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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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---- Nous avons besoin d'un traduction français!
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CARLSEN HAS NO TROUBLE IN TIEBREAKERS AT QATAR MASTERS
Sam Copeland
Yesterday spectators logging in to watch the games from the Qatar Masters were shocked to find World Champion Magnus Carlsen already in possession of a full point — today belated spectators were surprised by how quickly Carlsen achieved a half point.
An expedient draw moved Magnus Carlsen to 7.0/9 and guaranteed him at least a tiebreak match in the Qatar Masters. Those hoping for fireworks on the top board were rapidly disappointed as Vladimir Kramnik essayed the Berlin Defense and Carlsen played the incredibly safe line 5. Re1; the drawing percentage here well exceeds 50%. The only question was how many minutes it would take the players to make the required thirty moves so that they could agree a draw. The answer proved to be 34 minutes.
Despite the result, this was a historic showdown as entering the last round Kramnik stood at second place in the live ratings with an Elo rating of 2800.6. It's rare enough for a sitting World Champion and number one rated player to play a Swiss open tournament, but to have a Swiss open showdown between the number one and number two rated players in the world would to this reporter's meager recall seem to be historically unique except that it also happened two days ago when in the Carlsen versus Giri showdown, it was Giri that had the number 2 live rating!
Noting the rarity with which Carlsen plays in opens, commentator Alejandro Ramirez asked Carlsen what he thought of his first open in a while. As always, Carlsen was pragmatic "As long as you score seven points... [I'm] usually pretty happy."
Carlsen might naturally have feared putting precious Elo points up for grabs in an open given his suspect form this past year, but this was probably Carlsen's best performance in some time, and he gained six points to push his live rating back to 2844.
After the game, Carlsen pointed to suffering from insomnia in the prior round, and said he would try to "relax, maybe lay by the pool."
The board one draw migrated much of the attention to the board two matchup between Yu Yangyi and Wesley So where Yangyi — on 6.0 and tied for second with Kramnik — was the only player who could catch Carlsen and take the battle for first to tiebreaks.
Carlsen commenting in the live coverage after the game felt that "Black is in serious strategic danger." Still, for some time, the game looked drawish, but Yangyi gradually outplayed So and achieved some plus.
Prior to the time control, the situation sharpened as Yangyi grabbed pawns and So sought counterplay against Yangyi's lonely king with 25... e3 and 26... h5. So missed the critical 31... Rd1 and hastily played Qd4+. At this point, commentator Peter Svidler so anticipated a draw that he congratulated Magnus Carlsen on his victory. Co-commentator Alejandro Ramirez asked if he was so sure. "I am that sure." said Svidler.
However, internet kibitzers began to plead for Yangyi to play on with Kg2! and after some repetitions, he did so. He soon entered an endgame where he had four pawns in return for a knight. After many ups and downs, Yangyi eventually converted the endgame in the fifth hour of play after 77 moves.
Yangyi was also the surprise winner in the 2014 edition of the tournament. To share first in the main tournament and make it to 7.0/9 again is a tremendous competitive achievement!
The tiebreaks consisted of a two-game blitz match with a time control of 5 minutes with a 3-second increment. The first place prize money was decided entirely by tiebreak so the $11,000 difference between first ($27,000) and second ($16,000) was allocated in a very short order.
Carlsen would clearly be the favorite under most circumstances, but with Yangyi having just finished an epic game, he could not seem to adjust to the blitz time control. He quickly had less than a minute before any major decisions had arisen. Carlsen provoked crises with the advance of his g-pawn and soon struck with a winning rook sacrifice.
In a must-win situation in game two, Yangyi was doing a bit better on the clock, but he had no real advantage from the opening when disaster struck. In a classic case of LPDO (Loose Pieces Drop Off), he found himself losing a piece as Carlsen was attacking both the Na4 and the Bf4. The game was simply over, and Carlsen deservedly claimed the title and the money.
