Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2014 Monday 27 January - Friday 6 February 2014 Round 2 Report: 30 January by John Saunders WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH WIN THE ENDGAME The second round of the Tradewise Gibraltar Masters on 29 January at the Caleta Hotel brought together the elite players with fellow grandmasters for the first time. The tougher opposition meant that the top players had to work harder for their points, and there were a number of interesting endgames played. Top seed Mickey Adams was soon into his stride, showing the sort of class which has kept him in the world's elite for the entire century so far. Untypically he didn't need to grind out an endgame to get his point, simply generating enough middlegame pressure to get his opponent to crack. Gibraltar Masters 2014, Round 2 M.Adams (2754) - M.Al-Sayed (2476) 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 Nbd7 7.Be2 e6 8.g4 Mickey is patriotic, playing the English Attack against the Najdorf. 8...h6 9.f4 g5 10.f5 Ne5 11.h3 b5 12.a3 A lot of pawns have moved, which in the long term means it might be hard for the kings to find a safe billet. This is quite a sharp variation, requiring great positional precision. 12...Qe7 At first sight strange, but 'book'. The queen overprotects the e6^-pawn so that the c8 bishop can move to b7, while the g7 bishop is going to be developed at g7. 13.fxe6 fxe6 14.Nf3 Nfd7 14...Bb7!? 15.Nxe5 dxe5 16.Bd3 Qc7 17.h4 Bc5 18.Qe2 Bxe3 19.Qxe3 Nxg4 20.Qg3 eventually led to a draw in a game between Ponomariov and Topalov in 2013. 15.Nxe5 Nxe5 16.Qd2 Bb7 16...Bg7 17.0-0-0 Nf7 18.Bd4 Be5 19.Bxe5 dxe5 20.h4 gxh4 21.Qe1 was played in the seventh game of the world championship match between Hou Yifan and Anna Ushenina in 2013, and White went on to win. 17.0-0-0 One positional plus for White is that his king has a safe post on c1. In return, Black's knight on e5 has a good square, while his bishop keeps an eye on White's isolated e-pawn. 17...Rd8 18.Kb1 Bg7 19.Rhf1 Nf7 20.Bd4 0-0 21.Bxg7 Kxg7 22.Qd4+ Ne5 23.Rxf8 Qxf8 24.a4 White generates pressure on the queenside. 24...bxa4 25.Nxa4 Kg8 26.Nb6 White is playing to swing the knight round to challenge the opposing knight on e5 but this is also in keeping with the usual Adams plan of stopping his opponent from moving his pieces. 26...Qg7 27.Nc4 Nf7 The snag with 27...Nxc4 is that 28.Bxc4 Qxd4 allows the intermezzo move 29.Bxe6+, winning a pawn. 28.Qe3 A typical Adams 'wait and see' move. It was good enough to cause his opponent to think for 15 minutes and get himself further into time trouble. 28...Bc6 29.e5! d5 Black has to give up a pawn after this. The main alternative was 29...dxe5 30.Rxd8+ Nxd8 31.Nxe5 Bb7 32.c4 but even then White's plan of advancing the c-pawn is very hard to meet. 30.Qb6! Rc8 31.Qxa6 Rc7 32.Qb6 Nxe5 The best Black could do was probably 32...Rc8 33.Nd6 Nxd6 34.exd6 Qd7 35.Ba6 Rd8 36.Re1 Qxd6 37.Rxe6! Qxe6 38.Qxd8+ and take his chances a pawn down in a queen and bishop endgame, but the text loses quickly. 33.Qb8+! Kh7 34.Nxe5 Qxe5 35.Rf1! 1-0 The obvious 35.Bd3+ is also quite good but this sets up a killing pin on the b8-h2 diagonal. If 35...Kg7 36.Qf8+ Kh7 and now 37.Bd3+ wins the queen. Second seed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (or 'MVL', as he is generally known – making him very popular with your long-name-phobic reporter) was paired with English GM Glenn Flear. This was, in a sense, an all-French pairing. Glenn has long been resident in Montpellier in France. Those of us well stricken in years will recall his remarkable achievement in 1986 when he finished first in a very strong London tournament (Spassky, Short, Larsen, Polugaevsky, Portisch, Nunn, etc) despite being a rank outsider. He was drafted in as a last-minute substitute and got married on a rest day during the tournament to many-times French women's champion Christine Leroy. Seems like yesterday to me and it comes as a shock to think that it was 28 years ago, and some years before MVL was born (he was fruit of the vintage crop of chessplayers born in 1990). But that was then and this is now. Like Mickey on top board, MVL established a positional grip on the position leading up to the time control. This was the denouement. Gibraltar Masters 2014, Round 2 G.Flear (2471) - M.Vachier-Lagrave (2745) White has a difficult position, with just 6 minutes left (plus increments) left for his final ten moves. 