Moro's back!

[Jack Maguire]

Moro's back! And clearly with a vengeance! His win today against Emil Sutovsky gives Morozevich 3.5/4 at the Karpov 2014 in Nefteyugansk, Russia and a share of 1st with Croatia's best, Ivan Saric. They're both a full point ahead of Dmitry Jakovenko and a point and a half ahead of Alexei Shirov (4 draws!), Etienne Bacrot, and Ian Nepomniachtchi. I'll also note that ChessBase (in their R2 report) referred to Moro as "the much admired maverick" (:

[Hans Jung]

Re: Moro's back!

Thats always exciting! (and I mean that)

[Jack Maguire]

Re: Moro's back!

Thats always exciting! (and I mean that)

We should see a spectacular game tomorrow (today being the only off day) between the 2 co-leaders, Hans. Did you see Saric's crush of Nepo in R2? Saric seems a veritable expert against the Sicilian Najdorf, scoring a spectacular 15 -2 =9 at chessgames.com with White against this opening. Moro has White and you never know what he's going to play (:

[Hans Jung]

Re: Moro's back!

Yes Jack and not surprising - we will be hearing a lot more from GM Saric soon - he is getting stronger rapidly and is the next "super GM" from Croatia. Someone recently was lamenting the lack of super strong GM's from the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Well GM Saric is the start of a new generation of greats.

[Erwin Casareno]

Re: Moro's back!

I like Morozevic's approach to the game -fightnng chess. That game was "dog vs dog". A rook for a Knight plus Pawn imbalanced pawn structure guaranteed fireworks. White was not able to hold on the the advantage when his Queen went one square too long on the queenside.
This game is recommended to players looking for a win.

[Jack Maguire]

Re: Moro's back!

Moro'sl R6 game at Dubai today against Judit Polgar is worth checking out. Polgar, the renown expert in the Sicilian, is up a Pawn after 14 moves but down 4.32 Pawns according to Stockfish and it's all over in just 26 moves.

Then again, Moro is absolute Kryptonite to Polgar. Their score at chessgames.com now stands 11 -0 =5 in Moro's favour.

[Jack Maguire]

Re: Moro's back!

Moro had the same score as Caruana, 7.5/8 (with the draw in R7, not R8), at the just completed Russian Rapid Grand-Prix 2014, before drawing out in his final 3 games for a 9/11 clear 1st win. Of course, beating the likes of Moiseenko, Rublevsky, and Shirov is not nearly the same as all the top ten opponents Caruana is running roughshod over. And I'm sure he won a whole lot less than the $20,000 Nakamura will get for finishing last in St. Louis.

[Jack Maguire]

Re: Moro's back!

Moro is having quite the month in Russia! He won the Moscow Blitz Championship by a full 2.5 points with a score of 15.5/19! He also picked up 60.6 FIDE points to reach 2800 status at 2810.6. Conversely, Grischuk lost 52.6 FIDE points in Moscow to fall to 2724.4. Karjakin also shed 31 points to barely retain 2700 status at 2701.

[Jack Maguire]

Re: Moro's back!

The Svidler - Morozevich game today in R3 of the Russian Superfinal 2014 has opened 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.g3 b5 (:

Moro has a nice edge against Svidler over the years with 16 wins versus 10 losses and 16 draws. 'Twould appear Svidler fares better against the more positional player. For instance, he's plus 6, minus 2, with 22 draws against Peter Leko.

[Jack Maguire]

Re: Moro's back!

Make that plus 7 against Svidler now as Moro takes over clear 1st with 2.5/3 (:

[Olivier Tessier]

.................................

[Jack Maguire]

Re: Moro's back!

I got crushed a couple of years ago trying this against Lawrence Day...
After 3.c3! it becomes very difficult to play for black...

There's a very limited database at chessgames.com, Olivier, but 3.c3 is the absolute worst scoring move there. It would appear that the only move that scores well for White is 3.Na3!

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explo...124903.2492623

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Moro's back!

There's a very limited database at chessgames.com, Olivier, but 3.c3 is the absolute worst scoring move there. It would appear that the only move that scores well for White is 3.Na3!

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explo...124903.2492623

I would think twice before referencing 16 games and 14 games as best and worst moves without even looking at who played those games and how the games continued. It's just sloppy research

[Ed Seedhouse]

Re: Moro's back!

I got crushed a couple of years ago trying this against Lawrence Day...
After 3.c3! it becomes very difficult to play for black...

You didn't get crushed because of 3.c3, you got crushed because you were playing Lawrence Day...

[Jack Maguire]

Re: Moro's back!

I would think twice before referencing 16 games and 14 games as best and worst moves without even looking at who played those games and how the games continued. It's just sloppy research

I did highlight the "very limited database", Bindi. Moreover, there's a rather substantive difference between your "best move" and my "best scoring move". That said, I'd love to check out those 30 games to see who the participants were. Alas, I do not have a premium membership to chessgames.com so can not oblige ):

I can access the larger 393 game database however and do find many of the names therein of interest.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?node=2492623

It would appear that Spassky may have 'legitimized' the 2. ...b5!? move when he played it against Petrosian in their World Championship Match in 1966 (during the same event he answered Petrosian's 1.d4 with 1. ...b5!?). Tal had a couple of wins with Black the very next year and I also see that Canada's own Lawrence Day scored 2 wins with Black in 1969 and 1971 (: