Capablanca Memorial 2010 (5)
Short recovers with two wins in Cuba
IM Malcolm Pein - Thursday 17th June 2010
Nigel Short recovered from his Round 1 loss to Vassily Ivanchuk to record two wins and a move into 2nd place behind the Ukrainian star.
Nigel Short has recovered from his first round loss to Vasily Ivanchuk at the Capablanca Memorial in Havana and has scored two fine wins to move to 3/5. Short defeated Russian Evgeny Alexeev and Cuban Lazaro Bruzon. Ivanchuk always plays brilliantly in Latin America, he has 4/5.
Short surprises his opponent with 1.d4
N Short - E Alekseev
45th Capablanca Mem Havana (4)
NimzoIndian
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.Nc3 Bb4 5.Qc2 Bb7 6.a3 Bxc3+ 7.Qxc3 0-0 8.e3 d6 9.b4 Nbd7 10.Bb2 Ne4 11.Qb3 f5
12.Be2 Rf6 13.d5! Rg6
(13...e5 might be better)
14.dxe6 Nf8 15.c5! Nxe6 16.cxd6 cxd6
(Black's pawn structure is permanently damaged but 16...Nxd6 17.0-0 Kh8 18.g3 is better for White)
17.Nd4 d5 18.Nxe6 Rxe6 19.Rd1 Qh4 20.g3 Qh6
Evgeny Alekseev
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Nigel Short
Position after 20...Qh6
21.Rxd5! Bxd5 22.Qxd5 Rae8 23.Bb5 Nxf2
(After 23...R8e7 24.Bd7 or 24.0-0 White regains the exchange and remains a pawn to the good)
24.Kxf2 Qxe3+ 25.Kg2 Rc8 26.Rc1 Rxc1 27.Bxc1 Qe4+
(Accepting a bad endgame but if 27...Qxc1 28.Qxe6+ Kf8 29.Qe8#)
28.Qxe4 Rxe4 29.Kf2 g6 30.Be3 Kf7 31.Bd3 Re7 32.a4!
(Targetting a7 forces the win) 32...
Rc7 33.a5 bxa5 34.bxa5 Kf6 35.h4 Ke6 36.a6 Kd5 37.Be2 Ke4 38.Bf3+ Kd3 39.Bb7 Rc2+ 40.Kf3 1-0
Evgeny Alekseev
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Nigel Short
Final position after 40.Kf3
Opening overview. 11.Qc2 c5 12.Bd3 f5 13.0-0 Qe8 14.Nd2 Kasparov - Hjartason 1992. 11...a5 12.Be2 axb4 13.axb4 Rxa1+ 14.Bxa1 Ndf6 15.0-0 Kramnik - Karpov 1997.
At Bazna, Magnus Carlsen has drawn with Ruslan Ponomariov and Teimour Radjabov while Boris Gelfand won a lovely game over Wang Yue and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu outplayed Radjabov.
LD Nisipeanu - T Radjabov
4th Kings Tournament (1)
Sicilian Sveshnikov
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Nd5 Be7 10.Bxf6 Bxf6 11.c4 b4 12.Nc2 0-0 13.g3 Be6 14.Bg2 a5 15.0-0 Rc8 16.Qd3 g6 17.Nxf6+ Qxf6 18.b3 Qe7 19.Rad1 Rfd8 20.h4 Kh8 21.Kh2 f5 22.exf5 gxf5 23.Bxc6! Rxc6 24.f4 Rcc8 25.Qe3 Qg7 26.Rf2 Rd7 27.Nd4! Qg4 28.Rdd2 Re8 29.Nb5 d5 30.Nd6! Red8 31.Qxe5+ Qg7 32.c5 Qxe5 33.fxe5 Rc7 34.Rc2 d4 35.Rfd2 f4 36.gxf4 d3 37.Rxd3 Bf5 38.Nf7+! Kg7 39.Rg2+ 1-0
