THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
July 20, 2004, Tuesday

Short raises hopes of return to form

By Malcolm Pein

NIGEL Short grabbed an early lead in the Sanjin Hotel Cup at Taiyuan
in China after taking full advantage of two games with the white
pieces in the first two rounds.

Last year and early this year Short had a tremendous run of form
which took his rating over 2700, but poor performances in the French
and Bosnian leagues and at the Sarajevo Super Tournament were
followed by a disastrous exit from the Fide World Championship
Knock-Out at Tripoli, when he put a rook en prise after outplaying
the Polish Grandmaster Michal Krasenkow.

The tournament in China may well herald a change in fortunes for the
England number two, although he was certainly lucky to win his first
game against Xu Jun. However, round two saw a typically heavyweight
positional victory over Smbat Lputian of Armenia (see below).

With one round to play of the 111th Scottish Championship at New
Douglas Park in Hamilton, defending champion and Scottish number one
GM Jonathan Rowson joined the guest player IM Jacob Aagaard in the
lead.

Rowson reached 6.5/8 with victory over Douglas Bryson while Aagaard
had a solid draw with Steve Mannion and looks to be coasting towards
the GM norm of 7/9.

White’s strategy in the Winawer is always to open lines for the
bishop pair and Short gradually manages to achieve this.

The line 7.h4 9.h5 and 10.h6 seems to transgress most opening
principles, but Black’s main weakness is on the dark squares and
White does have control of the kingside with his bishops and so pawn
to h6 undermines Black further on the dark squares. Sometimes the Rh1
comes to h4 and then swings across. Black’s fatal error was to allow
24.a6!

Short lost a very drastic game on the black side of the Winawer as a
junior to John Littlewood when he allowed the same thrust with his
king castled on the queenside.

Lputian’s 11Ng8!? was an attempt to improve on the main line of
110-0-0 12.Bd3 which was Short-Psakhis, Isle of Man 1999. 14Nxe5
15.Bc3!; 22a6 was unclear. 30Qc6 31.Bf4+ Nxf4 32.Qxf4+ Qc7 33.Qxc7+
Rxc7 34.Rxh4 is strong and if 32f5 33.Ra3.

Near the end 34a5 35.Ra6 wins. Of course not 37.Bxe1 Qxb1; but the
queen sacrifice cleans up. In the final position 40Nxd4 41.Ra6

N. Short – S. Lputian

Sanjin Hotel Cup Taiyuan (2)

French Defence

Winawer Variation

1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 Bb4 4 e5 c5 5 a3 Bxc3+ 6 bxc3 Ne7 7 h4 Qa5 8
Bd2 Nbc6 9 h5 Bd7 10 h6 gxh6 11 Nf3 Ng8!? 12 c4! Qc7 13 cxd5 exd5 14
dxc5 0-0-0 15 Be2 Bg4 16 Kf1 h5 17 Rb1 f6 18 e6 Nge7 19 Ne1! Ne5 20
Nd3 N7g6 21 a4 Rhe8 22 a5 Rxe6? 23 f3 Bf5 24 a6! Nxd3 25 axb7+ Kb8 26
Bxd3 Bxd3+ 27 cxd3 h4 28 d4 Rde8 29 Rb2 R8e7 30 Qc1 a6 31 Rh3 Re8 32
f4 Ne7 33 Qb1 Nc6 34 f5 Re4 35 Rb6 Qd7 36 Rxa6 Qxf5+ 37 Rf3 Re1+ 38
Qxe1 Rxe1+ 39 Bxe1 Qd7 40 Rxf6 1-0

Lputian
e p p p p b p Y p p c * p a p 6 p p n c p p p n p o p p p p p p p b p
p p 8 X p

Short

Final position after 40.Rxf6