26 JANUARY 1991, Page 51

CHESS

On Sunday 27 January the needle match between Nigel Short and Jon Speel- man commences which will determine the British qualifier for the second leg of the new world championship cycle. Over the years Nigel Short has established himself as by far the most effective tournament player amongst the hierarchy of British Grand- masters and he has consistently monopol- ised the number one slot amongst Britons in the biannual World Chess Federation ranking list.

Speelman, on the other hand, has emerged as more of a match player. In the previous cycle he demolished Seirawan, the highest rated US Grandmaster, was almost equally effective against Short him- self and only went out at the semi-final stage after a narrow loss to Dutchman Jan Timman. In the past year both Short and Speelman have achieved some signal suc- cesses. Short's qualification from the Man- ila Interzonal, especially the steely resolve of his vital last round win against the Soviet Grandmaster Gurevich, demonstrated a new determination to succeed. Speelman's results have been somewhat more patchy, but when it mattered he pulled out all the stops and won one of the strongest tourna- ments in chess history, the Grandmaster Association qualifier for the World Cup in Moscow.

Last time I more or less wrote off Speelman's chances before the match started and was proven utterly wrong. This time, I rate Short as the slight favourite, suspecting that in this crucial encounter he will overcome his recent spate of indi- vidually poor results against Speelman.

Here are two further games from the Foreign and Colonial Hastings Premier.

Bareev — Kosten: Foreign and Colonial Hast- ings Premier; Nimzo-Indian Defence.

1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Bb4 4 Bg5 c5 5 d5 d6 6 e3

Needle match

Raymond Keene

Bxc3+ 7 bxc3 Qe7 8 Nf3 Nbd7 9 Nd2 h6 10 Bh4 Ne5 Bareev played the Leningrad Variation (4 Bg5) four times at Hastings. Two of his other opponents continued 10 . . . 0-0 here. Bareev- Chandler went 10 . . . 0-0 11 Be2 Ne5 12 Bxf6 Qxf6 13 f4 Ng6 14 Ne4 Qe7 15 dxe6 f5 16 Ng3 Bxe6 17 Qd3 Rad8 18 0-0, while Bareev Olafsson saw 10 . . . 0-0 11 Be2 Ne5 12 dxe6 Qxe6 13 0-0 Re8 14 Bg3 Bd7 15 Qc2 Bc6 16 Radl Rad8 17 h3 Nfd7 18 f4 Ng6 19 c4. Bareev's score with this opening was 4/4! 11 Bxf6 gxf6 12 f4 Ng6 13 Kf2 f5 14 g3 Kd8 15 dxe6 fxe6 16 Bg2 Kc7 17 Rbl Nf8 18 e4 fxe4 19 Nxe4 Nd7 20 Qe2 Nb6 21 Nxd6 (Diagram) A crushing blow which leaves Black in a hopeless position. 21 . . . Qxd6 22 Rhdl Nd5 23 cxd5 Re8 24 Qh5 Black resigns.

Chandler — Olafsson: Foreign and Colonial Hastings Premier; Ruy Lopez.

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 0-0 Bel 6 Qe2 Chandler's pre-game analytical sweep of the records had indicated that Olafsson almost never defended the Ruy Lopez. Murray there- fore decided to choose the lesser-known Worrall Variation which he felt would pose a non-Lopez player some unusual and difficult problems. It is a perfectly respectable line, one point being that White's king's rook can go in one move to dl. Alekhine often played the Lopez as White with Qe2, for example. 6 . . . b5 7 Bb3 0-0 8 c3 d6 9 d4 Bg4 10 Rdl Qc8 11 a4 b4 12 a5 To fix Black's a6 pawn as a weakness, but now Black gets the chance to liquidate almost all of the queenside. 12 . . . bxc3 13 bxc3 Rb8 14 Bc4 exd4 15 cxd4 NxaS The point of Black's defensive manoeuvre. 16 RxaS Rxbl 17 e5 This is unpleasant for Black since his knight is now driven to a square where it jams the lungside pieces. 17 . . . dxe5 18 dxe5 Ne8 19 Rxa6 Rb6 20 Ra4 c5 Black's idea is clear — to play . . . Nc7 – e6 – d4. White, therefore, must react swiftly to counteract this plan. With hindsight it might have been safer for Black to play 20 . . . g6 with the idea of transferring the knight to g7, which has a similar effect but without exposing the 7th rank to an invasion of white rooks. 21 h3 Bh5 Removing the bishop from defence of e6 is tempting fate. 21 . . Be6 is less risky. Chandler now strikes with a well-calculated attack. 22 Raj Nc7 23 e6!! A deadly breakthrough. Black has four ways to capture this pawn, three of which are clearly and immediately fatal. The fourth, 23 . . . fxe6 fails to 24 Qe5 forking c7 and h5. Since White's `e' pawn is immune Black is forced to allow it to survive and Chandler now uses his advanced pawn to brilliant effect as a bludgeon to beat Black to his knees. 23 . . . Bf6 24 e7 Re8 25 Rd8!

Position after 26 Rxc7

• The first rook sacrifice, which has to be accepted. 25 . . . Rxd8 26 Rxc7 (Diagram) The second sacrifice which cannot be accepted on account of 26 . . . Qxc7 27 e8/Q+ RxeS 28 Qxe8 mate. The upshot is that White wins a piece for no compensation at all. 26 . . . Qb8 27 exd8Q+ QxdS 28 Bf4 g5 29 Bg3 Rb2 30 Qd3 Qa8 31 Qd7 , Qat + 32 102 Rbl 33 13)0+ Kh8 34 Qe8+ Kg7 35 Bg6+ Black resigns.

The other qualifying matches in the first round of the world championship are: Timman (Holland) — Hubner (Germany) and Gelfand (USSR) — Nikolic (Yugo- slavia) in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

Korchnoi (Switzerland) — Sax (Hungary)

and Dolmatov (USSR) — Yusupov (USSR) in Wijk aan Zee, Holland.

Anand (India) — Dreev (USSR), in Madras, India.

Ivanchuk (USSR) — Yudasin (USSR) in Riga, Latvia, but I have my doubts about

this venue and am convinced that, if it has not happened already, it will change.