In the quarters Andrei Volokitin outlasted Pentyala Harikrishna after two drawn rapid games and four decisive blitz games all won by white. The "other Ukrainian" got white in the armageddon blitz and won to move into today's second semi against Teimour Radjabov. (Results and PGN here. Live here.) Today Sergey Karjakin beat his peer Magnus Carlsen in the first semifinal match. The first game was drawn with Carlsen defending the Sveshnikov and holding an opposite-colored bishops endgame. In the second, the 15-year-old Norwegian used the same plan against the Najdorf that worked for him against Nunn at the NH Hotels event a few months ago. (I commented on his interesting cxb3 so a knight could use c2 to later control d5 in an issue of Black Belt.)
Here Karjakin was ready with 14..Ng4 and 15..f5, gaining counterplay. He soon liquidated into an endgame that looked good for White because of the blocked black bishop and strong white knight on e4. But as the saying goes, it's only a weakness if your opponent can attack it and it turned out the pressure on d6 was mostly an illusion. Black took the c-file and played solidly to bring home the point. I believe they'd only faced each other once before, the Corus B Group in 2005, a draw. So first blood to Karjack.
Update: Radjabov wipes out Volokitin with black in a Sveshnikov in game one. "Horrible, horrible!" says Kasparov. White looked totally confused. h4, Qg4, miserable stuff. He couldn't even equalize it seemed. -- It didn't get better for Volo in the second game. His unorthodox play with black was easily punished with an advance and breakthrough by Radjabov. It's Karjakin and Radjabov in the final match tomorrow.
I wonder if Volokitin could play 21. .. Qxe4 to hold game 2 ? (no computer analysis done ;-) )
21..Qxe4 22.Bxf6 and black loses a piece
22..Qxe3 23.h7#
oops, 21..Qxe4 22.h7+ Nxh7 23.Qxe4 [22.h7+ Kg7 23.Bxf6+ Kxf6 24.Qxe4 ]
Is it just me, or has the Sveshnikov suddenly gone out of style in the past couple of years? It seems like it is only rarely employed as a defense, nowadays...
It's a rather dynamic opening position, so I hope that it makes a comeback. Certainly, there never was anything close to a bust of it.
A Karjakin vs. Radjabov final: I think Chess fans can live with that!
It looks as if they are not playing matches for the final rankings. Kind of a pity, as there would have been some interesting matchups.
Ive seen Radjabov using it exstensivly. However alot of white e4 players seem to play the anti svesh Bb5 line.
Karjacking sounds like a serious offense.
>Is it just me, or has the Sveshnikov suddenly gone out of style in the past couple of years? It seems like it is only rarely employed as a defense, nowadays...>
Anand had a funny comment after his rapid match
in Mainz against Radjabov where he faced Rada's Sveshinkov few times :
"it is surprisingly difficult to equalize with White against this opening !".
Mig's comment on Volokitin's play echoes Anand observation. It seems true that Volo does not know the patterns of playing this opening and thus found himself thoughtless after he bashed out the memorized theory moves.
His h4,Qg4 made me remember Kramnik becoming confused in an unfamiliar set up after Topalov's 10.f4 in Elista.
Just as Volo now, Kramnik began weakening his position with b5-b4 ( as if he was playing Meran etc.) and drifted fast in a lost postion.
In contrast Karjaking knows the patterns of Sveshnikov [see his game with Carlsen and
Karjakin's postional Q-side attack] while Voloktin knows well only the "standard" Sicilian see his crushing, textbook, attacks against HareKrishna.
What a mess would be if we were all to play FischerRandom and thus would have, by necessity, to think out anew the plans each time, instead of using our brain databases of thematic play.
New accusations of Kramnik cheating from Danailov at chessbase.com
He is going to pound this idea over again until we all will begin to have doubts whether, in effect, Fritz-10 has become the new champ, in the long tradition going back to Steinitz.
Rybka 2.1 and Crafty 19.04 are enviously waiting for their shot to title.
"Radjabov wipes out Volokitin with black in a Sveshnikov in game one. (...) He couldn't even equalize it seemed."
It wasn't that simple; 40.cxb4 instead of 40.Rxb4? would have been a draw.
I guess Polgar and Mamedyarov must have been using computers at Essent too.
Radjabov won Cap!
Doggy analysing - it was that simple: h4 was "horrible" weakens the h pawn and white has to castle on king side anyway after 17 ...Bxe3 18 Nxe3 Ne7 black already is at least equal after 20 Qg4? which allowed d5 .. black is on top and within a few moves looked like he was winning of course both sides made mistakes after this - its a rapid game . However h4 is a chronic move .... having said that when I see these Sveshnikov games by Radj I feel like giving up the Najdorf and switching to Svesh much much less theory and good practical results
Great game by Radjabov, played as a champ.
He took great risks to win and Karjakin failed to defend "a la kaspy" in the tactical maze which resulted.
DOggy - correct, and frankly, 40 Rxb4 was an absolutely unbelievable mistake. Wasn't this played with increments - if so it's hard to imagine how someone of this strength could make such a move.
Although mind you if the simul game they have up at Chessbase was really played by Capablanca then even very good players do make some surprisingly bad moves sometimes. It's a difficult game.