Weekend Australian
June 3, 2006 Saturday
All-round Country Edition
Chess
MATP
by Phil Viner
A SMALL country with a big chess tradition, Armenia, defeated a big
country with a shorter tradition in the international form of the
game, China, by 2.5 points to 1.5, to establish a clear lead after
the 10th round of the 37th Chess Olympiad in Turin, Italy.
The main contenders, with three rounds to play, are Armenia on 29
points (from 40 games), China on 27, Russia and the Czech Republic on
26.5.
Vladimir Kramnik, due to play Veselin Topalov later this year for the
reunified world title, is doing well as anchor man for the Russian
team, but this is not proving sufficient.
Here is the Russian’s fifth-round win over his Armenian opponent, a
positional masterpiece.
White: Kramnik. Black: Levon Aronian. 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 b6 3.g3 c5 4.Bg2
Bb7 5.0-0 g6 6.d4 cxd4 7.Qxd4 Bg7 8.Nc3 d6 9.Rd1 Nbd7 10.Be3 Rc8
11.Rac1 a6 12.b3 0-0 13.Qh4 Rc7 14.Bh3 Qb8 15.Bg5 (A novelty.) Bxf3?!
(Surrenders the light squares.) 16.exf3 b5 17.Bxd7 Rxd7 18.Nd5! Nxd5
19.cxd5 Rc7 20.Rc6! Rxc6 21.dxc6 Rc8 22.Rc1! e6 23.Bd2 Qc7 24.a4! d5
25.axb5 axb5 26.Qb4 Rb8 27.Qa3 Bd4 28.Qa6 Be5 29.f4 Bd6 30.Ba5 Qc8
31.Qa7 Ra8 32.Qb6 Rb8 33.Qd4! b4 34.c7! Ra8 35.Qb6 Bf8 36.Bxb4 Bxb4
37.Qxb4 Qe8. Black resigned.
Australia has scored 21 points. Individual results: Ian Rogers 2.5/5,
David Smerdon 5/8, Zong-Yuan Zhao 5/8, Gary Lane 2/7, Aleks Wohl 6/7,
Nick Speck 1/6. Further match results: round five, v South Africa,
3.5-0.5; round six, Albania, 1.5-2.5; round seven, Luxembourg,
2.5-1.5; round eight, Qatar, 2.5-1.5; round nine, Egypt, 1.5-2.5;
round 10, Scotland, 1.5-2.5.
In the women’s Olympiad being played concurrently, Ukraine holds a
slender lead with 23/30 over Russia on 22.5 and China on 20.5.
The Australian women’s team has 14 points: Irina Berezina 4.5/9,
Laura Moylan 2.5/7, Arianne Caoili 3/7, Ngan Phan-Koshnitsky 4/7.
Further match results: round five, v Slovenia, 0-3; round six,
Algeria, 3-0; round seven, Vietnam, 0-3; round eight, Kyrgyzstan,
0-3; round nine, Guatemala, 2.5-0.5; round 10, Moldova, 0.5-2.5.
The massive oval at Lingotto, Turin, the site of ice-skating events
at the Winter Olympics, provides ample space for the players and
spectators as well as for ancillary events. It is linked to the
Olympic village by a long, hi-tech walkway over railway lines. The
village is a large administrative and residential complex, with
nearly 40 apartment buildings, most six storeys, housing the players
and officials.
The next Olympiad will be in Dresden, Germany, in 2008. So far there
have been four bids for the following event in 2010: from Latvia
(Riga), Montenegro (Budva), Poland (Posnan) and a now autonomous
Siberian region, Khanty-Mansyisk, which staged last year’s World Cup.
At the eleventh hour, Garry Kasparov has issued an open letter
supporting Bessel Kok’s bid for the presidency of FIDE, the
International Chess Federation. It is likely, however, that the minds
of most national federations have been made up.
The starting dates of forthcoming Myer Tan Grand Prix weekend
tournaments are: Foundation Day Open in Perth, today; Victorian Open
in Melbourne, NSW Open in Sydney, Tasmanian Open in Hobart and the
Queen’s Birthday Weekender in South Australia, all June 10.
* Last week’s solutions: (1) 1.Rb7 Kc8 2.Rb5 c1=Q 3.Rc5 Qxc5
stalemate. (2) Key 1.b8=N. If 1…Bxb8 2.Qc8 mate, Bd8/Kf8 Qf7X, Rf8
Qd7X, Rh5 Qg8X.