Today’s game features a very unique approach by black that reminded me of the touch-move-rule.
Apparently this all happened before, according to my database exactly once:
If you really think about it, then the strategy of pushing the g-pawn is very popular for white in all sorts of position. Maybe this version isn’t that ridiculous after all. It’s a small sample, but a very nice performance so far.
This game had the potential to force a tiebreak between Riazantsev and Grischuk, but it wasn’t to happen because Riazantsev simply beat Jakovenko with black to win the tournament. Congratulations!
No such accidents for Kokarev today!
This sideline seems to produce some nice repetitions. No wonder it is becoming more and more popular.
We have seen this one before:
When I saw 41. c4 by Giri, it put a smile on my face. Instead I should have been deeply impressed by this move. He wasn’t just trying to kill all the play in the position. In reality this was one of the best plus-exchanges in recent times. He allowed his opponent to trade off his isolani in exchange for a space advantage in form of a more advanced king. It may look weird, but in fact it’s excellent judgement.
In hindsight this reminds me of a similar plus-exchange, and that is Fischer’s 22nd move in this famous game:
For some reason there wasn’t much to write home about as of late, but fortunately the Tal Memorial freatures some of the usual suspects. Today Peter and Ian decided to stay friends and chop the pot.
A highly unusual game was played by Kramnik against Radjabov. There was a recent trend of playing the Italian with a4 instead of Bb3, but it wasn’t really clear why this should be so great. Finally Kramnik showed the big idea: By playing a4 white restricts the black queenside and prepares to expand in this area. The bishop on c4 can still drop back to f1 where it protects the white king against a black pawnstorm, while on b3 it either gets exchanged off with Be6 or it has to drop back to c2 where it doesn’t do anything. The knight on d2 doesn’t drop back to f1, but goes to c4 where it supports the white queenside attack. At move 18 the full transposition to Kramnik’s favorite setup against the KID was complete. The only real difference is the bishop on a7 which may or may not be better placed there than on g7. It is very difficult to understand all the subleties, but that was a brilliant performance by Big Vlad. For me this was the game of the year even though it’s still September.