In a post-tiebreak interview, Carlsen expressed confidence in the format, "I feel comfortable playing these tiebreaks. Usually, when I get to them I've had to go through some obstacles to get there. Today I think he was tired"
While Carlsen is finishing the year on a high, this is the second year in a row that he has lost rating points. In 2014, he slid from 2872 to 2862; this year he slid further to finish at 2844. The elusive 2900 barrier looks farther away than ever.
Besides Yangyi, many players in the pack hoping to improve their prize standings produced interesting chess. Ultimately, after Kramnik's draw with Carlsen, four other players moved into the tie for second. These were Sergey Karjakin, Sanan Sjugirov, Ni Hua, and Vassily Ivanchuk.
One of the first players to declare decisive attentions was Shakhriyar Mamedyarov who played g5 as Black on move 6! against Sanan Sjugirov. In commentary, Carlsen was intrigued saying, "This is by far not the worst g5 I've seen... This one I kind of like."
As intriguing as the idea was for Mamedyarov, after 11. d4 and dxe5 the energy promised by g5 was missing. Soon Sjugirov's knight pair was looking pretty promising. One knight leapt to f5, and when the other leapt into d6 a few moves later, it was all over.
Meanwhile Karjakin's opponent, Zhang Zhong played a theoretical piece sacrifice, and eventually he was down a rook. Things looked good for Karjakin, but he could never seem to uncoil. and eventually he got his rook into trouble on g6. He had to relinquish his entire material advantage to extricate it, but fortunately for Karjakin, Zhong almost immediately erred and Karjakin was able to activate his now mobile rook and win.
Vassily Ivanchuk may have been a surprise entrant into the tie for third as he hadn't played on the top boards at any point in the tournament. However, a steady performance overall paired well with a final round victory and he leapfrogged many who had led him for much of the tournament.
His final round victory over Darius Swiercz was a classic example of the bishop's superiority to the knight in many endgames.
Evgeny Tomashevsky also seemed to have aggressive aspirations as he took up the White side of the hyper-theoretical Botvinnik variation against S. P. Sethuraman. Unfortunately, he did not see familiar with theory, and after prolonged thinks he had only eight minutes in a position that commenters assured as was still theoretical.
That naturally did not bode well. After Sethuraman picked up the f-pawn on move 30, things were bad for Tomashevsky, and they only worsened.
In the battle for the top Arab prize, all attention was on the game between A. R. Saleh Salem and Mohammed Al-Sayed. Sadly, this game was drawn even more quickly than the showdown on board one as the players found a repetition in a book line of the Italian Game and settled things peacefully on move 14. The draw meant that Salem claimed the first place prize of $2,500 on tiebreaks.
The competitors for the top female prize seemed to be cursed as four of the five women entering the last round tied at 4.5 — GMs Alexandra Kosteniuk, Hou Yifan, WGMs Aleksandra Goryachkina, Dinara Saduakassova, and Eesha Karavade — lost. Hou Yifan was both the only leading female to escape defeat and the only one to win. She claimed the top women prize was $8,000.
Dinara Saduakassova was one of the first leading females to falter as Alexander Ipatov executed a classical breakthrough in a bishop endgame that was rapidly reached.
Eesha Karavade needed a draw to secure a GM norm and a victory to catch Hou Yifan. Sadly, neither was to be as she fell to Daniil Dubov in gorgeous style.
An open tournament offers a unique opportunity for unknown players to shine against the world's elite, and possibly the most impressive such showing was by the untitled Xu Yinglun who entered the last round in the giant tie for fourth place with a 2811 performance rating. He maintained his impressive streak with a draw as black against Ruslan Ponomariov.
Needless to say, Yinglun more than earned a GM norm for his efforts. Additional GM norms were secured by Daniil Yuffa, Lin Chen, N. R. Vignesh, and Shardul Gagare. There was also a bevy of IM and other norms achieved.
In addition to his GM norm, Shardul Gagare authoritatively claimed the top junior prize of $1,500. To do so, he won a convincing final round game against Ildar Khairullin with a dominant knight pair.
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