Mortazavi - F.Caruana
54.Kxf5? (Throwing away the win, though it’s not easy to see
at a rapidplay time control: 54.h5! Nxc3!? (54...b4
55.Ra5+ Kb6 56.cxb4 wins) 55.Rxc3 b4 56.Rc1! b3
57.Ke3!+–) 54...Nxc3 55.Rxc3 b4 56.Rc1 c3 57.Ke4 Kc4
58.Ke3?? (Throwing away the draw. 58.Rg1! saves White. If
58...b3 59.Rxg7 b2 60.Rc7+ Kb5 (60...Kb3 61.Rb7+ Kc4 is
a draw) 61.Rb7+ and the black king cannot try to stop the
checks by advancing his king with 61...Kc6?? as he loses
after 62.Kd3 Kxb7 63.Kc2 and the h-pawn cannot be
stopped.) 58...b3 59.Rg1 b2 0-1
Under heavy kingside pressure, the world number two goes
wrong. 35...Rd4? (35...Qd4 36.Qg5 Rde8 is some sort of
defence, though it’s still tricky.) 36.Qe7 e4 37.Rg3 Qf4 38.Rf1??
(White is seeing ghosts. Just the natural 38.fxg6! hxg6 and
now the obvious tactic 39.Rxg6+! turns out to be crushing
after 39...Kxg6 and now simply 40.Qxf8 when Black has
nothing. Maybe White wasted time trying to make the double
check 40.Bxe4+ work, against which Black plays 40...Kh5
when Black is winning.) 38...Qd6 (Black now has things back
under control.) 39.Qh4 (39.Qxd6 Rxd6 40.fxg6 fxg6 41.Rxf8
Kxf8 42.Bxe4 wins a piece but at the price of too many
pawns.) 39...e3 40.Qh5 Qxg3! 41.f6+ Kh8 42.Qh6 Qxg2+! 43.Kxg2
Rg8 44.Kf3 Re4 45.Rd1 Ree8 46.Re1 Re6 47.Rxe3 Rxf6+ 48.Ke2
Bd3+ 0-1
Round four saw the first half points conceded by the London Classic’s aristocracy. Vishy Anand was held by the
appropriately-named Jacek Stopa, an IM from Poland, while Mickey Adams was the one who had to do the stopping,
fighting his way to a draw against Jahongir Vakhidov, a 2560-rated GM from Uzbekistan. Further down the board
order, Loek Van Wely was beaten by someone rated 222 points below himself. But this hardly rated as a surprise as
the player in question was a former Candidates’ semi-finalist who was once ranked fourth in the world, namely Jon
Speelman. Jon is what I like to call a ‘super-grandmaster emeritus’. He’s still got it – and is quite prepared to use it,
too.
However, the centrepiece of round four was undoubtedly Hikaru Nakamura’s lucky escape from the clutches of
English IM James Adair after the American had lost a piece to a schoolboy error in the opening. James seemed to be
cruising to victory with his extra piece but he then lost concentration and let slip first the win and then the draw. I
suppose this underlines what a lottery rapidplay chess can be. One can only have the deepest sympathy for the
young Englishman.
Round five, and the big guns were starting to point menacingly in each others’ directions. This was a remarkable
round for the host nation, with players on the top six boards facing (in most cases) world-class opposition. This could
be the nearest thing we ever see to an ‘England versus the Rest of the World’ match. With Nakamura, Kramnik,
Caruana and Giri forming the nucleus of the ‘world team’, the hosts were never going to get out alive, but wins from
Messrs Sadler and Howell against lesser-known names ensured the ‘match’ was only lost by 2-4. Elsewhere, Simon
Williams, who himself had conceded a draw to well-known English organiser Adams Raoof in an earlier round,
turned giant-killer himself, beating Alex Lenderman, who outrates him by some 200 points.
There was a real buzz around Olympia today, with 400 players taking part in this stellar tournament, many of them
young children who had scarcely played a tournament before in their lives. Those of us very long in the tooth can
remember when 1,000 players turned out in London-based weekenders, back in the heady days of the Fischer boom,
and this came close to that. It shows we are heading in the right direction. Incidentally, even our overworked
tournament director Malcolm Pein somehow found time to play three of the five rounds.
Sunday should see a tense denouement to this fascinating competition. Do follow the action on our website, and
remember that there will be live chess all the way through next week, with live commentary from Wednesday when
the Classic proper starts.
As is standard at the London Classic, spectators will of course be able to enjoy the action on the official website.
For information on the event, please e-mail us at info@londonchessclassic.com
John Saunders
Press Officer
Press Officer: John Saunders, email chesspress@londonchessclassic.com, phone +44 (0)7777 664111
Website : www.londonchessclassic.com Twitter: @LondonClassic2014