The Best Game Mamedyarov Ever Saw, and Where He Should Have Seen It
Soon after reopening the blog, I listed the games I planned to cover for the next few ChessBase shows. One of the games was J. Polgar-Mamedyarov, Bled (ol) 2002. Polgar won quickly in a sharp line of the Open Ruy, and since Mamedyarov himself (now the world's fourth-highest rated player) called this the best chess game he ever saw (New in Chess 2006/8, page 106, it seemed like an excellent choice for the show.
I planned to cover the game this week, but when I did a little research my opinion changed dramatically. It's a nice game, sure, and Polgar can be moderately proud of the TWO MOVES she contributed to it.
The game began like this: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Nxe4 6.d4 b5 7.Bb3 d5 8.dxe5 Be6 9.Nbd2 Nc5 10.c3 d4 11.Ng5
A Zaitsev idea, sometimes misattributed to Tal, which was first played by Karpov against Korchnoi in their 1978 World Championship match.
11...Bd5?
Another move to avoid is 11...dxc3?!, as played in the spectacular 10th game of the Kasparov-Anand match (but see Naiditsch-Mamedyarov, Pamplona 2004), but 11...Qxg5 is considered best, I believe, leading to a complex ending after 12.Qf3 O-O-O 13.Bxe6+ fxe6 14.Qxc6 Qxe5 15.b4 Qd5 16.Qxd5 exd5 17.bxc5 dxc3 18.Nb3 d4 19.Ba3.
12.Nxf7! Kxf7 13.Qf3+ Ke6 14.Qg4+ Kf7
14...Ke7 was played in Svidler-Anand, Dos Hermanas 1999. White obtained a big advantage (or at least an initiative so dangerous Anand couldn't handle it and no one has repeated the line with Black) with 15.e6! Bxe6 16.Re1 Qd7 17.Bxe6 Nxe6 18.Nf3 Re8 19.Ng5 Ncd8 20.Bd2. Svidler secured a winning position, maintained it after some inaccuracies, and...offered a draw when a study-like win was available.
Back to our main game. 14...Kf7 was Mamedyarov's attempt to improve on Anand's play, but it didn't work:
15.Qf5+!
Technically a novelty, but only because 14...Kf7 had been played in a 2000 between a pair of amateurs. White played 15.e6+ in that game (and won: Coelho (2164) - Januario Pereira (2093), 1-0, 27).
15...Ke7 16.e6! Bxe6 17.Re1! Qd6 18.Bxe6 Nxe6 19.Ne4 Qe5 20.Bg5+ Kd7 21.Nc5+ Bxc5 22.Qf7+ Kd6 23.Be7+ 1-0
Black suffers massive material losses after 23...Kd7 24.Bxc5+, or checkmate after 23...Nxe7 24.Rxe5 Kxe5 25.Re1+ Kd5 26.Qxe6# or 23...Kd5 24.Qf3+ Kc4 25.b3#.
It's all very pretty, so what am I grousing about? Just this: in GM V. Mikhalevski's notes to the Svidler-Anand game, produced and published all the way back in 1999, the whole line that became Polgar-Mamedyarov is given through Black's 21st move, when Mikhalevski gives the less incisive but still completely winning 22.Rxe5 Nxe5 23.Qxe5+-. Polgar's 22nd move is a definite improvement, but we're gilding the lily here: Black is dead in either case.
A very strange game - was Mamedyarov just bluffing? He was already strong enough to have analyzed 14...Kf7 to a loss - Mikhalevski had done so three years before, and White's moves, while nice, are not that difficult to find. (The far lower-rated Coelho found the crucial e6 idea, but missed the preliminary finesse 15.Qf5+.)
The strangest thing of all, however, is Mamedyarov's lack of research. Over the last year or so, I've come to notice, with some regularity, just how uninterested many strong GMs are in others' commentaries. Up to a point I think that's right: one should ideally try to figure things out for oneself and to form one's own opinions about a position. And it's often true that these strong GMs have a better understanding of what's going on than the IMs and weaker GMs before them.
Although that's sensible, it's not the whole story. Having done one's own work, why not compare it with what's already there? It is possible one has missed something! Further, even if A is stronger than B, B might have spent more time on the position than A, or be especially insightful in that sort of position, or have information from other, stronger players, etc. It's impossible (and undesirable) to check every source, but if I were a chess professional I can't imagine not checking my repertoire ideas with ChessBase Magazine/Mega2xxx. (In case you think this whole post is intended as an ad for ChessBase, I'd include New in Chess Yearbooks, Informants, and perhaps Chesspublishing.com in the essentials list as well.)
As I tell the "geniuses" who boast that they don't read chess literature, they're welcome to waste their time. I prefer to learn from other people's mistakes, when possible.
