Ivanchuk Beats Morozevich, Takes Lead
25.08.2008 – What a round: four out of five games decided, the only draw a cliff-hanger. Ponomariov beat Shirov, Leko beat Kamsky (with black!), Alekseev beat Mamedyarov. A heart-stopping victory by Vassily Ivanchuk over player-on-fire Alexander Morozevich pushed the latter down from number one in the world on the Live List to number two behind Vishy Anand. High drama in Moscow.
Tal Memorial in Moscow
The Tal Memorial is taking place from August 17th to 31st 2008 in the Exhibition Hall of GUM mall, located directly on the Red Square. The players are former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, who won the tournament last year, Alexander Morozevich, currently the world's second highest ranked player, Vassily Ivanchuk, ranked fourth, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (8th), Alexei Shirov (9th), Peter Leko (10th), Gata Kamsky (17th), Boris Gelfand, (18th), Ruslan Ponomariov (19th), and Evgeny Alekseev (26th).
Time controls are two hours for the first 40 moves, one hour for the next 20 moves and 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move after move 61. There is a blitz tournament on August 29th-30th, with a qualifier two days earlier. Magnus Carlsen and Antoly Karpov are seeded invitees.
Round seven report
Round 7: Monday, August 25, 2008 Alexei Shirov Alex. Morozevich Peter Leko Vladimir Kramnik Shak. Mamedyarov
Games of the day
Ivanchuk,V (2781) - Morozevich,A (2788) [D87]
Tal Memorial Moscow RUS (7), 25.08.2008
1.c4 Nf6 2.d4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7 7.Bc4 c5 8.Ne2 0-0 9.0-0 Nc6 10.Be3 Na5 11.Bb5 Bd7 12.Bd3 b6 13.Rb1 e5 14.dxc5 Ba4 15.Qd2 Qd7 16.cxb6 axb6 17.Nc1 Rfc8 18.Rxb6 Bf8 19.Ra6 Qb7 20.Rxa8 Qxa8 21.Nb3 Nxb3 22.axb3 Bxb3 23.Rb1 Qa3 24.h3 Be6 25.Rc1 Rd8 26.Qc2 Bb3 27.Qb1 Ba2 28.Qb5 Rc8 29.Qxe5 Bc5 30.Bxc5 Rxc5 31.Qb8+ Kg7 32.Qf4 Qb2 33.Qe3 f6
Now comes an interesting bit: 34.Bf1 Qxc1 35.Qxc5 says the official tournament bulletin, and these were the moves that were relayed on the chess servers. But, as some spectators and many chess engines asked themselves in great puzzlement: instead of taking the rook why didn't Ivanchuk simply take the queen, which was blatantly en prise on c1? We are mystified and can offer two possible explanations: (1) take a look at GM Robert Fontaine's video below of the critical period before the first time control. Both players were bashing out moves at a frantic rate. Perhaps this was just an oversight. On the other hand these world-class GMs are hard-wired to see elementary tactics in milliseconds – have you seen the level of their one-minute bullet chess? So we are left with a second option, proposed by Astolfo Corrêa of São Paulo, Brazil: (2) "the movies 34 and 35 wrong – change the order to 34.Qxc5 Qxc1 35 Bf1 and it all makes sense." Right, we would immediately accept the second explanation in the good old days when people typed in moves from scoresheets and sent them out to the chess community. But these days everybody is using sensor boards and the moves are going out automatically, read by inductive receivers in each square and relayed electronically by computer software to the live broadcast boards.
So: basically it must have been (1) that occurred; although there is one possibility that speaks for (2). Perhaps the sensor board lost track of the game in the extreme zeitnot phase and somebody entered some moves manually (and incorrectly). We will try to find out what actually transpired, but until then please accept these two possible explanations.
[Addendum: Bob Fontaine in Moscow tells us that 34.Qxc5 Qxc1+ 35.Bf1 was actually played.]
The game continued in the direst of time trouble – 20 seconds left for ten moves, that is heart-stopping. You can watch it all in the first 30-second segment of the Europe Echecs video below: "Tal Memorial (R7)".
35...Qe1 36.Qd4 g5 37.c4 Qc1 38.c5 Be6 39.f3 h5 40.Kf2 h4 – just made the time control! Ivanchuk can hardly believe he made it without blowing the win.
Now comes the technical part: Ivanchuk is two pawns up in the queen and bishop ending. These things can go astray and if one does not come up with a constructive plan the weaker side might still hold the draw.
41.Qe3 Qc2+ 42.Kg1 Bc4 43.Bxc4 Qxc4 44.Kh2 Kf7 45.Qa3 Ke6 46.Qa7 Qc1 47.Qb6+ Kf7 48.Qd6
Morozevich decides to exchange queens and pick up the c-pawn. 48...Qf4+ 49.Qxf4 gxf4 50.Kg1 Ke6 51.Kf2 Kd7 52.Ke2 Kc6.
Okay, how do you play this again? On the Playchess server a number of spectators were enamoured with the move 53.e5, which they thought was the only way to win. But one very strong player showed us why it doesn't work: 53...fxe5 54.Kd3 Kd5 55.c6 Kxc6 56.Ke4 Kd6 57.Kf5 Kd5 58.Kg5 Kd4 59.Kxh4 Ke3 60.Kg5 Kf2 61.h4 Kxg2 62.h5 Kxf3 (62...e4?? trivially allows mate in 68) 63.h6 Kg2 "and White has no check after queening, so draw." All of this in real time, without the use of a chess engine. Garry Kasparov also told us how Ivanchuk had to proceed, which his old buddy obediently did.
53.Kd3 Kxc5 54.Kc3! Kd6 55.Kd4 Ke6 56.Kc4 Kd6 57.Kb5 Ke6 58.Kc6 Ke5 59.Kd7 f5 60.exf5 1-0. A mind-boggling, nerve-racking encounter which will have both players trembling in their showers for days to come.
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