Round 4 3rd February 2002

"Patience is a virtue"

“JFern you suck where’s your reports”
”What the hell is wrong with you you have a job to do”
“DONDE ES BERMUDA REPORTAJE???????”

Ah, the perils of the Internet. Ten years ago in the chess world it would have been a miracle if the reports, games, pictures were available a tournament a week later. Now, I’m crucified for it.

Why the delay? Simple, really. I’ve even attached a photograph.

Scoresheets attacking my laptop

Yes, those are scoresheets swamping my lovely little Dell laptop. Bermuda scoresheets multiplying like bunny rabbits in springtime… well you get the idea. While I wish I could always be at chess tournaments goofing off and having fun, sadly my time is rather rationed, and it was impossible for me to write a report on a round when I had no games for it! So after putting in the scoresheets, I can finally get back to working on annotating the games and reporting on the fun stuff that happened during the event.

(Side note: I have no idea how these people did the bulletins ten years ago, without ChessBase. It no doubt made people go mad. Since this is a capitalist society we live in, and I have to be good to my sponsors in this venture, buy these things. They’re pretty darned great programs. Use the links on either side to buy the cool stuff. Yummy yummy.)

While I may be complaining about the huge amount of scoresheets, it’s actually a near miracle that the 2002 Bermuda event was even held. First, there was the crisis of the original hotel location, Elbow Beach, reneging on the original agreement to host the tournament. That left the organizers of the event to scramble at the last minute in order to find a suitable tournament site, and also get a site at a very reasonable price so that the sponsors, most specifically Nick Faulks could afford to have the event. While Mr. Faulks is very generous helping chess in Bermuda, most specifically this tournament, he certainly can’t just outright burn his money, and getting a good deal is very important to the success and future of such major events. Another near blow was the dropping out of two players while I was in Seattle. Chief Arbiter Carol Jarecki pointed the emergency out to me. Fortunately two players were found on very short notice to replace the two dropouts and keep the event sane. If only they had 1 more Elo point each…

Nick Faulks, Bermuda's Top Benefactor and Player

One of the seemingly brutal aspects of this tournament in Bermuda is the fact that the morning round is at the frightening time of 9 in the morning. “Mon dieu!,” I can hear you exclaim. Why the early round? Well it’s quite simple. Being a beach town and all, people like the daylight hours so much that it’s just difficult to find a restaurant late at night. With rounds at 9AM and 3PM, the 40/2 time control means that players might not be done until 9PM, which is at the outer limit of when you can get to a restaurant around these parts. Practicality among all else is what makes this work. Of course, one of the great benefits is that if you have a rather fast evening (or is it afternoon?) round is that you’re done extremely early while the sun is still up. This gives you some nice time to go for a swim, have a swizzle, moped around the island, and eat at some of the finer restaurants in Bermuda. You can even get to bed at a reasonable hour, if you are so inclined.

Favoring the young has been in vogue this event, and going into the final day, four players had the perfect score of 3/3 allotted to them: Swedish IM Emanuel Berg, German IM Florian Handke, Finnish IM Tomi Nyback, and Yugoslavian GM Bojan Vuckovic. Fittingly enough, the games between the four of them were the last two to finish in Round 4. While both games were drawn, both were 50-plus move affairs which went the whole six hours.

IMs Tomi Nyback and Emanuel Berg on Board 1

GM Bojan Vuckovic and IM Florian Handke on Board 2

The last one to finish of them was the game between Bojan Vuckovic and Florian Handke. An interesting theoretical battle in a now popular line of the ever popular 2. Nc3 Grand Prix complex, Florian takes on some weaknesses and decides to go in for active piece play in order to try to possibly become only the second perfect 5/5 score in the Bermuda Open history. (The first and only? Icelandic GM Johann Hjartarson in 1997.)

