After three rounds of the National Chess Congress there is a 5-way tie for first. GMs Leonid Kritz, who arrived via the 2-day schedule, Sergey Erenburg and Alex Shabalov are joined by IM Bryan Smith and FM Daniel Ludwig.
Shabalov’s game was the first to finish and it could have finished a lot earlier if his opponent, IM Kirill Kuderinov, hadn’t wanted to play the game down an exchange. Not an easy thing to do against Shaba. However, as pointed out to me by Erenburg, the game could have finished so much earlier.
B4rk1/p4pb1/4b1pp/4p1B1/6q1/8/PPPQ3P/1K1R3R w – – 0 19
Position after 18…h6
Here Shabalov played 19.Bxh6, which is obviously still winning but the simple 19.Bd8 is even better, leaving him a whole rook and surely finishing the game a couple of hours earlier than it actually did.
For his own game, Erenburg dispatched of freshly minted Canadian IM Zhe Quan in the longest game of the round. I’m not sure if Quan should have lost this ending or not. To me it looked fairly equal although these GMs have a habit of grinding out such victories, especially when their opponent’s are down to their final few seconds.
8/8/1n6/N2p4/2pP4/2P2k2/3K4/8 w – – 0 72
Position after 71…Nb6
How can this position be lost for white? Well, here is the finish to the game in all it’s glory. 72.Nc6 Nc8 73.Ne5+ Ke4 74.Nc6 Nd6 75.Ne7 Nf5 76.Nc6 Ne3 77.Ne7 Kf3 78.Ng8 Ng4 79.Ne7 Nf6 80.Nf5 Ne4+ 81.Kc2 Ke2 82.Ne7 Nf6 83.Nf5 Ng4 84.Ne7 Ne3+ 85.Kc1 Kd3 86.Kb2 Nd1+ 87.Ka3 Nxc3 88.Kb4 Na2+ 89.Ka3 c3 0-1
IM Bryan Smith scored a similar victory, meaning getting something from what looked like nothing, although his game against Alexander Heimann was a little less clear. Heimann was a pawn up but Smith managed to complicate the position and provide opportunities for Heimann to make mistakes, which he did.
6k1/5p2/6p1/5b2/2P5/p1q4P/P3Q1P1/5BK1 w – – 0 39
Position after 38…Bf5
Here Heimann went off on a tangent, putting his queen out of play. Maybe he thought that the position was winning? The game continued 39.Qe8+ Kg7 40.Qb5 Heimann’s queen is unable to get back to help his king and Smith is now winning 40…Qd4+ 41.Kh2 Qa1 42.c5 Qxa2 43.Bc4 Qb2 44.Qa4 Be4 45.Kg3 g5 46.Bf1 a2 0-1
However, the really flashy nail in the coffin was best provided by FM Daniel Ludwig playing against GM Alex Ivanov. In the following position, Ivanov had left himself about 5 seconds to make his last move before the time control, which turned out to be a mistake.
3r1k2/6p1/4B3/pP2p1b1/4P3/1Q6/1P3q1P/3R3K b – – 0 40
Position after 40.Rd1
Ludwig picked up his rook and just as I expected him to exchange it on d1, he stopped short and played the wonderful 40…Rd2!! This leads to a forced mate in 5 and Ivanov didn’t hang around for him to prove it and immediately resigned.
Round 4 sees some good match-ups with Kritz taking on Smith on board 1, Shabalov and Erenburg going at it on board 2 and Ludwig faces GM Darmen Sadvakasov, which has already finished in a draw, actually an incredibly boring one but Ludwig will take that against a strong GM.
