In response to our recently posted article from the Hebrew press that says Gelfand isn’t getting enough coverage, I decided to go ahead and create a video of the fantastic last game. This is the final game from the final round where Gelfand defeated Grischuk winning the Candidates Matches and receiving a chance of taking the title from Viswanathan Anand at the 2012 World Chess Championship next year.
Watch the Video where GM Boris Gelfand defeats Grischuk to Win the Candidates Matches
Game Description:Final Round, Final Game (#6) – Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2733) vs Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2747) – Gelfand opens as white with d4, and Grischuk answers with the Grunfeld Defense. Gelfand plays a calmer, less complicated variation involving a fianchetto on the kingside. After an interesting novelty by white with 13. B3 and 14. Rb1, Grischuk plays with extreme creativity. Black lifts a rook to attack white’s king with 16. Ra5 and 17. Rh5, however Gelfand calmly defends with 18. Nh4 – unafraid of the weakening of his kingside pawn structure. White slowly but surely achieves a decisive amount of pressure, due to creeping central pawns that serve to powerfully restrict black’s pieces. Grischuk loses the thread of the game due to imposing time pressure, and fails to maintain the balance as he is overwhelmed tactically and strategically. A very smooth victory by Boris Gelfand. It will certainly be interesting to watch the Israeli challenge Viswanathan Anand for the world title in 2012
PGN:
[Event “Candidates 2011”]
[Site “Kazan, Russia”]
[Date “2011.05.25”]
[Round “3.6”]
[White “GM Gelfand”]
[Black “GM Grischuk”]
[Result “1-0”]
[WhiteElo “2733”]
[BlackElo “2747”]
[Opening “King’s Indian, 3.Nf3”]
[ECO “E60”]
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nf3 Bg7 4. g3 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. Bg2 Nb6 7. Nc3 Nc6 8. e3 O-O 9. O-O Re8 10. Re1 a5 11. Qe2 Bg4 12. h3 Be6 13. b3 a4 14. Rb1 axb3 15. axb3 Qc8 16. Kh2 Ra5 17. Rd1 Rh5 18. Nh4 Bf6 19. f4 Rd8 20. Qf2 Bxh4 21. gxh4 Nd5 22. Nxd5 Rhxd5 23. Bb2 Rb5 24. Qe2 Rh5 25. e4 Bxb3 26. Rdc1 Na5 27. d5 b6 28. Be5 c5 29. dxc6 f6 30. Ba1 Rc5 31. Rxc5 bxc5 32. Qb5 Qc7 33. Rxb3 Nxc6 34. e5 Nd4 35. Qc4+ {White wins} 1-0
To Kramnik, I would say, and no I haven’t played an interesting game recently, I mostly agree with what you said on ChessBase. I hold a spectator’s point of view.
What I do think is that it would be good to enforce the Sofia rules universally. Even if you have a rook endgame with two against two, it can’t be such a bother to play it out. It is instructive for the audience why the draw is inevitable.
I would even implore players not to resign too early, they should let the audience see, without deep analysis(which hardly anyone new to the game does), why it was a loss. Just play it out, if you can bear it.
Anyway, in both cases, as the player thinks, the outcome of the game is decided, so a little humility would allow the audience to see more.
And who knows, sometimes strange things happen, the unlikely happens. You have these study-like positions: why do grandmasters never stumble into them, that like just sacrificing everything you achieve stalemate or the like. Personally, I’ve never encountered these, but I’ve only played rapid games, who knows what opportunities there might have been for both sides!
To emphasis the last, in amateur games there is also the option of sacrificing your pieces to enable your opponent to mate you quicker, when you can’t bother anymore. Why shouldn’t the audience see this?
Susan, I don’t know which program you are using to observe games. With BabasChess you can save the information for the remaining time for each move into the PGN notation.
You set this behaviour in the program options: Menu File | Preferences | Save games.
Hi Anonymous,
Sorry if I wasn’t clear about the time-control issue in PGN’s. I know when you are making your own games you can record the time-controls with most free chess software.
What I was trying to say is when I pull up PGNs from games I like to cover on my YouTube Channel (say from Chessgames.com or wherever), that most of the time the PGN’s do NOT include the time-controls in them and therefore I cannot include them in my video (I know I can “add” them with BabasChess or Jin, but where would I get this information? Does anyone know?)
Sorry for the confusion.
Thanks, NM William Stewart