GM Bojan Vuckovic (2455) - IM Florian Handke (2450)
2002 Bermuda International Open (4), Southampton, February 3, 2002

1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Another one of these "no-name" variations which keeps popping up in modern theory fashion. At first, it seems like White is changing horses midstream here. Originally, he intends to play a Grand Prix attack with 2. Nc3 and 3. f4, but then after 2. ... Nc6 decides that a Rossolimo variation will do quite nicely. While it first came into prominence in Wijk aan Zee 2001 when Tiviakov essayed it against Fedorov and Morozevich against Shirov, in the same round! However, upon further reflection, this variation has been around for a while. Spassky played it in 1988-1989, one game even came against Kasparov. Lately Tiviakov and Morozevich have become fans of the move, but the real credit goes to current world #91 Evgenij Najer, who has played at least 20 games in this line according to ChessBase Mega 2002, and has scored an absurd 16/20 with it since 1994. Perhaps this should be called the Najer variation? 3...Nd4 The knight has to hop away, since White may actually be threatening to get an improved version of the Rossolimo without committing the g1 knight, if he gets to play 4. Bxc6. 4.Bc4 e6 [The stereotyped 4...g6 has been running into some problems lately, since White can avail himself of an interesting attacking idea: 5.Nf3 Bg7 6.Nxd4 cxd4 7.Qf3!? Nh6 8.Ne2 And White's pieces all seem to be on good squares. However, it's not so easy to dismiss the Black position, as even Shirov chose to defend this against Morozevich in Corus 2001.] 5.Nf3 Ne7 A pretty rational plan. Black intends to super stack up his pieces on the d4 square. The only drawback that I can see is that you're pulling away a possible defender of the kingside. [5...Nf6 was tried in the aforementioned Tiviakov - Fedorov game from Wijk aan Zee. The idea is to just get on with development, and maybe beat White over the head with a club with the move d5! 6.0-0 (6.e5 d5! is one of Black's slimy ideas, which seems to work.) 6...a6 (6...d5? seems to be a serious error, owing to 7.exd5 exd5 8.Nxd5 Nxd5 9.Nxd4 cxd4 10.Qh5-> with attack according to Tiviakov's analysis) 7.e5 d5 with some serious complications, Tiviakov,S-Fedorov,A / Wijk aan Zee 2001] 6.0-0 Nec6 7.Nxd4 [7.d3 g6 8.Nxd4 cxd4 9.Ne2 Bg7 10.Bd2 0-0 11.b4 b6 12.b5 Ne7 13.Bb4 d6 14.a4 a5 15.Ba3 Bb7 16.Bb3 d5 17.f3 Qc7 18.Qe1 Rad8 19.Qh4 1/2-1/2 Spassky,B-Kasparov,G / Reykjavik 1988] 7...cxd4 [Inferior to the text is 7...Nxd4 because of the tenuous nature of the knight on d4. Having the pawn on d4 gives Black a good cramping effect, which can only be relieved by exchanging pawns in the center. ] 8.Ne2 Be7 9.d3 0-0 10.a3 [10.Bb3 Is also a very popular move in this position.; 10.Bd2 Rb8 11.a4 a6 12.Qe1 d5 13.exd5 exd5 14.Bb3 Be6 15.a5 Rc8 16.Nf4 Qd7 17.Qe2+/= Morozevich,A-Lutz,C / Germany 2000] 10...Bf6 [10...a6 11.Ng3 b5 12.Ba2 Bb7 13.f4 Kh8 14.f5+/= Balashov,Y-Khalifman,A / Moscow 1993] 11.Ng3 d5N [11...g6 12.f4 d5 13.exd5 exd5 14.Bb3 Ne7 15.f5 Nxf5 16.Nxf5 Bxf5 17.Qf3 Bg7 18.Bxd5 Rc8 19.Bb3 b6 1/2-1/2 Lalic,S-Koglin,A / Dresden 1998] 12.exd5 exd5 An interesting structure chosen by Handke. Usually one would recoil against doubled isolated d-pawns, but here they aren't too bad. In this case they control a lot of squares, and Black has some dreams of causing some serious pressure on the c-file in some universes. For now, the d-pawns are quite well defended, and not so easy to attack. This is definitely a good way to try to play for a win with the Black pieces. 13.Ba2 Re8 14.Qf3?! This feels like White is asking for a little too much of his position. The queen is a pretty serious target here, and White's lagging behind in development to boot. [14.Bf4 may be slightly more to the point.] 14...Be6 15.Nh5 Be5 16.Bf4 Qh4

