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EditorialMalcolm Pein on the latest developments in chess.

Readers’ Letters (editor@chess.co.uk)You have your say ... Mike Basman on three points for a win...

London FIDE OpenA blow-by-blow account of an exciting event at Olympia

Reggio EmiliaAnish Giri won a hugely entertaining tournament in Italy.

Hastings MastersWang Yue was just too good for the opposition at the traditionalChristmas/New Year but there was much to enjoy.

San Sebastián 1912Steve Giddins casts a nostalgic eye back to Akiba Rubinstein’svictory in the second of the great Spanish pre-WW1 tournaments

Sir George ThomasJohn Saunders looks back at the between-wars gentle giant ofBritish chess - and uncovers an intriguing family secret...

How Good is Magnus Carlsen?GM Danny Gormally compares Carlsen to his new rival, Anish Giri

Problem AlbumThree compositions by the forgotten chess composer, John Brown

Positional ExercisesGM Jacob Aagaard tests your positional chess IQ

Chess in the 1960sJohn Saunders remembers his own first experiences of competitivechess during the Penrose-dominated 1960s

The Positional Pawn Sacrifice‘Investment adviser’ Peter Lalic talks you through a small pawnsacrifice that can lead to substantial long-term benefits!

Find The Winning MovesThree pages of tactical teasers from recent tournament games

Chess and DartsCarl Portman thinks chess can learn from televised darts...

Basque Chess!No kinky dressing up involved... at Donostia top GMs tried playingtwo knock-out games at once. Chess, but not as we know it...

Sudden DeathMike Hughes looks at games with a stunning coup de grâce.

StudiesBrian Stephenson on Timman’s latest masterpiece

Larsen 1, Adjudicator 0Fernando Visier on the time when a British adjudicator’s decisionwas refuted - by none other Bent Larsen.

Overseas NewsA round-up of what’s been happening abroad.

Home NewsA round-up of what’s been happening in the UK

How Good is Your Chess?Danny King presents a brilliant game by veteran GM Boris Gulko

New Books In BriefAll the latest books, DVDs and software.

Best of 2011Sean Marsh’s pick of last year’s best chess books

SolutionsAll the answers to Find The Winning Move, Positional Exercisesand Problem Album

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Contents Feb 2012_Chess mag - 21_6_10 02/02/2012 17:27 Page 3

40 February 2012

IN RECENT YEARS several tournament

organisers have experimented with

knock-out tournament formats. They

were rarely used for high-level chess

competitions until about 15 years ago but

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov’s controversial knock-

out (or should that be knock-about?)

World Championships popularised the

format. Since then some sort of

consensus seems to have emerged that

knock-out is unsuitable as a final decider

for the title but it makes for a very

entertaining early qualifier in the shape of

the FIDE World Cup, and sometimes in

other non-championship contexts.

One disadvantage of knock-outs is that

they are not equitable where only one

game is to be played. In top-level chess

(and probably in low-level chess too)

White has a substantial in-built

advantage. An attempt was made to

address this unfairness at Hastings a few

years ago by providing Black with extra

thinking time as compensation for moving

second but the system was subsequently

dropped in favour of a traditional Swiss.

This year in the Basque city of Donostia

(formerly known as San Sebastián),

another experimental knock-out system

was tried at a prestigious tournament

(held to celebrate the centenary of the

1912 San Sebastián tournament which

Steve Giddins writes about elsewhere in

this issue). The simple idea, attributed to

the late David Bronstein, was for the

players to play not one but two games at

a sitting, with opposite colours.

The organisers had also been influenced

by the statistical researches of a

Spanish-born professor of the London

School of Economics, Ignacio Palacios

Huerta, who investigated sports results.

His inquiry had revealed was that the

team which goes first in football penalty

shoot-outs had a 60-40 advantage over

the team that shoots second. But he had

also looked at top-level chess and came

to the conclusion that there was a similar

advantage for players having White in

the first game of chess matches. He

mentioned this in a speech during the

Bilbao Grand Slam Final in 2010 and it

set the Donostia

organisers thinking.

