FM Steve Giddins reports from the Staunton Memorial tournament 2006

Today saw tournament leader Ivan Sokolov meet one of his closest pursuers, Jan Werle, and a very interesting battle ensued. The latter equalized comfortably enough in the opening, but some mistakes in the middlegame soon handed Sokolov the advantage. After the game, Werle pointed to the move 25...h6?! as the main cause of his troubles. Instead, if he had prepared it by 25...Kg7 and 26...Rh8, he felt that he would have had good chances. 27...Rc3? was a further mistake, after which Sokolov won two pieces for a rook, with a simple combination. However, disaster struck on move 32, when, with his opponent in time-trouble, Sokolov played the very plausible 32 Nc2? (32 Nf3 is correct), after which Werle struck with a neat drawing combination. Sokolov could not at first understand what was happening, and looked rather incredulously at his opponent when the latter played 32...Rxf1+. However, when the follow-up 35...Qc1 appeared on the board, Sokolov audibly gasped in horror, as he realised the draw was forced. He spent about five minutes staring at the position, with a face the colour of pitch, before agreeing the inevitable and storming out of the room, furious with himself.

This dropped half-point allowed Mickey Adams to remain in close pursuit of Sokolov, despite himself only drawing with White. Speelman had commented in the bar the previous evening that “if only I could get to move 15 with a position, I feel I could do OK in these games”. He duly managed this, standing only slightly worse after the opening, but Adams gradually increased his plus in the middlegame, without Speelman appearing to do anything obviously wrong. In fact, it was a typical Adams game, very reminiscent of Karpov in his heyday. Once White managed to convert his queenside pawn majority into a passed pawn, things begun to look grim for Black, but Speelman defended extremely well from that point on. By making the most of his active major pieces and kingside majority, he created enough counterplay against the White King to force the draw.

After her fine start, Tea Lanchava had lost her last three games, but today she struck back with a nice win over Yge Visser. The latter’s aggressive set-up against the Pirc looked a little optimistic, and Lanchava exposed the flaws with the typical tactical blow 14...Ng4! The shock of this seemed to take its toll on Visser, who thought for close on one hour, before launching a tactical blow of his own with 15 Nc6.  At first sight, this exchange sacrifice seems to offer White reasonable compensation, but this impression is quickly dispelled once one sees the powerful 18...Rd8!, which Visser must have missed. In view of 19 Qc7 Rd2 20 Rg1 Bd4, he could find nothing better than to give up the queen for two minor pieces, after which the result was never in doubt.

Levitt lost a very technical game against Timman. He should have preferred the IQP position after 14...exd5, which is only slightly better for White. Instead, he misjudged the ending reached after taking on f5. As Levitt himself put it, he hoped the ending would turn out to be 70% drawn, whereas in reality it was more like 20% drawn and 80% lost. Timman is an outstanding endgame player, and had little difficulty in ensuring that today would be an 80% day.

The remaining game, L’Ami-Day, was actually the shortest of the round. Lawrence Day has been having a very bad time in the tournament, and had even suggested to friends that he is considering making this his last international tournament, which would be a great shame. Sadly, today’s game will have done little to change his mind, as he was crushed in barely 2 hours’ play. 6...Bg4 does not have a great reputation, but has been played with some success recently by world junior champion Mamedyarov. The well-prepared L’Ami was clearly aware of this, his 9 d5 being an attempted improvement over 9 0-0 c5 10 d5 b5, when Black gained good, Benko-style counterplay in van Wely-Mamedyarov, Wijk aan Zee 2006. Black’s position on the kingside already looks suspect after 12 f4, but Day’s radical solution 12...f5 is simply suicidal. Just two moves later, he was already lost, unable to accept the sacrifice in view of 14...gxh5 15 Qxh5+ Kg8 16 Rxg7+ Kxg7 17 Kd2. He struggled on for a few more moves, but with no hope of survival.