All of a sudden Black's pieces are taking up some dangerous attacking positions. 17.Bg3 [Of course not 17.Bxe5?? Nxe5 and bye bye horsie.] 17...Bxg3 18.hxg3 Qg5 19.Nf4 Ne5 20.Qh5 White finds himself groveling to get the queens off of the board so as not to get mated. 20...Qxh5 21.Nxh5 Ng6 [Why not 21...Rac8 ? It seems logical to me.] 22.Rfe1 Kf8 23.f3 Re7 24.Bb3 a5 [In hindsight, maybe 24...b5 instead?] 25.a4 f6 26.Kf2 Rae8 27.Nf4 Nxf4 28.gxf4 Bf7 29.Rxe7 Kxe7

All of a sudden things don't look so bad for White. The exchanges of pieces have eased the situation, and now the structural deficencies may be more pronounced. [29...Rxe7 may seem more logical, but the idea of the text is to get the king towards the center as quickly as possible.] 30.Rh1 h6 31.c3 dxc3 32.bxc3 Kd6 33.g4 Re7 34.Rc1 Be8 35.Bd1 b5 The creation of an outside passed pawn can be strong in these endings. 36.Ra1 Ra7 37.Ke3 bxa4 38.Kd4 a3 An interesting manuever to get the pawn one square closer to the queening square. If Black didn't play this, White would take on a4 and blockade the pawn on a5. As it is the pawn gets to the a4 square, which means it's just that much closer to being a brand new queenie. 39.Rxa3 a4 40.c4 Ra5 41.f5 dxc4 42.dxc4 h5 43.Ra2 [43.gxh5 may be possible, although White understandably didn't want to break up his kingside pawns and sacrifice an exchange in the following line:. 43...Rxf5! (43...Bxh5?! 44.Rxa4 Rxf5 looks equal, but White has some minute edge due to the outside passed c-pawn.) 44.Bxa4 Ra5 45.Bxe8 (45.c5+ Kc7 leads to the same thing.) 45...Rxa3 46.c5+ Kc7 47.f4 may funnily enough be drawable, but dangerous for White to go into.] 43...h4

Passed pawns on both rook pawn files! Things can get very dicey for White here. 44.Rh2 Bc6 45.f4 Ke7 46.g5 a3 47.Bb3 h3? [It looks like Florian missed his chance with 47...fxg5 48.fxg5 Rxf5 49.Rxh4 Rxg5 and while I'm not sure if it leads to a win, in their impending time pressure, it could have been very difficult to defend against the march of this g-pawn.] 48.Rxh3 a2 49.Re3+ Kf8 50.Bxa2! fxg5 [Perhaps what Handke missed was that 50...Rxa2 51.gxf6 gxf6 52.Re6 Bd7 53.Rxf6+ Ke7 54.Rb6 leaves White in a position where he is making at least a draw, and has some winning chances due to the passed f-pawns, c-pawn and a highly active king.] 51.Bb1 gxf4 52.Rb3 f3 53.Be4 Bxe4

[After 53...Bxe4 54.Kxe4 Rc5 55.Rxf3 Rxc4+ 56.Ke5 it's just bare bones.] 1/2-1/2

Leading Round 4 Standings:

1-7:
IM  Emanuel Berg         SWE  2500  3.5
GM  Bojan Vuckovic       YUG  2455  3.5
IM  Gregory Shahade      USA  2454  3.5
IM  Florian Handke       GER  2450  3.5
IM  Tomi Nyback          FIN  2448  3.5
IM  Hikaru Nakamura      USA  2430  3.5
GM  Andrew Soltis        USA  2409  3.5

You can reach John Fernandez via e-mail at jfernandez@jfern.com

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of TWIC, Chess & Bridge Ltd or the London Chess Center.