Before the

tournament they

made their

announcement:

“this combination of

Bronstein’s old idea

and Palacio’s

modern analysis we

have christened as

the ‘Basque

System’”.

That still left the

question open as to

whether top

grandmasters would

consent to ‘wear a

Basque’. But the

organisers

assembled an

impressive line-up,

with ten 2700+ rated

players headed by

Azerbaijani GMs

Gashimov and

Mamedyarov. The

event was held from

28 December to 5

January. The time

control was two

hours for all the

moves with a 30-

second increment –

remember, that is for

two games played

simultaneously. If the

two games finished

1-1, there followed two simultaneous

games at 15 mins plus 10 seconds,

followed if necessary by two more games

at 5 mins plus 3 seconds, and finally a

single Armageddon game. Of course, the

new system is not FIDE-rateable at the

moment, but perhaps the organisers will

lobby for it in the future.

The first (preliminary) round consisted of

15 pairings between lower rated players

in order to feed 15 players into the 64

needed for the second round when the

leading players joined battle. The

preliminary round included one English

FM, Laurence Webb, who was eliminated

by Sarkhan Gashimov, the elder brother

(and manager) of GM Vugar Gashimov.

Second round victims didn’t just go home

but joined the subsidiary Group B, from

whence a further defeat led them to an

open section, Group C.

Initial impressions after the second round

were generally positive. Antoaneta

Stefanova: “Actually it was quite fun to

play two games against the same

opponent. I can say that I enjoyed it. It

went well from the beginning.” Sergey

Fedorchuk: “During the game I confused

moves, score sheets... I wrote down

wrong moves, correcting them and of

“This Basque chess has got me completely confused!” He might look

baffled in this photo but this is Ukrainian GM Andrei Volokitin who ran

out the eventual winner of the first ever ‘Basque chess’ contest!

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Donostia_Chess mag - 21_6_10 02/02/2012 18:09 Page 40

www.chess.co.uk 41

course it distracted me. At least I pushed

clocks correctly. I was playing very fast at

the beginning, thinking that my time

would finish very soon but in fact two

hours are enough even for two games.”

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov: “The idea was

created by David Bronstein and if I’m not

mistaken he played crazy eight-board

matches against Mikhail Tal

simultaneously. I don’t know if this format

will be popular in the future but in my

opinion this event is already a big

success!” Alexander Moiseenko was

perhaps more candid: “I cannot say that I

came here because of the new system.

The main reason to participate was an

impressive prize fund, of course!”

There were not too many surprise results

until the round of sixteen, but thereafter

the new format proved to be tough on the

big names. At that stage second seed

Mamedyarov bit the dust, losing 0-2 to

Peruvian GM Julio Granda Zuñiga. In the

same round Arkadij Naiditsch went out 1-3

to Andrei Volokitin, and Maxime Vachier-

Lagrave lost 1-3 to Viktor Laznicka.

Volokitin and Laznicka knocked out two

more higher rated opponents in the

quarter-finals: Ruslan Ponomariov and top

seed Vugar Gashimov respectively.

The semi-final pairings were Laznicka

(9th seed) versus Alexander Moiseenko

(4th seed), and Leinier Domínguez (7th)

versus Andrei Volokitin (11th seed). From

this point onwards, the lower rated player

beat the higher one to the end of the

tournament, from which you can work out

that

Volokitin

beat

Laznicka in

the final.

The score

was 2-0.

Looking at

the games

(not all

seem to be

available or

complete), it

is hard to

know

whether the

players took

the event

entirely

seriously,

given that it

had no

bearing on

their ratings.

The

following

game

perhaps

hints at an

excess of

Christmas spirit but Black certainly plays

some excellent moves. The photo shows

him scratching his head in perplexity but

he evidently got the hang of this new-

format chess better than the other players.

Donostia 2012

A.Naiditsch - A.Volokitin

English Opening1 ¤f3 ¤f6 2 c4 g6 3 ¤c3 d5 4 cxd5¤xd5 5 h4 No prizes for guessing that

Bent Larsen pioneered this. Vallejo Pons

has tried it too. 5...¥g7 6 h5 ¤c6 7 d4¥g4 8 h6 The h-pawn advance has the

feel of a Kriegspiel plan, though it has

been played by Nepomniachtchi against

Rodshtein in last year’s Euro Club Cup.

