Steve Giddins reports on round 2 of the Fifth Staunton Memorial tournament

Round 2 of the 2007 Staunton Memorial saw a marvellous afternoon of fighting chess. Only one of the six games was drawn, and that was actually the longest game of the day. Amongst the five winners were the top three rated players, as class began to assert itself.

The first game of the day to end was that between Peter Wells and Gawain Jones. The latter's slightly dubious line of the King's Indian was met in aggressive fashion by Wells, who castled queenside and launched his kingside pawns forward, much in the style of the Dragon Sicilian (perhaps appropriate, given his opponent's nationality...). By move 15, the position was already looking grim for Black:

After long thought, and realising that things have already gone badly wrong, Jones punted the thematic sacrifice 15.. Bxg4, a tactical idea well known in such positions. His idea is that after 16.fxg4 Nxe4 17.Nxe4 Qxe4 18.Rh3 Rab8, Black has some counterplay, whilst White has difficulties with the position of his bishops on the e-file. However, Wells found the much stronger response 16.hxg6 fxg6 17.e5!, which refutes Black's idea completely. After another long think, Jones could find nothing better than 17...Qxe5 18.Bd4 Qe6 19.fxg4, after which he was just a piece down for nothing, and resigned a few moves later.

Peter Wells, who slayed his opponent's dragon-like King's Indian

After his excellent result the day before, Colin McNab came back down to earth with a bump, being soundly beaten by Dutch no. 1, Loek van Wely. Colin's King's Indian structure was already collapsing around his ears by the time he reached the following position:

Here, he tried 23...h6. but after 24.Rxf5! he was quite lost. The rook is immune because of 24...Bxf5 25.Qxf5 hxg5 26.Rd7, so Colin had to give up a pawn by 24...hxg5 25.Rxg5 Rxg5 26.hxg5. The game did not last much longer: 26...Qe7 27.Bf3 Qxe4 28.Bxe4 Bg4 29.f3 Be6 30.Bxf4 Bxa2 31.Be5+ 1–0

McNab's first round victim, Ivan Sokolov, fared better than his conqueror, rebounding to win a highly interesting game against Jan Werle. An unusual line of the Slav saw both players consume a lot of time early on, and the following position was reached with neither player having a lot of thinking time left:

Here Sokolov continued 25..Nd3+ Now 26.Ke3 Nxb2 just leaves Black with an obvious advantage, so a time-troubled Werle decided to mix things with 26.Kg5. Perhaps he was influenced by the fact that one of Howard Staunton's non-chess achievements was to publish his own annotated edition of Shakespeare's works; just like the Bard's tragic hero King Lear, the white monarch marches boldly out into the storm, only to meet much the same fate. Alternatively, maybe Jan is a fan of Star Trek, and felt that his king should boldly go where no king had gone before. Either way, having invited the enemy king into his parlour, Sokolov proved a most inhospitable host, and duly gave mate after 26...h6+ 27.Kxg6 (27 Kh4 avoids the mate, but White is losing anyway) Ne5+ 28.Kg7 Ke7 29.Nxf5+ Ke6 30.Nd4+ Kd5 31.Rxb4  (this tactic saves the threatened piece, but now His Majesty bites the dust) Rbg8+ 32.Kf6 Rg6+ 33.Ke7 Rh7+ 34.Kf8 Rf7+ 35.Ke8 Rg8#

Werle's king was not the only monarch of the day to wander into enemy territory and find itself surrounded by hostile elements. In the game Smeets - Speelman, the young Dutch GM exploited Jon's rather ramshackle opening and won a pawn, but Speelman escaped into an opposite-coloured bishop ending. Just as the spectators were anticipating a long evening's technical grinding, Smeets produced a very nice mating finish:

Smeets now continued 45.Bd6+ Kb3 46.Re3+! (much stronger taking the exchange, when Black could still resist) Kxb2 47.Be5+! Kc2 48.Rh2!, and suddenly the black king has no escape. The threat is mate in two by 49 Ke1+ Kc1 50 Re1 mate. Speelman tried the desperate 48...Rxf3+ 49.Rxf3 Bxf3, but even here Smeets was precise to the end, playing 50.Ke3+! (better than 50 Kxf3+, when the c-pawn can still cause a few problems) Kb3 51.Rb2+ 1–0. With the c-pawn neutralised, there is no hope at all for Black. A neat finish to a well-played game by Smeets.

Jan Smeets, who neatly trapped Speelman's king

The clash between Timman and Adams developed into a heavyweight positional battle. Adams rejected a draw offer at move 21 and gradually outplayed his opponent, finally homing in on the white king:

With Black having just captured a pawn on f4, Timman sought to recover his mislaid material by 36.Qa4 Rf8 37.Rxg7+ Kxg7 38.Qxa7+. However, after 38...Kh8 39.Qa3 Rg8 40.Kf1 Bg4 his king fell under a decisive attack. He played 41.Qb3 Qd2 42.Qg3 (losing, but otherwise 42...d3 is deadly) and resigned after 42...Be2+! 0–1, since the queen is lost after 43 Rxe2 Qc1+ 44 Re1 Qxc4+ and 45...Rxg3.

"Seconds out, round 2!" Chief arbiter Eric Schiller, about to get Timman-Adams (inter alia) underway.

The only draw of the day was a long battle between Jovanka Houska and Erwin L'ami. The former's solid play left her never more than slightly worse, and her clock was the main enemy. She reached move 40 without any mishap, and although in the resulting rook ending Black's rook was more active, there was no way to make progress. Maybe Erwin is another Star Trek fan, because after manoeuvering around for some time, he was eventually forced  to admit that, like engineer Scotty on the Starship Enterprise, "I cannae change the laws of physics!", and the draw was agreed at move 57.

 
Erwin L'ami: "Perhaps if I reverse the polarity on the matter-anti-matter pods...?"