Sicilian Rossolimo: Anand shows the way !

In this entry, I will look at a blitz game from Anand versus Nakamura in the London 2014 event.

The Rossolimo variation starts after 1 e4 c5 2Nf3 Nc6 3Bb5

one of the key points is to accelerate white's development. White typically plays 0-0 and starts to occupy the center. Hikaru picked 3..d6 which is less common than 3..g6 or 3..e6. Maybe he wanted to avoid Anand's prep.

And here is the position they reached after 20 Qc3! attacking f6.

White has achieved a winning position in 20 moves. 

Knights cannot be captured.

If Black tries 20..exf5  21 ef5+ Kd7 22 Nf6+ Kc7 23 Qa5 Checkmate

If Black tries 20..exd5 21 exd5+ Kd7 22 dc6+ Rc6 23 Qd4! with checkmate threats.

If 20..e5 to stop Nf6+ then 21 Qa3! and c4-c5 will open up lines for White's attack.

Hikaru played 20..Rh6  but giving up the exchange did not work out.

Full game replay with annotations .

Great example where Anand quickly built pressure againt Nakamura using 3Bb5 against the sicilian

Opening Traps : Sicilian Defense

Here I want to cover 2 openings

1 e4 c5 2 d4 cd4 3c3 Morra-Smith Gambit . Morra was a french player from Nice,France (1900-1969) who studied the opening and played it in correspondence games. 

 1e4 c5 2Nf3 Nc6 3Bb5 is the Rossolimo (You could play Bb5 against d6 as well).

and here you could see 21 lines containing many traps and quick wins in the morra gambit as well as in the Rossolimo opening.

Tactics: Try to solve 5 puzzles with increasing difficulty

You can click on links to go to lichess.org and turn on chess engine (stockfish) to check solutions
leave a comment if you are stuck !

Recent GMs Game with comments/variations explained

Dubov master of the attack: Dubov-Artemiev with game analysis

Dubov delays castle, mounts an attack using Rh1 as well as rook Lift Ra1-a3 and rook over Ra3-g3 (ROVER attack).


Official Website here chess24



Tournament featuring Magnus Carlsen, Vladislav Artemiev, Daniil Dubov, Maxime Vachier Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Grischuk,etc
chess24.com chessable rapid online tournament

Magnus wins brilliancy game ( Zugwang masterpiece) against Dubov with Black: Chessable tournament Group A : June 22, 2020

Great positional game ( Zugwang Domination) by Magnus Carlsen with Black against Daniil Dubov.

Yasser Seirawan and Peter Svidler commented the game live on chess24.com

You can see Dubov on the left and Carlsen on the right  at the start of the game

PGN Here:

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 d5 3.c4 c6 4. Nc3 e6 5. g3 Nbd7 6. Bg2 Be7 7. O-O O-O 8. b3 b6 9. Re1 Ba6 10. Nd2 Rc8 11. Bb2 c5 12. dxc5 Nxc5 13. b4 Nce4 14. Ncxe4 dxe4 15. b5 Bb7 16. e3 Bb4

17. Re2 Qd3 18. Rb1 Bc3 19. Ba3 Rfd8 20. Rb3 Qxc4 21. Qe1 Qd5 22. Bb4 Qxb3 23.axb3 Bxb4 24. Bf1 a5 25. Qd1 h6 0-1

Full game with replay and annotations below :

Brilliant positional game by Carlsen who squeezed Dubov and crowned its plan with a queen sacrifice on move 20, and won in 25 moves with Black. he must have been happy after losing 3 games to Dubov in recent online tournaments

www.chess24.com to follow the tournament

Nakamura-Dubov Chessable chess24.com GroupA analysis

Round 10 : Hikaru wins against Dubov and qualifies on June 22, 2020.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 g6 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Bb3 Re8 9. f4 d6 10. Qf3 Bd7 11. O-O Ng4 12. Nxc6 bxc6 13. Bd2 d5 14. f5 Ne5 15. Qf2 e6 16. f6 Ng4 17. Qf3 Qxf6 18. Qxg4 Qd4+ 19. Rf2 f5 20. Qf3 fxe4 21. Qf7+ Kh8 22. Qxd7 Rad8 23. Qxc6 Rf8 24. Be1 Qe3 25. Qxe6 Bd4 26. Nxd5 Qe2 27. Qe5+ 1-0

Great Attacking skills by Hikaru who deviated from previous games with 9.f2-f4!?

