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| Chess by Malcolm Pein of the Daily Telegraph   Malcolm Pein writes for the Daily Telegraph (telegraph.co.uk)
you can read his chess columns along with those of Nigel Short and David
Norwood at their new
Chess
Club (to read the columns you need to register which is free).
Round 9 5th January 2004 Jonathan Rowson of Aberdeen, Scotland's strongest ever Grandmaster smoothly despatched the Russian GM Vladimir Epishin ranked world number 59 to take a share of the first prize at the Hastings Premier held at the Horntye Sports Centre. Rowson was only the sixth Scot to play in the Hastings Premier after; William Fairhurst, Dr James Aitken, David Levy, Colin McNab and Paul Motwani and his was the best ever result by a Scot. McNab came third in the 1994/5 tournament. Vasilios Kotronias shared the lead with Epishin going into the last round but he agreed a perfunctory draw with white against the British champion Abhijit Kunte. Kotronias was assuming Epishin would not try for a win playing black but both Epishin and Rowson then knew that a victory would bring the reward of a greater prize. A win for the Russian would bring him outright first while a win for Rowson would enable him to join Kotronias. In such circumstances it is always much easier to play with white and Rowson played carefully and was soon rewarded. Epishin lost a tempo in the opening and in trying to avoid a standard type of position in which Rowson had an extra move he played a knight to the edge of the board in a rash attempt to complicate. They say: a knight on the rim is dim' and this horse was marooned for the next forty moves before it was put out of its misery and exchanged. Rowson decided to play for the attack and castled queenside and this was met by an dubious pawn sacrifice from the Russian who was playing quite uncharacteristically. A second pawn fell and in the time scramble Rowson calmly returned one foot solider to exchange queens into a won endgame. Round nine results Rowson 1-0 Epishin, Nimzo-Indian 4.Qc2, 57; Hebden draw Nielsen, French Tarrasch, 36; Gormally draw Lahno, QID, 30; Kotronias draw Kunte, Berlin Defence, 13; Cherniaev 1-0 Conquest, Sicilian Defence, 88; Scores: 1-2 Kotronias (Cyprus), Rowson (Scotland) 6/9; 3 Epishin (Russia) 5.5; 4 Kunte (India) 5; 5-Nielsen (Denmark) 4.5; 6-7 Hebden (England), Lahno (Ukraine) 4; 9-10 Conquest (England), Cherniaev (Russia) 3.5; 10 Gormally (England) 3; Rowson,J (2541) - Epishin,V (2658) [E36] Premier Hastings ENG (9), 05.01.2004 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 d5 5.a3 Be7!? The extra tempo with a3 can be quite useful is some lines but if Black was so worried about this he should have played 5...Bxc3+ 6.Nf3 Nbd7 7.Bf4 c6 8.e3 Nh5?! 9.Be5 0-0 10.h3! Nxe5 11.dxe5 g6 12.0-0-0  12...b5? the knight on h5 is bad but pawn sacrifice 12. ..b5 is unsound. 13.cxb5 cxb5 14.Bxb5 Bb7 15.Nd4 Rc8 16.Qa4 Rc5 17.g4 Ng7 18.Kb1 a6 19.Be2 Qc7 20.f4 Rb8 21.Na2 Bc8 22.Rc1 Qb7 23.Nb4 a5 24.Rxc5 Bxc5 25.Qxa5 Bb6 26.Qa4 g5 27.Qd1 gxf4 28.exf4 Bd7 29.Qd2 Ba5 30.Rc1 h6 31.Rc5 Bxb4 32.axb4 Qxb4 33.Qc3 Qxc3 34.Rxc3 Rb4 35.Rd3 Bb5 36.Nxb5 Rxb5 37.Rd4 Rb8 38.b4 Ne8 39.Kb2 Kf8 40.b5 Ke7 41.Ra4 Nc7 42.h4 Rb7 43.g5 h5 44.Ra5 d4 45.Bc4 Ne8 46.Kb3 Ng7 47.Bd3 Nf5 48.Bxf5 exf5 49.Kc4 Rd7 50.Kd3 Rd5 51.Ra7+ Ke6 52.Kc4 Rd8 53.Ra6+ Ke7 54.Rd6 Rc8+ 55.Kb4 Rc1 56.Rxd4 Rh1 57.b6  1-0 |
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