LCC round 5 report

News release
Thursday 8th December 2011

LONDON CHESS CLASSIC 2011: ROUND 5

John Saunders reports:

Nakamura Shines as England Goes Down in Flames

With their star striker on the bench, England went down 0-3 in this crucial round. No, this isn’t football and I’m not predicting the first round of next year’s European Team Championship (with Wayne Rooney hors de combat). This was the main feature of the fifth round of the London Chess Classic. England’s leading contender Luke McShane was in the commentary room watching as his English colleagues were being shot down in flames.

The principal beneficiary of the bloodshed was Hikaru Nakamura who beat David Howell to take over the sole lead. If Hikaru weren’t such a pleasant young fellow, I’d cast him as the Giant in the traditional Christmas pantomime Jack And The Beanstalk, with his traditional cry of “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman”. And, don’t forget, he has three more Englishmen to come. Yesterday’s game started with a distinctly pantomime flavour. As usual, there were large numbers of schoolchildren in the auditorium to watch the start of play, and when tournament director Malcolm Pein opened with his customary “Good Afternoon, everyone”, quite unprompted the children all chorused “good afternoon” in reply. It was a delightful moment and Malcolm couldn’t resist giving it a reprise, with the children again responding with gusto.

The round featured the meeting of the two young men who sit atop the unofficial live chess rating list. Levon Aronian had White against Magnus Carlsen. It was a Chebanenko Slav, with Levon quickly diverging from the line he had used against Luke McShane. He obtained a big edge, overlooking a chance to subject his opponent to a strong bind, but nerves seemed to play a part on both sides and Magnus was ultimately able to draw the game. Something of a let-off for Carlsen, while Aronian’s finishing is not as sharp as we have come to expect.

Hikaru Nakamura’s game plan seemed to be to play within himself and aim for steady pressure, allowing David Howell’s habitual time pressure to take its toll.

Nigel Short played a slightly offbeat line against Vishy Anand’s Sicilian. GMs in the VIP room shook their heads at this choice of opening, opining that you have to play ‘real openings’ to retain a white initiative against world-class players. Nevertheless, Nigel seemed to be doing reasonably well until he slipped into time trouble after spending rather too long on his 25th move and then blundering on move 34: “a move of criminal stupidity,” as he himself characterised it in the commentary room. This win was the world champion’s first in a long time – nine rounds in Moscow and five here. But it is not unprecedented for a great champion, for example Kasparov’s unsuccessful defence of his title in 2000 in which he failed to win a game.

Mickey Adams succumbed to his third straight defeat against Vlad Kramnik. GM Stuart Conquest on Twitter (@stuthefox) commented sympathetically: “Adams has now lost three in a row: a terrible strain for any player. Let’s hope he can show his best chess vs Aronian tomorrow.” Of course, playing Kramnik as Black is bad news anyway; he is as relentless as inquisitor as Carlsen. It was Vlad’s famous recipe: Kramnik à la Catalan. Stir gently for about 20-30 moves and then apply some minority attack seasoning to taste. However, the electronic master chef Rybka points out that he overcooked it slightly on move 28, where Black could have played 28…Nc7, threatening to snap off the rook. Engine analysis suggests the outcome would be fairly equal. What Mickey played was much worse: he shed a pawn within a few moves. Vlad applied steady heat and he was soon done to a turn.

Today, Friday 9 December, Hikaru Nakamura celebrates his 24th birthday. Many happy returns! His present is Black against a well-rested Luke McShane. Hikaru has celebrated his previous birthdays in London with Black against Mickey Adams in 2009 (a draw) and Black against Vlad Kramnik in 2010 (a win) so he should be pretty confident.

However, home fans will be looking to Luke to make amends for the English ‘Black Thursday’ and ruin Hikaru’s birthday. The US/UK ‘special relationship’ has been put on hold for the day. Home fans have had quite a lot to cheer them in the Open, incidentally. Top English woman player IM Jovanka Houska shares the lead on 5½/6 with GMs Peter Wells and Abhijeet Gupta from India. Jovanka has beaten GM Matthieu Cornette of France and highly-rated Indian IM Sahaj Grover, as well as drawing with in-form English GM Gawain Jones (and she was pressing hard for an endgame win in that game too). Jovanka’s performance rating is currently an eye-watering 2762 and she has a very realistic chance of a GM norm.

The scores above are ‘absolute’, i.e. they make no allowance for the three players who have played fewer games. My unofficial ‘relative’ scores (using a golf-style formula but in reverse: +2 for a win, ‑1 for a loss, draws don’t count): 1 Nakamura +5, 2 McShane +4, 3 Kramnik +4, 4 Carlsen +4, 5 Anand +1, 6 Aronian +1, 7 Short -1, 8-9 Adams, Howell -3.

Round 6 games start on Friday 9 December at the usual 1400 UK time. Magnus Carlsen has the bye and will be joining the commentary team for the day.

For more information and to buy tickets to the London Chess Classic, please go to www.londonchessclassic.com