31.Qg3 Aiming for a queenless opposite bishop endgame in return for a pawn. 31...Qxg3 Black could possibly do better than this with 31...Rf4, intending h5-h4 and pushing the white queen into a corner on h3. 32.hxg3 Bxg3 33.Be4 Kc7 34.Kg1 g5 35.Rc1?? White is still alive after 35.Rd3 though it wouldn't be easy. The text allows Black an instant win. 35...Bf2+! 0-1 36.Kh2 Rf4 wins the bishop because of the threat of Rh4 mate. 37.Rxc6+ Kd7 wouldn't help. And 36.Kf1 loses the rook to 36...Be3+. Third seed Vassily Ivanchuk found himself held to a draw by the young Spanish GM David Lariño Nieto. Tweeting (in Spanish), Leontxo García commented that Lariño was a bit like Ivanchuk both in terms of genius and absent-mindedness, so they were well matched. Last year's winner Nikita Vitiugov seems to have taken up where he left off in 2013. Luis Galego is an experienced Portuguese GM and he put up a stout defence until they reached a bishop versus knight endgame, with the Russian having the bishop. It was actually a good example of how an active bishop can trump a knight in such circumstances. Gibraltar Masters 2014, Round 2 L.Galego (2465) - N.Vitiugov (2737) White had around 2 minutes remaining, while Black had 27 minutes. They would receive another 15 minutes each at move 60, and of course a 30-second increment per move. White has two linked problems: how best to defend the g-pawn whilst preventing the black king from gaining an entry. 51.Nf3 It is possible that 51.Nh3 is a better set-up. It would leave the white king to occupy the f3 square when manoeuvring. Of course, such niceties are hard enough to evaluate at the best of times, but even more so when your time is running short. 51...Bb2 52.Kf4 52.Kd3 Bc1 53.Kc2 Bf4 54.Kd3 Ke6 55.Ke4 Bc1 56.Kd3 Kf5 57.b4!? could be playable. 52...Bc1+ 53.Kg4 Be3 Black took ten minutes over this. It leaves White with a tough decision. 54.Kh4? This loses by force. There is a computer line which looks improbable to a human eye but may be OK: 54.Ne1!? Ke5 55.b4 cxb4 56.Nd3+ Kd6 57.Nxb4 a5 58.Nd3 Ke6 59.c5 Kd5 60.c6! and it is possible that White has enough to survive. 54...Ke6 55.Kg4 55...a5! Zugzwang. White must cede entry to the black king on either e5 or f5, fatally in both cases. 56.Ne1 56.Kg3 Kf5 57.Kh4 Bf4 and it is zugzwang again. 56...Ke5 57.Nc2 Bc1 58.Ne1 Ke4 59.Nf3 Be3 60.Ne1 60.Kg3 Bf4+ 61.Kg4 Bd6 leads to a very simple win. 60...Bd2 61.Nf3 Bc3 62.Ng1 Kd3 0-1 Ukrainian super-GM Pavel Eljanov and top German woman player Elisabeth Paehtz contested a very exciting game which ended in a draw. I am going to skip trying to annotate since Elisabeth herself, in tandem with Nigel Short, gave a superb master class based on it which is available from the tournament website. Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia was well held by the Belgian IM Stefan Docx, but Gata Kamsky was once again in good form, using his bishop pair to good effect to defeat WGM Guo Qi of China. Paco Vallejo Pons gave us another endgame feast to enjoy. The opposite-coloured bishop endgame looked drawn on a very superficial level but Paco found a way to make it very hard for his youthful compatriot, David Pardo Simón. Gibraltar Masters 2014, Round 2 D.Pardo Simón (2450) - P.Vallejo Pons (2707) As a spectator, you count the pawns (equal) and note a key positional factor (opposite-coloured bishops) and immediately think 'draw'. But chess is rarely that simple when 2700+ rated players are involved. 39...Be4 It's tempting to go after the c4 pawn with 39...Ba6 but Black wants to prevent the possibility of 40.e4 while he can, and also tie down the white king to the defence of the g2-pawn. The capture of the c4 pawn can wait. 40.hxg4 hxg4 41.Kf2 Bd3 42.Kg3 Ke8 43.Kh4 Kd7 44.g3? Oops - this is the chessboard equivalent of slamming the door to go out and realising you've left your keys indoors.