Round 3 8th July 2002

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNSTHAFT

Carsten Hensel, Dagobert Kohlmeyer and Vlastomil Hort respectively organiser, journalist and commentator (and not to mention former Candidate) in Dortmund

IN Germany, life is serious, and so is everything else. Outside Berlin, even humour is no laughing matter, and if you want to tell a joke it’s advisable to submit a written application (in triplicate) first.

The Germans strongly disapprove of the irrelevant, the flippant, the accidental. Serendipity is not a word in their language. The reason for this is that such things are not ernsthaft, serious. Therefore when things don’t go as planned as it should be for the Germans, they take it all so, so serious and see it as a failure on their own part. And here are two examples I can give you to reinforce this.

Carsten Hensel

Earlier on I reported that there was technical glitch in the press room that rendered us impotent with no information, and I alikened it to a pub with no beer. Our ever-efficient Herr Direktor here in Dortmund, Carsten Hensel, who also doubles as manager for Kramnik and Leko (I wonder who he’ll be routing for if – by some miracles of miracles – Leko wins the Candidates tournament?), who has put together a fantastic tournament in the superb surrounding of the Westenfalhallen, reassured us that this was just a small opening day glitch – “Tomorrow everything will be typically German Vorsprung durch Technik”. He’s German. We of course believed him. After all, we were in Germany. Here they are organised, workmanlike, efficient. If they say they will do something, they do it. Unlike some gens I won’t mention.

Unfortunately yesterday the whole system collapsed again before our eyes and, despite the fact we were only some 100 yards from the playing hall, the likes of Mark Crowther in sunny Bradford (Happy 400^th, Mark!) had a better idea of what was happening in the games than we did. We had no games, and, perhaps worse of all, we had no access to the internet to send articles to our respective newspapers, internet sites, magazines etc. This of course infuriated poor Carsten, who cynically suggested that this would at least give me something to write about – as if I’d do something like that, Carsten.

Marcus Stein

We were at our wits end. Our even more highly-efficient ‘Technik’ Marcus Stein was at his wits end trying to salvage the position, but had to bow to the inevitable by calling in a team from technical support. In the meantime, I thought it was about time to bring ‘Speckled Jim’ back out of retirement in an effort to get my copy winged over to my newspaper and a report to TWIC and ChessBase. The next best thing of course was a fleet of taxis to take the confused and bewildered hacks to the other end of town and the nearest Internet Café. Carsten and his team were apologetic – but it wasn’t their fault. Why should they feel so guilty about letting us down? I guess it must be something in the German psyche to take everything so serious. Me? I’d have just laughed the whole thing off and blamed it all on IBM and Intel.

Which I suppose brings us to one (ok – quite a few then) of my mistakes. I should have made it a bit clearer in yesterday’s report that Averbakh didn’t compete in Curaçao 1962, but in fact was there as a Second – presumably to one of the five Russians competing and colluding that so infuriated Fischer? I wasn’t paying serious attention to the blurb the organisers had sent me on the history of the tournament and the invited players; I was ogling the nice colour holiday brochure they had also sent on Curaçao that promised glorious sunshine 365 days of the year on the Caribbean Island.

Also, I freely admitted I’d forgotten the name of Bronstein’s co-author of ‘Zurich 1953’ and made an appeal for any young budding Edward Winter’s out there to help me out. Step forward Canada’s finest, Jonathan Berry, who will now put us all out of our misery:

“Me, me! I want to play Edward. The Importance of being Edward. The Edward of our Discontent. Signifying Nothing.

The answer is Weinstein. No, not Garry Kasparov, but Bronstein's chum and author of many books B.S. Weinstein, or more phonetically B.S. Veinshtain.”