Dubov-Nakamura Round 10: Chessable Group A

also available

Previous Game on this opening: https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/lindores-abbey-rapid-challenge-2020-final-8/3/3/4

Novelty prepared by GM Riazantsev, " Game 4 was actually a very important moment, and first of all I want to praise my friend and coach Sasha Riazantsev, who managed, while I was losing like an idiot with White, to come up with this completely new idea of c5, so it was just prepared by him between the games and I think he did a brilliant job"

chess24.com Dubov Interview Lindores Abbey with links to sicilian dragon opening

Carlsen win against Nakamura

White to play

16.Ndc6! 

Full analysis link here

Snapshot Magnus

Chessable Chess24.com Round 1 : Group A and Group B highlights

Key positions focus Round 1 Group A and B


Official Website here



Games featuring Magnus Carlsen, Vladislav Artemiev, Daniil Dubov, Maxime Vachier Lagrave
chess24.com chessable rapid online tournament

Carlsen swindles Aronian

Clutch Chess June 11 2020 Game : Carlsen with White swindles Aronian who had a -3.21 advantage few moves ago

Carlsen-Aronian Clutch Chess St Louis Tournament Online

Maxime Vachier Lagrave wins Speed Championship tuesday against Firouzja on chess.com- June 2020

Let's go the key moments of the last game. MVL is white, Firouzja is Black, they play a 3 minutes + 1 second increment

First position. MVL is white and has an interesting possibility to start an attack. can you find it?

____

the answer is 16 Rxd7! sacrificing the exchange

Position 2. Firouzka played ..Qe7 to bring his queen to the defense. Thats logical but he missed White's strong reply White to play can you find it ?

_______

the answer is 19e5! threatening exf6 and if Black answers 19..fe5, White goes 20Ng5!

Position 3. Game continued and reached the last critical position on move 28. What would you play with white ?

MVL decided to go for 29 Qxf6 exchanging queens, but Nxf6 or N6xc5 followed by Nxf6 was winning on the spot. He converted in the rook endgame with 2 pawns up. MVL was pushing the entire game and Black never equalized.

Full Game Replay Here

Armageddon Dubov-Nakamura chess24 LindoresAbbey #Heritage Chess Key Moments with Analysis

Dubov is white and must win. Nakamura is Black and must draw or win. Opening was 1e4 e5 2Nc3 Vienna Opening. 

Position 1

Here the normal variation should be 12Nf4 Nf4 12Bf4 0-0 13 Qh5 with a += assessment. white's a bit better but the game goes on. Instead, Daniil Dubov chose 12.Bd5! after thinking for 30 seconds which brings us here 

Position 2 

 Now Black had to play 12..fg3+ 13 Ng3 Bd5 14 Qh5 Ne7 with White being better. the point of white's play is that Bd5 and Bc5 are hanging while Black hasn't castled yet. 15 Nd5 Qd5 16 Qd5 Nd5 17Rf5! 0-0-0 18c4! wins the bishop in c5. Black has only two pawns for a piece. But Nakamura doesn't sense the danger and replied 12..Bd5 instantly . He is definitely trying to play fast the opening. Logically the game goes on as this from diagram 12..Bd5?? 13 Nf4 

 Position 3 

 White is attacking the bishop in d5. if you retreat: 13..Be6 14 Ne6 fe6 15Qh5+ Kd7 16 Qc5 wins a piece. The bishop on c5 is loose. So Hikaru spent 15 seconds and played 13..Ne7 on which Dubov replied 14 Qh5 c6 15Ncxd5 cd5 which brings us to the final position 

Position 4 

Can you spot the winning move ? with simple moves, Dubov achieved a winning position in 16 moves. Answer is 16Ne6!

