FM Steve Giddins reports from the Staunton Memorial tournament 2006

This year’s Staunton Memorial has been one of the hardest-fought and interesting tournaments of the year, and today’s 9th round was no exception. In fact, all 6 games ended in decisive results, with four of them won by the Black pieces.

The first to finish was Michael Adams, who won with embarrassing ease against the luckless Lawrence Day, whose form seems to be imploding. Despite having 1/8 and facing the top-rated player, he essayed the King’s Gambit. The sight of 2 f4 still makes many chessplayers’ hearts beat a little faster, but unfortunately, as diehards such as Fedorov and Gallagher have found to their cost, playing the King’s Gambit against world-class opposition is a pretty thankless task these days. Adams avoided any preparation by playing the unusual 3...Ne7, coincidentally a favourite of tournament leader Ivan Sokolov. Day thrashed about in original style, but the artificiality of many of his moves (7 h4, 9 Qd3, etc) contrasted poorly with his opponent’s sound and sensible development. When playing 11 Qb3, Day had clearly over-estimated his tactical chances against the g6-knight (12 Bxg6 is met simply by 12...Be6) and within a couple of moves, his c-pawn had dropped off as well, thereby completing a rather embarassing “Royal Double” of both King’s and Queen’s Gambits. Two pawns down, and with his king still in the centre, Day decided to shoulder arms.

The leader Ivan Sokolov also won with great ease as Black. He played the Czech Benoni, an opening which has been something of a black sheep with leading GMs for many years. Recently, however, it has been revived with great success by the Rumanian GM Nisipeanu. Indeed, I can exclusively reveal to readers of this report that the forthcoming NIC Yearbook 81 will contain a theoretical survey on the line, by a player whose identity I am far too modest to reveal! Lanchava certainly did not seem to have a very clear idea of how to counter it - indeed, her second, Egyptian GM Adly, later told me that his principal had for some reason departed from their preparation at move 3!.  She wasted much time with her KN, and Sokolov already had a very comfortable position when Lanchava produced the dreadful move 16 f4??, completely missing the tactical threat of Nxf4. This was the second time in the tournament that Lanchava has overlooked a tactical threat, rather obviously telegraphed by her opponent’s previous move – see her 14...Nd7?? against Levitt in round 4.

The game Werle-Timman was an important one for the tournament situation, as two of the second-placed group met. Jan Werle has played very impressively so far, but today was a bad one at the office. He seemed surprised by Timman’s opening choice, and used up substantial amounts of time over his 7th and 8th moves. Timman’s 7...Bb4 seems to be a novelty, albeit a very natural one, with 7...a5 being more common. Werle’s long thought produced an exchange sacrifice, but it seems that he must have missed something, because he never looked like getting enough for his material. He soon realised that he was in trouble, and thought for a whole hour over 12 b3, but was unable to generate any real threats, and Timman calmly wrapped things up in his opponent’s time-trouble.

Peter Wells continued his revival, beating Yge Visser, who has now lost his last four. Wells’ favourite Tromp (with which he beat Shirov in just 14 moves at Gibraltar, earlier this year!) soon yielded a solid extra pawn and an obvious plus, and by move 20, he was winning. Visser thought long and hard, in a bid to find some counterplay, but in the end, he only succeeded in adding time-trouble to his other problems, and his desperate attempts to stir up trouble with 22...f5 were easily refuted.

Levitt-L’Ami saw the English GM get nothing from the opening, but his real mistake came at move 24. His opponent afterwards suggested 24 Bc2, but instead, Levitt forced transposition into a rook ending, where Black’s rook was vastly more active. It turned out after the game that Levitt had been counting on his passed c-pawn to provide adequate counterplay, but he had simply overlooked 29...Kf8, after which the Black King can neutralise the pawn. Once that happened, White was probably already lost, and L’Ami converted his advantage without trouble.