Christopher Lutz

Another German who was full of ernsthaft (and perhaps something more than that) and taking himself oh so serious at the start of the tournament was Christopher “wildcard” Lutz, a poor replacement for Garry Kasparov who refused to play in Dortmund saying he’d rather kiss and make-up with Kirsan for an easier route to getting his crown back (Incidentally, we’ve heard on the Jungle Drums in the press room that at yesterday’s FIDE Presidential meeting in Doa, FIDE (minus Kirsan) unanimously agreed to the Prague peace deal). At the press conference on the eve of the tournament Lutz seriously believed he could qualify to the knockout stages from among this line-up. Unfortunately he’s the weakest link in the set up, and it won’t be long now before we say ‘Goodbye!’. Despite losing his second game, Lutz is still quietly optimistic about qualifying – if Arthur Anderson are tallying up the points!

Gelfand,B - Lutz,C [E05]

1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 g3 d5 4 Bg2 Be7 5 Nf3 0–0 6 0–0 dxc4 7 Qc2 a6 8 Qxc4 b5 9 Qc2 Bb7 10 Bd2 [The idea behind this move is to prevent Black, who has control over d5 and e4, from freeing his game by playing c7-c5.] 10 ..Be4 11 Qc1 Nbd7 [ One of Kasparov's best chances of a win against Kramnik came near the end of their match, and came from this variation of the Catalan: 11 ..Bb7 12 Bf4 Bd6 13 Nbd2 Nbd7 14 Nb3 Bd5 15 Rd1 Qe7 16 Ne5 Bxg2 17 Kxg2 Nd5 18 Nc6 Nxf4+ 19 Qxf4 Qe8 20 Qf3 e5 21 dxe5 Nxe5 22 Nxe5 Qxe5 23 Rd2 Rae8 24 e3 Re6 25 Rad1 Rf6 26 Qd5 Qe8 27 Rc1 g6 28 Rdc2 h5 29 Nd2 Rf5 30 Qe4 c5 31 Qxe8 Rxe8 32 e4 Rfe5 33 f4 R5e6 34 e5 Be7 35 b3 f6 36 Nf3 fxe5 37 Nxe5 Rd8 38 h4 Rd5 ½–½ Kasparov,G-Kramnik,V/London 2000/CBM 79. ] 12 Ba5 Rc8 13 Nbd2 Ba8 14 Qc2 Qe8 15 b4 [The bishop may look entombed on a5, but in the long run the c7 weakness will tell as the Bishop comes back to life.] 15 ..Nd5 16 a3 f5 17 Rae1!?N

[Gelfand improves over a line Lutz has had previous experience with after a lengthy encounter with Ulf Andersson: 17 Rac1 Qh5 18 Rfe1 N5f6 19 Ne5 Nxe5 20 dxe5 Ng4 21 h3 Bxg2 22 Kxg2 Nxe5 23 Qa2 Qf7 ½–½ (79) Andersson,U-Lutz,C/Pamplona 1997/CBM.] 17 ..Qg6 [ If Black now coninues in usual fashion in this variation with Qh5, e6 becomes a liability: 17 ..Qh5 18 e4 fxe4 19 Rxe4 ( 19 Qxe4?! Nf4! 20 Qe3 Nxg2 21 Qxe6+ Kh8 ( 21 ..Rf7 22 Re5!) 22 Kxg2 Bxf3+ 23 Nxf3 Qxf3+ 24 Kg1 Bd6 25 Qxd7 Rcd8 26 Qe6 Qxa3) 19 ..Qf5 20 Qb3! Bd6 21 Re2 and the weakness on e6 gives White something to bite on.] 18 e4 fxe4 19 Qxe4 Rf6 20 Qxg6 Rxg6 21 Ne4 Rf8 22 h4 Bd6 23 h5 Rh6 24 Nc5 N5b6 [ 24 ..Bxc5? 25 dxc5 Rxh5 26 Rxe6 Rf6 27 Rfe1 Bb7 28 Nd4 with a big advantage.] 25 Ng5 Bxg2 26 Kxg2 Rxh5 27 Ngxe6 Rc8 28 Nxd7 Nxd7 29 Rc1! [Slowly but surely Gelfand has been steadily improving his position, and now the weakness on c7 starts to tell as we head for the endgame.] 29 ..c6 30 Rfe1