Position 5

 Black is lost here. 16..Qd6 17Ng7+Kd7 18 Rf7! and White converted easily. Replay full game here.

https://share.chessbase.com/SharedGames/share/?p=yCQrbjry9upl44yoJtmIS6Si6WRQRfF9UrjdPyKspFJnpYXHqRk7LTjHFqt++hk7

Dubov won because he sensed this was a critical position at move 12 and invested 30 seconds to calculate and choose a dangerous move. Nakamura played instantly the obvious reply but this is lost by force. Speed is important but speed at all cost wasn't the right strategy. 

Kudos to Dubov who won the event, after Nakamura eliminated Carlsen in the semi-finals. Dubov had to win against Sergey Karjakin who was also very strong in this format.

Armageddon Game: Dubov wins against Nakamura #LindoresAbbey # Heritagechess

Lindores Abbey Heritage Chess Final Game 5 : Dubov upsets Nakamura by winning Armageddon Game.

 He tried 1e4 e5 2Nc3 Vienna Opening and reached a winning position after 16 moves.

 

Nakamura tried to play too quickly and spent no time on 12..Bd5?? which loses by force. Instead Dubov invested 30 seconds into playing 12Bd5! which was a strong move and not the natural and obvious 12Nf4. 

He saw this would cause problems for Black who hasn't castled. Nakamura failed to sense this was already a key moment and had to solve his issue around being behind in development.

 

Dubov-Nakamura Final Game 5- 3/6/2020

also available here

https://share.chessbase.com/SharedGames/share/?p=yCQrbjry9upl44yoJtmIS6Si6WRQRfF9UrjdPyKspFJnpYXHqRk7LTjHFqt++hk7

Match2 HeritageChess Lindores Abbey Rapid: Nakamura-Dubov Game 1 June 2nd 2020

Lindores Abbey Heritage Chess Final Game 1 : Dubov upsets Nakamura by winning first game with Black. Sicilian Alapin B22

Dubov-Nakamura Final Game 1- 2/6/2020

also available

Dubov-Nakamura Game 4 (1/2-1/2) on Match 2 : Dutch Opening By Hikaru

Lindores Abbey Heritage Chess Final Game 4 : Hikaru must win with Black but was held to a draw by Dubov

Dubov-Nakamura Finale Game 4- 2/6/2020

also available

Speed Chess Championship Titled Tuesday

Today Vladislav Artemiev won the Titled Tuesday Blitz on chess.com they renamed it Speed Chess Championship (SCC) Grand Prix and takes place every Tuesday. Speed of play is 3 minutes+ 1 second increment. www.chess.com

Titled players play a swiss open and the first 8 qualify for Knock-Out tournament phase. There were strong players like Giri and Fedoseev but not Nakamura as he was playing the Abbey Rapid against Dubov.

 Artemiev won the tournament, facing Sergey Karjakin in the final. He eliminated Oparin and Giri before, his online blitz rating is 3175.

 Here's the final game, he plays the Sicilian Kan/Taimanov with Black. Karjakin had the advantage, could not convert, was running low on time and lost !

 Artemiev username is SibElephant. Probably means the elephant from Siberia. Sergey goes by SergeyKarjakin.

Artemiev(SibElephant) Black

 

Karjakin(SergeyKarjakin) White

Carlsen-Nakamura Armageddon (Lindores Abbey Online Rapid) #HeritageChess

Hikaru with Black won the decisive game, and the 3rd match ( he lost first match 0-3, won second 2.5-1.5, and had tied 3rd match 2-2). Hikaru will play Daniil Dubov in the final starting June 1st. https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/lindores-abbey-rapid-challenge-2020

Screen Capture from the game