CHESS

Gang warfare

Raymond Keene

The European Options Exchange tournament in Amsterdam, for which I have already expressed so much admira- tion in this column, has attained an Elo average of 2674, just two points off an almost mythical Category 18 on the World Chess Federation list. As is well known, the chess Richter scale in theory extends only as far as Category 16. Nevertheless, one disadvantage of such a powerful tournament is that the top players, in this particular case the world's numbers one, two and three, tend to gang up on the weaker brethren. At Amsterdam this means John van der Wiel, a worthy Grand- master, but not in the class of the others. As the tournament table shows, a disprop- ortionate number of the decisive games involve van der Wiel as the victim. It is interesting to observe how truly great players can regularly overcome resistance from such a strong Grandmaster.

Of course, the exception to the pattern Of preying on the weak was Kasparov himself, who inflicted defeats on both Karpov and Timman. He notched up an amazing rating performance of 2840 thus banishing any doubts that still hovered after the inconclusive match in Seville last Year..

European Options Exchange Tournament

1 2 3 4 Total

I Kasparov

XXXX

1/211/21 1/21/211/2 F/211 9 2 Karpov 1/201/20 xxxx 1/21/21/21/2 111/21 61/2 3 Timman

1/21/201/2 1/21/21/21/2

xxxx 101/21/2 51/2

4 V.d.Wiel

01/200

ono 011/21/2

xxxx 3

Karpov — van der Wiel: Queen's Indian Defence.

1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 b6 4 g3 Bb7 5 Bg2 Be7 6 Nc3 Ne4 7 Bd2 Bf6 8 0-0 0-0 9 Re! d5 A natural enough move but against Karpov perhaps an error since it leads to the kind of fixed central pawn structure which he relishes so much. Facing this particular opponent it might be better to concede terrain instead with 9 . . Nxd2 10 Qxd2 d6. 10 cxd5 exd5 11 Be3 Na6 12 Qa4 c5 13 Rfdl Qe8 14 Qa3 Nxc3 15 Qxc3 Qe7 16 Qd2 Rfe8 17 b3 Rad8 18 Rel cxd4 At last Black loses patience and crystallises the centre into a situation where Black is saddled with an isolated queen's pawn. There was an argument for further waiting tactics such as 18 . . h6 fol- lowed by oscillation of the black king, daring White to undertake something positive. 19 Bxd4 Nc5 20 Qb2 Bxd4 21 Nxd4 Qf6 22 Redl Ne6 23 Rc2 Rc8 24 Rcd2 Red8 25 Bh3 The beginning of a curious manoeuvre. The bishop spends three moves shuffling around in order to return to the diagonal from which it started. 25 . . . Qh6 26 Bg4 Rc5 27 h4 Re8 28 BD Q16 29 b4 Rc4 30 Kg2 h6 31 e3 Rec8 32 Qb3 White has not been doing very much but he has been doing it very well. Under the guise of permitting Black illusory activity in the 'c' file, Karpov has, in fact, been encouraging Black to deplete the defences of his weak pawn on d5. White's threat now is to withdraw his knight to e2, intensifying the pressure against d5 to intolerable proportions. Baffled by Karpov's subtleties van der Wiel now commits an error which leads to immediately ruinous material losses. 32 . . . Qe7? 33 Nf5 Qxb4 34 Qxb4 Rxb4 35 Ne7+ K18 36 Nxc8 Bxc8 37 Bxd5 Nc5 38 a3 Ra4 39 Bc6 Black resigns.

Kasparov — van der Wiel: Queen's Indian Defence.

1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 b6 4 a3 Kasparov's patent which is more overtly aggressive than Karpov's preferred flank development of his king's bishop in the same opening. 4. . . Bb7 5 Nc3 d5 6 cxd5 Nxd5 7 Qc2 c5 An ill-starred attempt to improve on the 7 . . . Nd7 8 Nxd5 exd5 9 Bg5 which led to White's advantage in game 32 of the first Kasparov-Karpov world championship match back in 1984. 8 dxc5 Bxc5 9 Bg5 Qc8 10 Rd l h6 11 Bh4 a5 An understandable effort to inhibit White expansion based on b4. Nevertheless, this move implies a serious weakening of Black's queen's side pawn structure which Kasparov is quick to exploit. 12 Na4 Nd7 13 e4 Nc7 14 Nxc5 bxc5 15 Be2 Ba6 16 0-0 0-0 17 Rfdl 16 18 Bg3 Rf7 19 Bc4 Bxc4 20 Qxc4 e5 21 Nh4 Qe8 22 Nf5 Black's position is already full of holes in the centre and on the queen's wing. This powerful advance also presages a future attack against the black king. 22. . . Qe6 23 Qe2 Rb8 24 Rd6 Qe8 25 Rcd1 Nf8 26 14 Nb5 27 fxe5 Nxd6 Acquiescing in the loss of a pawn even though Black does drum up a modicum of tactical counterplay. If, though, 27. . . fxe5 28 R6d5 wins easily enough. 28 Nxd6 Qa4 29 Nx17 Rxb2 30 Nxh6+ Of course not 30 Qxb2? Qxdl + . The text move ensures the winning of a pawn with a much superior position. Indeed, van der Wiel could have capitulated much earlier than he did. 30 . . . Kh7 31 Qh5 g6 32 Q13 Kxh6 33 RI.! Qd4+ 34 Khl Nh7 35 exf6 Nxf6 36 Bf4+ Kg7 37 Bg5 Rb6 38 Qh3 Kg8 39 Qc8+ Kg7 40 Qc7+ Nd7 41 Qf4 Qc4 42 h3 Qe6 43 Rd! Rc6 44 Bd8 Nb6 45 Rfl Black resigns. A powerful game by Kasparov and one in which the world champion makes the opening look almost like a forced win for White.

The draw between Timman and Kaspar- ov from the second cycle was also a fascinating clash of ideas.

Timman — Kasparov: Griinfeld Defence. 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 d5 4 Bf4 Bg7 5 e3 c5 6 dxc5 Qa5 7 Qa4+ Qxa4 8 Nxa4 Ne4 9 13 Timman tries to improve on his own game Biihm – Timman, Dutch championship 1983 where 9 Bxb8 Bd7 10 13 Bxa4 11 fxe4 dxc4! led to a good position for Black. 9 ... 11d7 10 fxe4 Bxa4 11 cxd5 Bxb2 12 Rbl Bc3+ 13 Kf2 Nd7 14 Rd l Nxc5 15 Kf3 Bb4 16 Rc4 With his exposed minor pieces Black's position looks precarious, but Kasparov stays afloat by means of some adroit tactics. 16 ... Bb5 17 Rxb4 Bxfl 18 Ne2 Bxe2+ 19 Kxe2 f5 20 exf5 gxf5 21 Rdl Rd8 22 Kf3 Rg8 23 Be5 Rd7 24 Rh4 e6 25 Rd l Rxd5 26 Bd4 Ne4 27 Rc8+ Rd8 28 Rxd8+ Kxd8 Black is now saved by the strong central position of his knight. 29 g4 Nd2+ 30 Ke2 Ne4 311(13 Nd2+ 32 Ke2 Ne4 33 gxf5 exf5 34 Kf3 Ng5+ 35 Kf4 Ne6+ 36 Kxf5 Nxd4+ 37 exd4 Rg7 38 d5 Kd7 39 Rh6 Rg2 40 a4 R12+ 41 Ke5 Re2+ 42 Kd4 Rd2+ 43 Kc4 Rc2+ 44 Kb3 Rd2 45 Rxh7+ Kd6 Draw agreed.