30 ..Rd5 31 Nd8 Rxd4 [ 31 ..Nb8 32 f4 h6 ( 32 ..Rxd4? 33 Re8+ Bf8 34 Rxf8+ Kxf8 35 Ne6+) 33 Re4 Bf8 34 Ne6 Bd6 35 Re3 Kf7 36 Kf3 and White has a big advantage - eventually Black is going to run out of useful moves.] 32 Red1 Be5 33 Rxd4 Bxd4 34 Rd1 c5 35 bxc5 Nxc5 36 Rxd4 Nb3 37 Re4 1–0

Shirov,A - Topalov,V [B33]

1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 Nc6 6 Ndb5 d6 7 Bf4 e5 8 Bg5 a6 9 Na3 b5 10 Bxf6 gxf6 11 Nd5 [Well what to say? This is a well-known heavy variation of the Sveshnikov, the theory of which goes into the mid-twenties for this line.] 11 ..Bg7 12 Bd3 Ne7 13 Nxe7 Qxe7 14 c4 f5 15 0–0 0–0 16 Qf3 bxc4 17 Nxc4 d5 18 exd5 e4 19 Qe3 Bb7 20 d6 Qf6 21 Bc2 f4 22 Qh3 Rac8 23 b3 Qg5 24 Rad1 f5 25 d7

[You've got to admire the nerve of Topalov. For the second day running he's allowed his opponent to get a pawn to the seventh before we've even broken into the middlegame!] 25 ..Rcd8 26 Nd6 Ba8 [ 26 ..Bc6 27 f3 e3 28 Bxf5 Rxf5 29 Qxf5 Qxf5 30 Nxf5 Bf8 31 Nd4 Bc5 32 Ne2 Bb5 33 Rd5 Bb6 34 Re1 Ba5 35 Rc1 1–0 Shirov,A-Arizmendi Martinez,J/Cala Galdana ESP 2001/TWIC 363. ] 27 f3 Rxd7 28 fxe4 f3 29 Qg3N [ Shirov's attempt at an improvement - however I'm not convinced. Even here with accurate play White has serious problems to solve: 29 Nxf5 Rxd1 30 Bxd1 fxg2 31 Rf2 Bxe4 32 Ng3 Rxf2 33 Qe6+ Kh8 34 Qxe4 Qc5 0–1 Morovic Fernandez,I-Nataf,I/Havana CUB 2002/TWIC 393. ] 29 ..Qe3+ [ 29 ..Qxg3? 30 hxg3 fxe4 ( 30 ..fxg2 31 Rxf5=) 31 Nxe4=] 30 Qf2 Qxf2+ 31 Kxf2

[The only move: 31 Rxf2 fxe4! 32 Nxe4 Rxd1+ 33 Bxd1 Bxe4 34 gxf3 Bd4 wins.] 31 ..fxg2? [Time plays a deciding factor again - Topalov was better, and, according to Shirov's second, Jordi Magdem Badals, he could have put White under great pressure with the more accurate: 31 ..fxe4! 32 gxf3 ( The only move: 32 g4 Rfd8 33 Nxe4 Rxd1 34 Rxd1 Rxd1 35 Bxd1 Bxe4 36 Bxf3 Bd4+ wins; 32 Bxe4 Bxe4 33 Nxe4 Bd4+! 34 Rxd4 fxg2+ 35 Kxg2 Rxd4 and White's much worse.) 32 ..Rxf3+ 33 Ke2 Rxf1 34 Kxf1 Be5 35 Nc4 Rxd1+ 36 Bxd1 Bxh2 37 Bg4 and, as Jordi explains, White is worse - but maybe not losing. ] 32 Kxg2 Rfd8 33 Nc4 Bxe4+ 34 Bxe4 Rxd1 35 Rxf5 Re1 White's hold on the white squares and the weak a6-pawn is enough compensation. ½–½

You can contact John Henderson at: jbhthescots@blueyonder.co.uk

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