Italian line: No castle-Nh2!? Morozevich-Adams 2008

Giuco Piano. 11Nh2!?. No castle.

Complicated Morozevitch position ( Amber 2008 tournament)

White to play

Evaluate and analyze this complicated position. This occured during a rapid game last year at the Chess Amber 2008 in Nice, France between two top GMs.

Who would you favor in the starting position above ?

Amber Chess 2009: Aronian wins in Nice !

Levon Aronian, Nice winner Amber Edition 2009

By drawing his two games against Topalov today, Levon Aronian won the combined 2009 Amber tournament. This is the second win in a row for the armenian grand master, as he won last year's combined Amber event as well.

Levon Aronian overall winner in Amber 2009 !

The tournament was incredibly strong this year, with the participation of Anand,Kramnik,Topalov,Carlsen,Morozevich,Karjakin and many other top GMs.

I think that Aronian's success lies in very strong middle-game skills both from a tactical and strategic standpoint, the ability to save or turn around compromised positions ( see rapid game against Carlsen for instance), finding counter-chances and making superb practical decisions especially in complex positions, and excellent nerves & self-control in time-trouble.

A great example today was his move 32..Re8! in the blindfold Topalov-Aronian.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1541024


Finally Aronian has developed a well-thought out opening repertoire with 1d4 as main weapon for White (with also 1.c4 and 1Nf3 as alternatives). As Black, he can play 1..e5 or 1..c6 against 1.e4, and favors the Slav against 1.d4.

Kramnik, Anand and Carlsen were also in the running for first place during the tournament.
This year's event produced numerous exciting battles, including the blindfold tournament, which showed that top grandmasters can play fast and accurately without a chessboard, which I find personally very impressive. Only a few blindfold games were decided by blunders, with the vast majority displaying quality chess !



Official Website and Final Standings :
http://www.amberchess2009.com/

Excellent coverage also at :

http://www.chessvibes.com/ (with on-site videos)

http://www.chessgames.com/

http://www.theweekinchess.com/

Toward the end, Europe-Echecs provided on-site coverage as well:
http://www.europe-echecs.com/

Positional Games

Middlegame means also positional play sometimes. As mostly tactics are covered in the blog,
here are 6 positions where a positional domination is carried out at GM level.

I White to play (Positional)

Adams-David, 2008, White's 29th move















II White to play

Morozevich-Timofeev, 2008. 24th move.















III White to play

Gelfand-Kamsky 2006, 27th White move.















IV White to play

Bareev-Bacrot, 2000. White's 19th move















V: Black to play
Smyslov-Tal 1964. Black's 24th move.
















All games can be replayed from the above positions via the next link
http://games.top10chess.com/positionalgames.htm

Top Grandmasters 2008 games

This blog is about taking a closer look at the middle-game in chess. Top level chess provides lots of material to re-play, analyze and be inspired by.

From the top 10 chess players in the world, I have decided to select 4 Grandmasters with a collection of their 2008 games ( wins or losses, no draws) as of June 19, 2008. Around a hundred games are featured.

Here are the links with replayable games on a chessboard:

Anand:
http://games.top10chess.com/anandgames.htm

Aronian:
http://games.top10chess.com/aroniangames.htm

Carlsen:
http://games.top10chess.com/carlsengames.htm

Morozevich:
http://games.top10chess.com/morozevichgames.htm




Please drop a comment if you would like another player to be featured in the list, or if you have a comment on the presented collections. For example, if a particular game or position stands out, it could be analyzed in a separate post.