Day 10: 2002 Corus at Wijk aan Zee

Among the many visitors who frequent the press room is American GM Yasser Seirawan, fresh from his many roles at the 2002 US championship in Seattle. He is always good for some witty remarks. The other day he amusingly noted how some of the players in Corus might not quite "make it" had they been obligated to abide by the "dress code" set for the US championship. Well, ok it is not a very strict code: no jeans, no tennis shoes, jackets are recommended but not a must, as are ties. For me, every time I hear about a dress code or how the chess elite dresses, I immediately have an instant flashback to 1986 and the US open in NJ where former world champion Boris Spassky appeared to one of his game with a complete tennis attire, sans racket. Alas… this is Holland where anything goes and so the players wear what they want. What do they wear? Here goes: Most players today wore a jacket, no tie, some kind of a dress shirt, some light some dark, most with dress slacks. Exceptions: Morozevich, Piket and Kasimzdanov wear sweaters with a collared shirt under, Grischuk is wearing his favorite leather vest with casual pants and shirt, while Gelfand and Leko wear a suit and a tie and today look sharpest. Perhaps Yaz's comment made it to the players and they decided to dress better? OK, maybe I am influenced in writing this after reading that Yves Saint Laurent is retiring from the fashion world after 50 years.

On to the games:

Gurevich - Kasimdzhanov

Gurevich - Kasimzdanov: White chose a not-so-reputable line in the Gruenfeld exchange variation (7.Ba3) The first guess was that maybe Misha is not here to fight today, but it was not so. White build up an impressive position against black's new treatment with 12…Bd7. His fluid center was like a Damocles sword always aiming to strike. At the right time it indeed hit: 19.d5! was the beginning of bad news for black. He had to lose a pawn to stay afloat, but white had the position under total control. Finally, in time trouble 39…Qa5? lost at once to 40.Nb1! winning more material and black had to put his weapon down.

Van Wely - Adams: van Wely continued his "recovery approach" choosing a peaceful, slow Nimzo-English. Another one of those lines where maybe in theory there is no white edge but practically it has the potential for a long, full bodied game. Of course, that is true for both sides! White had a decent position. GMs Timman and Sokolov thought white was even better. But his 19.Ng5?! plan started a bad sequence for him. A few moves later he was somewhat worse, not really enough for anything tangible for Adams it seems. Interesting was 24…Rxf6!? And After 25.Rxf6 Bxd2! Where maybe black has something, but it needs to be further analyzed. Black tried to win very hard, complicating matters a bit with a pawn sac, but van Wely defended mightily and held a draw. The crowd showed his appreciation by awarding both players the prize for the best game of the day.

Morozevich - Piket

Morozevich - Piket: As expected, Piket again goes for the Marshall line in the Russian/Petroff defense, similarly to his game from the previous round with Adams. White chose a slightly different move order with 11.c5 (often white goes 11.Nc3 Nc7 and now 12.c5 and the B withdraws to e7. Here after some thought, Piket played 11…Bb8!? which looks new. White was advancing on the queenside as black was amassing his forces on the other wing. On move 18 came Ne5! offering a pawn sac a la Adams - Piket form an earlier round. Again black obliged and took the pawn. White had a lot of play and compensation for the pawn, pressing and even a trade of one set of rooks didn't relieve black. Piket's terrible time trouble made things even worse with him making dubious moves just to make time control. On move 42, early but not wrongly, he promptly resigned his lost position.

Grischuk - Gelfand: The first 10 moves were a mirror image of the Morozevich - Piket game, but here white continued with the more usual 11.Nc3 Nc7 following known theory. Black's 13…Bd7 is a new idea, accompanied with the interesting pawn sac 14…Ne6!?. The black pieces moved towards the white king en masse, climaxing with 18…Nh3+. It is not clear if black's attack was really worth the piece, the analysis engines liked 22.Ne3!? for white. After 22.Bc1 Qh4 was assuring a perpetual check for black and a peace was agreed on shortly thereafter.

Leko - Lautier

Leko - Lautier: Scheveningen Sicilian by transposition - This is one of the most flexible variations of the Sicilian, with many move orders and set ups tried and accepted. 14.f5 has been played before, although Geller's 14.Bf3 deserves attention. 14…exf5 was played before but in our game, black opted for the more logical 14…Rac8. After lots of maneuvering and the opening of the "f" file, all rooks got traded off (quite unusual for this line of the Sicilian!) White had 2 nice B but black had an awesome N on d4. The players did not overlook the balance of course, and the unsurprising splitting of the point was the obvious result.

Timman - Khalifman

Timman - Khalifman: A well-known line of the symmetrical English. White has other choices for his 15th move such as Nb5 that is quite popular, but 15.Nd5 is hardly new either. 18… Nxd4 is a move I couldn't find in my database, before 18…Ne5 was played but without success. Perhaps white was a bit better here too, but after a quick liquidation into a R + B vs a R + N endgame a draw was quickly agreed upon.

Bareev - Dreev

Bareev - Dreev: How can we do without at least one semi Slav in the round! Again Dreev was a part of the 6.Nh4!? discussion, this time as black (He was white vs Gurevich in their encounter from this event) It seems that Bareev is testing "other-peoples-openings" in this event. After adopting Morozevich's …g5 in the main Slav here he gives his opponent a taste of his own medicine. Dreev deviated from Gurevich's 6…Bg6 with 6...Be4 . The game continued in an original fashion from move 10 on, black defended tactically against 20.g5 with 20…Nb6! So if 21.gxf6? Rxd2!. Amusingly, analyzing this game with Fritz to make some sense of it, it was analyzing moves other than ones actually played, but still gave an equal assessment to the game moves. I guess the position was "just even". Black could have played 22…Qe5 instead of 22…Rd5 and white should have tried 29.f4 in place of 29.b3. It wasn't really necessary to sac the "e" pawn but white's two bishops somehow managed to get active. Black erred when he missed 34…Rd8! and 46…Rc7! But was still in good shape until he ended up losing his "a" pawn. 48…Nc7 made a lot more sense than 48…Bd4?! After 51…Nxa8? White was already taking over, eventually winning the black N. With many technical difficulties white managed to score a point late in the sudden death time control.