Rdbeq The Ultimate [slay Malt.
CHESS
Rdbeq
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Takeaway
Raymond Keene
RELIEVED of the weight of responsibility of having to challenge Garry Kasparov for his world throne in this year's title contest, the Indian grandmaster Viswanathan Arland turned in his best performance for some time by taking a more than convincing first prize in the Fujitsu-Siemens Giants tournament at Frankfurt. Frankfurt could be considered an unofficial world speed chess championship containing, as it did, no fewer than six of the world's seven top- ranked players from the very latest Fide (World Chess Federation) ranking list. Sadly for Anand, though, such speed tour- naments are not considered of sufficient gravitas to be included for proper rating cal- culations. Nevertheless, his triumph must be all the sweeter for him in that he bested Kasparov by a colossal one and a half points and finished well clear of both ICramnik and Shirov, his main rivals as serious claimants to a challenge against Kasparov.
In the game which follows (astute read- ers will spot that White's winning coup on move 28 formed the topic of the puzzle on 1 July), Black succumbs to that perennial affliction in the French Defence, a chronic debility on the dark squares.
Anand–Shirov: Fujitsu-Siemens Giants, Frankfurt 2000; French Defence
1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 e5 Nfd7 5 Nce2 A counter-intuitive move. Nevertheless it has a deep-seated and valid strategic justification. White plans to construct a gigantic wall of central pawns and for this reason the queen's knight drops back to e2 to fulfil a defensive function while permitting White to play c3 to cement his central bastions. 5 c5 6 c3 Nc6 7 f4 Qb6 8 NE3 Be7 9 a3 0-0 10 114 An aggressive new move in a variation which used to be popular over 100 years ago. Instead the game Anderssen—Fleissig, Leipzig 1877 saw 10 Ng3 f6 11 Bd3 cxd4 12 cxd4 fxe5 13 fxe5. Here
Black sacrificed with 13 ... Ndxe5 which turned out to be unconvincing. More dynamic would have been 13 Rxf3 14 gc13 Nxd4 with considerable counterplay. 10 ... 16 11 Rh3 White motorises his king's rook. 11... Na5 12 b4 cxb4 13 axb4 Nc4 14 Ng3 White is losing the battle on the queenside but is ominously feeding his troops over towards the black king. 14 ... a5 15 Bd3 S 16 Ng5 Rd8 This turns out to be a complete waste of time. 17 Qh5 Bxg5 18 Qxg5 Rf8 A sad admission of the inadequacy of his 16th move. 19 Nh5 Rf7 20 Rg3 g6 21 Bxc4 dxc4 22 b5 A neat move which completes Black's annihila- tion on the dark squares by permitting White's queen's bishop to enter the fray at a3. 22
Qxh5 23 Ba3 b6 24 Qh6 Bb7 25 Rxg6+ Completing Black's destruction. 25 ... hxg6 26 Qxg6+ K1i8 27 Qxf7 Rg8 28 B18 Black resigns If 28... Rx18 29 Qg7 mate or 28 ... Nxf8 29 Nf6. Meanwhile carnage is threatened by means of Bg7+
The full scores of the tournament were as follows: Anand Kasparov 6; Kramnik 5; Shirov 4y2; Leko 3y2 and Morozevich 3y, The forthcoming venue has now been announced for the Kasparov–Kramnik World Championship match to be held in London over October and November. Riverside Studios in Hammersmith will play host to the first Kasparov title defence for five years. There will be 16 games with about 200 seats available to watch every game live. Ring 020 7462 5747 for ticket details.
Ardbeg Malt Whisky Puzzle No. 37 Black to play and win — first move only required. This puzzle is taken from the game Kasparov–Leko, also from Frankfurt. This game scuppered Kasparov's chances of first prize. In the diagram position, Kasparov had already resigned. How would Leko have commenced the winning manoeuvre?
Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 18 July or via e-mail to vanessa@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7242 0603. The winner will be the first cor- rect answer drawn out of a hat, and each week I shall be offering a prize of a bottle of Ardbeg Malt Whisky.
Last week's solution: Ftxf6 Last week's winner: C. Starks, Gloucestershire.
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