FIDE World Cup Tromso 2013 (6.2)
Vachier-Lagrave escapes to World Cup semi-final tie-breaks
Mark Crowther - Tuesday 27th August 2013
Vachier-Lagrave and Kramnik discuss their game after it eventually finished in a draw. Photo © | http://www.chessworldcup2013.com/
The FIDE World Cup semi-finals will see two rapid tie-breaks on Wednesday as both matches finished 2-2 although only after a marathon 125 move game between Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Vladimir Kramnik.
First of all Evgeny Tomashevsky had a very hard time showing any real advantage against Dmitry Andreikin's Queen's Gambit and agreed a draw after 29 moves in a position with absolutely no advantage. As a side-note the Poikovsky tournament that Tomashevsky was supposed to be playing in will be well under way tomorrow by the time he plays the tie-breaks (10am BST start I believe).
Vladimir Kramnik however came very close to winning his match against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in a Slav Defence. That Vachier-Lagrave's 10...Qb8 seems new didn't seem to disturb Kramnik who got a small edge to grind away with. It's possible Vachier-Lagrave didn't find quite the best follow-up to his freeing pawn sacrifice around move 25 (maybe N7b6 on this or the following move for instance) and in the end had to defend an ending with 3 vs 2 pawns on the kingside which both players considered theoretically drawn but in practice black has to be tough because it's a very unpleasant task to hold as white can try a number of ideas. Vachier-Lagrave eventually cracked. 49...Ne4 already complicated things for him and drew special criticism by Vachier-Lagrave. The computers say formerly that 58...Rf1+ was the decisive error but then something strange happened. It turned out that although Vachier-Lagrave had lost an entire piece the win was not easy to see both over the board and even after the game both players didn't find it in the post-mortem. 62. Nd7 Rf5 63. Rf8+ Kg6 64. Rg8+ Kf7 65. Ke4! ("it's the only way" - Short) is the key.
Kramnik didn't seem too upset afterwards and in fact it might be Sergey Karjakin who would have been a Candidate had Kramnik won that has more of a sleepless night.
Nice jokey exchange in the post-mortem: MVL: "I was just panicking for no reason..." Kramnik: "There was a good reason, you were playing me!"
Sno | Name | Ti | FED | Rtg | G1 | G2 | G1 | G2 | G1 | G2 | G1 | G2 | SD | Score | Qual. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4-1 | Round 6, Semifinals, Match 1 | ||||||||||||||
4 | Andreikin, Dmitry | g | RUS | 2716 | ½ | ½ | 1 | ||||||||
1 | Tomashevsky, Evgeny | g | RUS | 2706 | ½ | ½ | 1 | ||||||||
2-3 | Round 6, Semifinals, Match 2 | ||||||||||||||
2 | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | g | FRA | 2719 | ½ | ½ | 1 | ||||||||
3 | Kramnik, Vladimir | g | RUS | 2784 | ½ | ½ | 1 |
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TWIC is 30. First issue 17th September 1994.