8...¥f6 9 e4? Weakening the d4 pawn

after... 9...¤db4 10 d5 ¤d4! 11 ¥d3Note that the knee-jerk cheapo-seeking

11 £a4+ backfires horribly after 11...¥d7!

when 12 £xb4 is met by 12...¤c2+,

winning the queen. 11...c6 12 ¥b1White’s opening has been a disaster.

12...cxd5 13 e5

13...¥xe5!? This enterprising piece for

pawns sacrifice has the blessing of

analysis engines. 14 £a4+ b5! 15 £xb415 ¤xb5 ¤xf3+ 16 gxf3 ¥d7 17 £xb4

£b8 18 a4 a6 and Black emerge with an

extra pawn. 15...¥xf3 16 gxf3 ¦c816...a5 17 £c5 ¦c8 18 £a7 (18 £xd5??

£xd5 19 ¤xd5 ¦xc1+ wins) 18...b4 19

¤e2 ¤xf3+ is another possibility for

Black. 17 ¤e2? The threat was 17...a5

but the best way to anticipate it was to

play 17 £a3 a5 and only now 18 ¤e2

¦c2 19 ¥d2 ¦xb2 20 ¤xd4 ¥xd4 21 ¥e3

when White may be OK. 17...¦c2! 18¢d1 A very unusual configuration. If 18

¤xd4 ¦xc1+ 19 ¢e2 ¦xh1 wins, so White

is rather stymied here. 18...a5 19 £a3¦xe2 20 f4 20 ¥e3 ¦xe3 21 £xe3 ¥f6

leaves Black with more than adequate

compensation for the exchange.

20...£d7! 21 ¦g1 White cannot allow the

queen to come to g4 where it would

unleash a gruesome discovered check

with the rook. 21...¥f6 22 ¥e3 ¦xb2! 23£xb2 ¤f3 24 £b3 ¤xg1 25 ¥d3 0–025...¥xa1?? 26 ¥xb5 pinning the queen.

26 ¦c1 £g4+ 27 ¢c2 ¤e2 28 ¦e1 ¦c8+29 ¢b1 ¤c3+ 30 ¢c2 a4 0–1

BASQUE CHESS OR BASKET CASE?

Will ‘Basque chess’ catch on?

Prospective organisers will have to

remember that they need one set, board

and clock for each player, not each pair

of players – and twice the usual table

space. And what about chairs? Most

players like to sit right in front of the

board and it might mean a lot of chair

moving (potentially disruptive in terms of

noise), or leaning across awkwardly from

a middle position. Is Basque chess

ergonomically sound, therefore? I

whisper this quietly in case those

annoying Health and Safety people are

listening, and decide it’s bad for

chessplayers’ lumbar regions or the like.

The following scenario crossed my mind:

what happens when “A Joker” decides to

mirror the opponent’s moves? The games

start: Joker patiently waits for the opponent

to play his first white move and then simply

repeats it on the other board. And so on

and so forth, to the end of the games and

the almost inevitable 1-1 scoreline. Does

the arbiter step in at an early stage and

threaten A Joker with a penalty under law

12.1 (“The players shall take no action that

will bring the game of chess into

disrepute”)? I honestly don’t know.

Answers on a postcard, please...

GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave spectates as

two players contest two boards at the same time!

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Donostia_Chess mag - 21_6_10 02/02/2012 18:09 Page 41

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- Basque Chess! No kinky dressing up involved... at Donostia

top GMs tried playing two knock-out games at once. Chess,

but not as we know it...

- The Positional Pawn Sacrifice ‘Investment adviser’ Peter Lalic

talks you through a small pawn sacrifice that can lead to

substantial long-term benefits!

- Chess and Darts Carl Portman thinks chess can learn from

televised darts...

- San Sebastián 1912 Steve Giddins casts a nostalgic eye back to

Akiba Rubinstein’s victory in the second of the great Spanish

pre-WW1 tournaments.

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