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Bermuda Open 2002
| John Fernandez Reports
Round 2 2nd February 2002 "Category 10½" The real major event on the island is the invitational round robins that are held prior the open. These events have historically been very strong tournaments, stocked with young international top talent. Even better is that these events tend to be fertile ground for players seeking GM and IM norms. This year was no different as 4 norms were achieved, 3 of them being GM norms. Such events are very hard to come by on this side of the planet. In the GM A group, there was a rather funny situation. Due to the dropping out of two players at the last minute, organizers were scrambling to find replacements that had the right FIDE ratings to keep the category. Unfortunately, organizer Nigel Freeman had two very good replacements, and a bad assumption about FIDE category rules! It turns out that he was operating under the assumption that all decimal parts of the average rating rounded up for category purposes. However, it turns out that they don’t! The rating average for the GM A group ended up at 2500.4 and the GM B group at 2450.4. He was exactly 1 FIDE rating point short in each group! If just one player had one more FIDE point in each tournament, the categories would have been 11 and 9 respectively, however, now they were 10 and 8! Fortunately FIDE has a new remedy to this situation: the concept of performance norms, available for those players who don’t get the points that the category requires, but who actually do get the performance rating that the norm signifies. Nigel was able to use these performance norms to have the norm requirements be in the right place to have the tournament set up as he best liked it, despite being one point short. In the GM A group, there was a great deal of exciting chess to go around. IM Hikaru Nakamura was the early story of the event. On the first 3 days he just massacred his 3 GM opponents, opening up a huge lead on the field, and making his way towards the GM norm score of 6/9. While some players would know that just needing to draw the rest of his games meant that one should be careful as to not lose, that would certainly not be this player’s style. His Round 4 game against German IM Florian Handke should have been, by all accounts, a cakewalk. After all, Hikaru had won every game coming in, and Florian had lost every game! However, it was not to be, as Handke turned out the victor in the game. No problem for Hikaru, though, as he happily steamrolled his next two opponents to jump out to 5/6 and eventually achieving the GM Norm of 6/9.
However, in Round 7, Hikaru lost to the other major story of the event, Norwegian IM Leif Johannessen. Leif had just returned from Oslo, where he had made his first GM norm at the OSS tournament just the day before Bermuda started! Coming into the Round 7 game with the score of 3/6, one would expect Leif to not really be in much contention for the GM norm or the tournament win. No problem! Leif defeated Nakamura, Vescovi and Socko to score the GM norm at 6/9, and tie for first in the event. Even more impressively, he scored his 2nd GM norm in only 17 days! Joining Hikaru and Leif for first place was the Brazilian GM Giovanni Vescovi. Despite losing his games to Hikaru and Leif, Giovanni was able to rack up 6 points out of his 7 other games to take top honors. As for a Round 2 game? Well I just played Hikaru this morning, and well, ow. See for yourself. IM Hikaru Nakamura (2430) - John Fernandez (2079) 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Be3 Ng4 This position is very similar to the very popular Najdorf line espoused by the 2700 club over the past few years, the only difference that 5. ... Nc6 instead of 5. ... a6 has been played. To this day I'm not sure which position is better for Black. In the Najdorf line, Black has the benefit of having the b5 square covered, which in this game proves to be incredibly important. In this position, Black has some pressure on the d4 square instead. Both continuations are very interesting. 7.Bg5 Qb6 a move that I have come to like due to my success with it in bullet and blitz games on the Internet. Black creates some nasty threats, but they can all be repulsed, with accurate play. [I think that the better way to handle this position is to continue in Najdorf fashion with 7...h6 8.Bh4 g5 9.Bg3 Bg7 10.Nb3 with a complicated position.] 8.Bb5 The only move! Pinning the Nc6 allows White to defend everything. 8...Bd7 Both players have little choice on move 8. 9.0-0 h6 [Maybe the best choice was to suffer in the slightly worse endgame that arises after 9...Qxd4 10.Bxc6 Qxd1 11.Bxd7+ Kxd7 12.Raxd1 Black has the same lingering problem in this variation- he just doesn't have his pieces out.] 10.Be3 Nxe3 11.fxe3 Ne5? [I suspect in the future, if players get this position, they will play something more sane such as 11...e6 ] 12.Bxd7+ Kxd7 [The other recapture, 12...Nxd7 was tried with completely disasterous consequences. 13.Nd5 Qd8 14.Ne6 1-0 Stefanova,A - Chilingirova,P, Nadole 1995] 13.Nd5 Qd8 Now White embarks on a move repetition which isn't necessary at all. 14.Nf3 Nc6 Originally Hikaru's idea was to continue with 15. Ne1, but he didn't like the position after 15. ... Qe8. After looking for a good move in the position, he finds that the best continuation was to go back one move! 15.Nd4 Ne5 Black has little choice in the matter. He has to repeat moves and see what White is up to. Around here I started to get the feeling he might have something crazy like Rxf7, but I was already past the point of no return. If I was truly afraid of this variation, I should have seen it when I played 11. ... Ne5. [Trying to hold the f7 pawn with the Queen via 15...Qe8 doesn't work out. 16.Nb5 Rc8 17.e5! is just too strong.]
16.Rxf7!! Thud. Splat. Foomp. Erf. I'm dead. The worst part about this position is that not only can I not take the rook, but I don't have a constructive move anywhere! Not only is White right now a pawn up, but my e6 square is horribly weak. All I can do at this point is just sit at the board and wonder what horrible things I've done to my position. 16...g5 [I suppose that the best thing to do in these situations is to take the rook and console yourself to brilliant loss, hoping that the chandelier will fall on your opponent's head or something. Unfortunately, I was much closer to the chandelier, so I decided to not play 16...Nxf7 because of 17.Qg4+ (Horribly enough, White might also be able to avail himself of another "sacrifice", viz 17.Ne6 and white is at least better in all lines. This sacrifice most certainly can't be taken 17...Kxe6 because of mate in 2: 18.Qg4+ Ke5 19.Qf5#) 17...Ke8 18.Qg6 (18.Ne6 Qc8 (18...Ne5 19.Nec7+) 19.Ndc7+) 18...Qd7 19.Ne6 and I'm getting massacred. I'm jettisoning tons of material, maybe even including my king.] 17.Qf1!
Oh dear. Now EVERYTHING'S going. Not only is he jumping on my central light squares with Qf5+ and Ne6, but he also wants to crush me with Qb5+. Taking the rook doesn't help because of 17. ... Nxf7 18. Qf5+ Ke8 19. Ne6. It's important not to just count on the material. Right now I may have a rook for a pawn, but the true question is how much material will be DOWN in, say, 4 moves? I simply can't defend all the threats. Total time used was White: 17 minutes, Black: 1 hour, 46 minutes. Not only did he play brilliantly, he didn't have to think much to find the crushers. A good game by the US Junior Champion, while I now need a rum swizzle. Bye. 1-0 Some Round 2 games are still going on, so I'll have standings after Round 3 available in the morning.
Final GM A Group Standings:
1-3: IM Leif Erlend Johannessen NOR 2427 6
IM Hikaru Nakamura USA 2430 6
GM Giovanni Vescovi BRA 2590 6
4-5: GM Bartlomiej Macieja POL 2612 5
GM Alexandre Lesiege CAN 2572 5
6: GM Bartosz Socko POL 2585 4.5
7: GM Bojan Vuckovic YUG 2455 4
8: IM Sipke Ernst NED 2459 3.5
9: IM Irina Krush USA 2424 3
10: IM Florian Handke GER 2450 2
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. |
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