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SPAIN'S FINES! CAIA

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SPAIN'S I !NEST CAVA

CHESS

THE SURPRISE WINNER of this year's Lloyds Bank Masters tournament held in London towards the end of August was the 17-year-old Russian Alexander Moroz- evich. The teenager played open attacking chess from the start and utterly outclassed a 298-player field which included 32 grand- masters and 33 international masters. In fact, Morozevich's astounding score of 9.5 from 10 meant that he not only clinched the grandmaster title with three rounds to spare, he also established a performance rating record (2970) for any tournament held on British soil, while simultaneously clocking up the third best performance rat- ing of all time behind only Fischer's in the 1964 US championship (3000+) and Karpov at Linares earlier this year (2977). Amongst the also-rans in the Lloyds Bank field were such luminaries as Miles, Norwood, Nunn, Speelman and Chandler.

Apart from Morozevich's record there was further cause for celebration when 10- year-old Luke McShane drew with the German grandmaster Romuald Mainka, thus becoming the youngest British player ever to score against a grandmaster in an official tournament game.

Morozevich-Hebden: Lloyds Bank, August 1994; Centre Game.

le4 e5 2 d4 Typical of Morozevich's open style and his liking for rehabilitating defunct opening systems. 2 ...exd4 3 Qxd4 Nc6 4 Qe3 Nf6 4 ...g6 5 Bd2 Bg7 6 Nc3 Nf6 7 0-0-0 0-0 was preferred in the game Blackburne–Lasker, London 1892. In this game, Hebden follows the main line, but a surprise is in store for him. 5 Nc3 Bb4 6 Bd2 0-0 7 0-0-0 Re8 8 Qg3 The old main line is 8 Bc4 and if 8 ...Bxc3 9 Bxc3 Nxe4 10 Qf4 with an attack as in Winawer--Steinitz, Nuremberg 1896. Here White finds a new way to give up a pawn. 8 d6 If 8 ...Nxe4 9 Nxe4 Rxe4 10 8f4 d6 11 Bd3

Secret weapon

Raymond Keene

with some compensation. More obscure is 8 ...Rxe4 9 Bd3 (not 9 Nxe4? Nxe4!) 9 ...Rg4 10 Qh3 d6. 9 f3 Ne5 10 h4 c6 11 h5 d5 12 Nge2 Nc4

13 h6 g6 14 Bg5 Qb6 (Diagram) 15 Na4 He must deflect the black queen. 15 Bxf6? fails to 15 ...Bdo. 15 Qa5 16 Bxf6 Qxa4 17 Nc3 Bxc3 18 Bxc3 Ne3 Black's attack looks threatening but in reality it is getting nowhere and he has still failed to solve the problem of the weak dark squares around his kingside. 19 b3 Qxa2 20 Rd2 Qa3+ 21 Bbl Qe7 22 Bet dxe4 23 fxe4 Qxe4 24 Qg5 Nd5 25 Rxd5 QxdS 26 Qf6 1Cf8 27 Bc4 Black resigns After 27 ... Qd7 28 Ba3+ Re7 29 Oh8 is mate.

The Lloyds Bank Masters also served as the qualifying leg for the Intel Grand Prix which followed soon after. Last week I con- centrated on Kasparov's early elimination by the computer program. Chess Genius went on to knock out grandmaster Predrag Nikolic, before succumbing to Anand in

the semi-final. Ivanchuk proceeded from his semi-final at the expense of Kramnik and went on to win the final against Anand himself. Anand's sweetest moment, howev- er, must have come when he caught the hitherto rampant computer in a simple endgame trick.

Anand-Chess Genius: Intel Grand Prix, London, September 1994.

In the position above Black can draw easily if it plays 35 ...h6. Instead there followed 35 ... h5?? 36 h4! gxh4 37 ICf3 Ke8 38 Kf4 Kd7 39 Kg5 KdS 40 Kxh4 Kd7 41 Kxh5 Black resigns.

The British Chess Federation has announced its squad for the chess olympics which take place in Thessaloniki, Greece, towards the end of the year. The team con- sists entirely of grandmasters. In board order it is: Michael Adams, Jon Speelman, John Nunn, Tony Miles, Julian Hodgson and David Norwood. The captain of the men's team is grandmaster Murray Chandler. The women's team is composed of Jana Bellin, Harriet Hunt, Susan Lalic (formerly Arkell) and Natasha Regan. The captain is Chris Ward.