Ottawa Citizen, Canada
Nov 29 2008
Armenians are golden
Deen Hergott, Citizen Special
Published: Saturday, November 29, 2008
In a dramatic last round, a determined team from Armenia retained
their gold medal from the 2006 Olympiad in Turin, Italy, finishing in
clear first with 19 match points from 22 — an impressive nine wins,
one draw and one loss.
A surprisingly solid and powerful performance from the Israeli team
gave them the silver medal with 18 points — eight wins, two draws and
one loss. The United States came on strong in the second half, capped
by a pivotal win in the final round over Ukraine to take the bronze
medal on tiebreak with 17 match points, eight wins and one draw.
In the women’s event, with the lead changing places many times, the
team from Georgia emerged victorious on tiebreak over Ukraine — both
teams scored 18/22. Once again, a bronze medal for the U.S. as the
women’s team edged out Russia and Poland on tiebreak, all with 17/22
scores.
How did the Canadian teams fare? A strong finish saw Canada finish in
28th place on tiebreak with 14 matchpoints from 22. Their original
ranking was 48th, so on paper this was a success story. In actuality,
Canada faced several weaker teams, but nonetheless the players netted
a small gain on international rating. Only Grandmaster Mark
Bluvshtein, on Board 1, lost a few points.
The Canadian women’s team started well, but struggled in the second
half, to finish in 65th place with 10/22 matchpoints. They were ranked
53rd at the beginning of the event. The best performance on the team
went to Board 2’s Yuan Yuanling of North York with a 6.5/10 score.
As always, there is a plethora of noteworthy games from such an event;
the following brilliant piece of opening preparation propelled the
Armenians on their way to their second gold medal in as many
Olympiads:
GM Vladimir Akopian (Armenia)-
GM Maxime Vachier Lagrave (France): Sicilian, Najdorf
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.Be2 Qc7 8.a4
b6 9.f4 Bb7 10.Bf3 Nbd7 11.Qe2 g6 12.0-0 e5 13.Rad1!!
A superb piece of preparation, based on the young French GM’s
predilection for this particular line in the Sicilian. Vachier Lagrave
has scored well in praxis against the more typical 13.Nb3 or 13.fxe5,
but the text was a spectacular bombshell from which Black never
recovered.
13…Be7
13…exd4 14.Bxd4, intending the thematic e4-e5, is simply too strong,
so Black must complete development, hence the text. It should be
noted that although the game continuation proved ultimately
unsatisfactory, the try 13…Bg7 runs into the very strong
14.Ndb5!, exploiting the presence of White’s Rook on d1. Indeed
Black may be forced to abandon this line completely if nothing
better can be found at this point.
14.fxe5 Nxe5 15.Bh6 Bf8 16.Bxf8 Kxf8 17.Qe3 h6
An innocuous looking move, with the clear point of denying White’s
Queen access to h6. But look what happens to the g6-square
now. 17…Kg7! looks much tougher, with the point that 18.Qg5!? can be
answered strongly by the pin 18…Qc5!
18.Bh5!!
Fantastic preparation. It would not surprise me to learn that the
Armenian squad had worked this possibility out in advance of the
game. The pressure along the f-file and against the Black K-side is
tremendous.
18…Qe7
Relatively best is 18…Kg7 19.Bxg6! Kxg6 20.Qg3+ Nfg4 21.h3, though
White still has a clear advantage here.
19.Bxg6! Nxg6 20.Nf5 Qe5 21.Qxb6
This blow from a second direction leaves Black’s camp completely
disorganized.
21…Bxe4?! 22.Qxd6+ Qxd6 23.Nxd6 Bxc2 24.Rxf6! Ra7
White intends 25.Rxf7+ Kg8 and the N/c3 will hop to f6 with an
attractive mating net. For this reason, the d1-Rook is taboo from
capture.
25.Rd2 Kg7 26.Rf3! Black Resigns
After 26…Bb3, White has many strong continuations, but the simplest
is 27.Nf5+ Kh7 28.Ne4!, threatening 29.Nf6 mate as well as the
b3-bishop.
E-mail: dhergott@sympatico.ca .
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