The Chess Mind Corus: Round 10

Topalov wins again! Utilizing some deep preparation on the White side of a Queen's Indian against Aronian, Topalov's first exchange sac offered a promising middlegame, and the second promised the full point. A fine game, good enough for the clear lead, as with Black Anand equalized against Mamedyarov, but no more.

Only two other games were decisive: van Wely's bishop pair left Leko under pressure that eventually proved too much, while Bacrot's large opening advantage gradually led to his defeat of the slumping Kamsky.

Standings after Round 10:

Topalov 7.5 (TPR 2888)
Anand 7
Adams, Gelfand 6
Ivanchuk, Karjakin 5.5
van Wely 5
Aronian, Leko, Tiviakov 4.5
Bacrot, Mamedyarov 4
Sokolov 3.5
Kamsky 2.5 (TPR 2538)

Pairings for Round 11 (on Friday):

Karjakin-Sokolov
Aronian-Gelfand
Ivanchuk-Topalov
Anand-Tiviakov
Leko-Mamedyarov
Kamsky-van Wely
Adams-Bacrot

In the B group, Carlsen has maintained his half-point lead over Motylev (7.5 to 7), while Atalik's lead in the C group is now two points over Werle (8.5 to 6.5). And in a nice bit of group B news, Naiditsch broke his losing streak with a win over Lahno; hopefully, this is the beginning of a new, positive streak.

Comments on Topalov-Aronian here.

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Bret Helm:

The Topalov game was amazing. In playing through it, I was able to understand, tactically the need to sac the exchange, because I could see that it won. However, the first exchange sac was remarkable, because Topalov did it with what had to be uncertain material compensation. When he made it, it looked like, materially, it was nearly =, because it was rook for knight + pawn. Positionally, he could add a strong initiative to the mix. So the equation looks something like:

R < N + P + I

Fascinating play.

1.26.2006 10:09am

Oops, I left out a few words from my post. It shoul read

[quote]In playing through it, I was able to understand, tactically the need to make the 2nd exchange sac, [/quote]

etc.

1.26.2006 10:11am

sbb1cpa (mail):

After watching "March of the Penguins" with my family, I decided to see what was going on in the world of chess. Of course I started here, then I went to chessbase and reviewed todays games and then got out an article on the Morra Gambit. One of the first games was between Matulovic-Panotopulas (not in my database) and played through it. I was interested in what Fritz thought was the big mistake, so I loaded the game. At a point after white had sacrificed his dark square bishop, he took on f7 with his other bishop. After blundering into a nice combination involving a white queen sacrifice, black was mated by a bishop and knight on h8. Going back to the Bxf7, Fritz suggested capturing the bishop with the queen and then knight takes, king takes and Fritz says black has a small edge (about -.30 at 16 ply) with a rook, bishop pair and knight against a queen and rook. I am familiar with the pawn values (I know it is a guideline and is affected by the position) and can add 3+3+3=9. However, would a grandmaster ever make that trade? Fritz didn't hesitate.

1.27.2006 8:24pm

supergrobi:

I think the trade ("3+3+3=9") sounds plausible for grandmasters but there are even many grandmaster games where the queen is exchanged for only rook and knight or bishop. In that case it's of course much more dependent on the position on the board.

Like Smyslov-Tukmakov 1971, Vaganian-Osnos 1973, Suetin-Andersson 1973 or Carlsen-Hansen 2005. These are mainly endings which end in a draw. I guess there are much better examples.

1.28.2006 6:05am

Certainly Smyslov tried to prove an advantage, but even he had to finally give up and agree to a draw. It looked like Suetin should have kept on fighting, but the passer on g4 could have been dangerous. Thanks. The Suetin-Andersson game was extremely interesting-opposite side castling, vicious attacking by white and great defense by black. I will have to review the game some more when I have a little more time.

I also thought about the evaluation again. If you count the pieces left on the board instead of what was removed, it would seem to be better for black, if the bishop pair is really about 3.5 pawns. This probably compensated for the three isolated pawns.

Thanks, supergrobi, I can see if a GM would swap a rook and knight for a queen and still hold the draw, the swap I mentioned would be a no brainer. (However, I would still rather have my queen-I am at the opposite end of the food chain from a GM)

1.28.2006 6:59am

"(However, I would still rather have my queen-I am at the opposite end of the food chain from a GM)"

Same for me which is probably one of the reasons why we aren't GMs. I remember a rapid game where I didn't notice that I lost a piece during my attack. I only noticed so after my opponent resigned. I guess I might have played weaker if I had noticed the material imbalance during the game.

Reminds me of E=mc^2 somehow. Weaker players like us are thinking too materialistic, not seeing the equivalent value of time and initiative.

Another example: 20 years or so ago I tried to play the Grunfeld defense with black. There was a line where black trades the queen for three light pieces (btw, is light piece an English expression for knights and bishops?) and I could see that it should work. Still I hoped that line never to occur on the board...

Maybe the fact that I notice that "materialistic weakness" in my play now much more than many years ago helps me to improve my chess. At least I've beaten a stronger player in an open Sicilian lately with a knight sacrifice in an open Sicilian. I used to play cramped closed Sicilians in the past in order to avoid learning too much theory and too wild tactics. I still prefer more positional games though.

1.28.2006 9:43am

Before people think that I'm even more stupid than I really am—I know that E=mc^2 stands for the equivalence of mass and energy and not mass and something like time, dynamics or whatever. It just came to my mind when thinking about the equivalence of material, space and time in chess.

1.28.2006 9:58am

My reasoning is that you have to know how to make all of the pieces work in harmony for the pieces to be successfull against the queen and I am not quite there yet. I would hang a piece quickly and the queen would have a heyday. The Shirov game today seems to answer my question as well. (I think that is the game.)

I have only been back playing for three years, so I don't have 20 years of study to help. I study a lot of tactics but not much beyond the basics on positional chess. This blog and the monday lectures have really opened my eyes to many things about chess.

1.28.2006 1:53pm

Follow up-I played three games on playchess last night and my first opponent swapped three minor pieces for a queen. I had the queen and had trouble making headway and had to hang on for a draw. I won the next two almost as a direct result of this blog. Both were the same opponent and rook and pawn endings. The first was a little easier, I took a couple of pawns and even though I had doubled f pawns, I was able to swap rooks when I wanted to and escort a pawn home to queen. The last game came down to where he took my h pawn and I took his a pawn. I immediately moved my rook to the d file to cut off his king from helping his rook. My technique wasn't perfect, but the lessons learned here made me slightly better than my opponent last night. Thanks and kudos.

Steve

2.1.2006 7:56am

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