Donostia Chess Festival

Originally published at Daily Dirt Chess Blog by Mig Greengard and reproduced with permission.

To get to the important facts first, top group leader Hikaru Nakamura held the draw with black against Svidler quite easily, even threatening to play for an advantage with the Caro-Kann at one point. (17..Qb3 looked promising, instead of swapping queens and retreating the knight.) That left the American in clear first in the “City of Culture” main event with 2.5/5. Ponomariov, Vallejo, and Vachier-Lagrave follow a half-point back. Maybe Svidler is still too into the big cricket match (if that is indeed what they are called) between England and Australia. The big Russian’s opponents in the final week of the event should be warned that the cricket ends Sunday. Friday is a rest day.

A few of the results were initially reported incorrectly today, but all seem to be okay now. Apparently San Segundo and Movsesian really did draw in 12 moves, none of them new or interesting. Haven’t heard anything about that yet, but doesn’t it seem like it needs some kind of explanation? This wouldn’t have raised many eyebrows in the no-go 80s, but in today’s world of Sofia rules and professed professionalism, it’s notable, and quite dubious barring illness. The Petroff between Vallejo-Kasimjanov extended just a few moves beyond well-known theory.

Everyone knows that chess is increasingly a young man’s game. Although our world champion, Vishy Anand, will turn 40 this year, and despite the continued successes of a handful of other evergreens like Ivanchuk and Gelfand, the onslaught of youngsters cannot long be resisted. Six members of the top 20 were born after Kasparov became world champion in 1985. Two more of that up and coming generation, Nakamura and Vachier-Lagrave, are playing in San Sebastian. In the past three days both have scored wins against one of the game’s all-time legends, 12th world champion Anatoly Karpov. You used to be able to count Karpov’s yearly losses on one hand. Now that’s only true because the 58-year-old rarely plays. When he does it’s usually rapid, so it was a bit surprising he was lured to this very strong tournament in San Sebastian.

It might be hard for younger fans to realize how terrifying Karpov was as recently as a dozen years ago. As GM Jon Speelman, close to a contemporary of Karpov’s, put it today on ICC Chess.FM, “these kids aren’t scared of Karpov, are they?” No, and, alas, so far they have no reason to be. I don’t doubt the great man is still capable of outplaying anyone in the world on a given day and given the sort of position he enjoys, but chess is too rigorous a profession these days to succeed without regular work and practice, especially if you’re pushing 60. Regardless, it was a little sad to see Karpov beaten up again in the third round, this time by Vachier-Lagrave. It dropped the veteran into last place and elevated the Frenchman back into contention after his loss to Nakamura yesterday.

The other winner on the day was one of the two FIDE KO champions in the field, Ruslan Ponomariov. He demolished Peru’s Julio Granda. Super-mariov, as I once christened him, is something of a mystery. He was clearly destined to be a perennial top-ten player when he burst into the top tier by winning the FIDE KO WCh in 2001-02 in Moscow. A few weeks later he finished clear second in a mighty Linares and the winner, Kasparov, welcomed the Ukrainian into the elite with effusive praise. Fast-forward to the long and gnarled negotiations around what was to be the start of a world championship unification series, a match between Kasparov and Ponomariov. (Ponomariov’s representative was Silvio Danailov, before he became infamous for the toilet show with Topalov against Kramnik in Elista in 2006 and before he became known as the guiding hand of the excellent MTel Masters and the long-overdue Grand Slam.)

Without reliving all the pathos from 2003, the match broke down. Kasparov kept on being Kasparov, but it seems like Ponomariov was never quite the same after missing what would have been, win or lose, the opportunity of a lifetime. Correlation isn’t causation of course, but Pono himself has talked about how badly he was affected by all the distraction and attention. After a year and a half in the top ten, he’s been out of it on all but two lists since 2004, though never falling lower than #21. All reports say he’s enjoying life away from the brightest lights and has rounded into a happy young man from the sallow youth who always wore the same ugly sweater. Still only 25 years old there’s plenty of time for him to get his groove back, if he’s willing to do the work.

In round three Ponomariov turned a Catalan squeeze against Granda into a surprising direct kingside attack with an h-pawn lunge. Classical stuff if you look at the way all of Black’s pieces are stuck on the queenside. He finished with a nice little queen sac. Here are the round four pairings for Saturday: Nakamura-Vallejo could be a key game. If Nakamura beats another close rival to move to +3 he’ll be hard to catch. Karpov-Granda, Movsesian-Ponomariov, Kasimjanov-San Segundo, Vachier-Lagrave-Svidler.