Tal Memorial Round 5 all games drawn

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6th Tal Memorial 2011 (5)

Tal Memorial Round 5 all games drawn

IM Malcolm Pein - Wednesday 23rd November 2011

IM Malcolm Pein reports on Round 5 of the Tal Memorial where he looks in particular at Peter Svidler's interesting novelty against Sergey Karjakin.

Peter Svidler drew against Sergey Karjakin. Photo ©

Peter Svidler drew against Sergey Karjakin. Photo © | http://www.russiachess.org

There were five more draws but plenty of interesting chess was played in the fifth round of the Tal Memorial at Moscow. Magnus Carlsen pressed for while against Vasily Ivanchuk and Levon Aronian appeared to have Hikaru Nakamura on the rack but the defenders held out in both games. Vladimir Kramnik played solidly against Vishy Anand, while Boris Gelfand only managed to equalise with the white pieces against Ian Nepomniachtchi. It was left to Sergey Karjakin and Peter Svidler to provide most of the entertainment with this sharp encounter.

6...e5 is a very interesting move, investing a tempo to dislodge the strong knight and claim more of the centre. Because Black has already played a7-a6 and White Bf1-d3, the usual hazard of Nd4-b5-d6 is not a problem here. Karjakin finds a way to exploit the weakened d5 square. The position soon resembles a Sicilian Sveshnikov with Black's dark squared bishop very well placed.

S Karjakin - P Svidler

Sicilian Kan

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Bd3 Nf6 6.0-0 e5 7.Bg5 h6

(7...exd4 8.e5 h6 9.exf6 and Qe2+ wins)

8.Bxf6 Qxf6 9.Nf5 g6

(Svidler described 9...d5 10.Nc3 d4 11.Nd5 as 'horrible')

10.Ne3 Bc5 11.Nc3 d6 12.Ncd5 Qd8 13.c3 Be6 14.Bc2 0-0 15.Ng4 Nd7!?

(15...Kg7 16.Ngf6 Nd7=)

16.Nxh6+ Kg7 17.Nf5+!

Peter Svidler