Rounds 3-4: Warmerdam in sole lead
After four rounds, Max Warmerdam remains the only player with a 100% score. He secured victories against Pieter Jellema and Khoi Pham, respectively. However, with four players on 3.5 points and many others on 3—including Van Wely, who has won three consecutive games following his opening-round defeat—the competition remains intense.
Round 3
In the third round, both grandmasters playing on the top boards managed to win. Lorenzo Lodici gained a pawn against Midas Ratsma; however, in the position shown in the diagram, Black would have had sufficient compensation following 25...Kg8 or 25...Rd5.
However, 25...a5? after which 26.Qf5+ g6 27.Rxc5! gxf5 28.Rxc6 won a second pawn. The rook endgame had some technical problems, but the Italian played it well.
Those who find it annoying to play against the London system can perhaps draw inspiration from the Jellema - Warmerdam game. After 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 d6 3.Nf3 c5 4.e3 Qb6 5.Qc1 cxd4 6.exd4 Nc6 7.c3 e5! Black was already better. He quickly won a piece and not much later also the game.
On boards 7 and 12, two talents from my KNSB training group played against a married couple. Matthieu Guillamond forced a draw by repeating moves against Maurice Schippers, but must not have been happy when he saw the computer assessment of the final position. Raghav Pathak got a pawn endgame against Anna Warakomska through good defending that should have been a draw.
White’s king needs to keep an eye on the potential passed pawn on c5, and if that is done, there is no cause for concern—for instance, by playing 35.e4, followed by Ke3 and f4. Instead, White played 35.Kg5? quickly, leading to 36.f4 b5 37.axb5 axb5 38.e4 c5 39.f5+ Ke5 40.h6 gxh6 41.Kxh6. White may have hoped to promote a pawn of their own via Kg7 and f6, but unfortunately, that plan failed after 41...Kf6. Black, however, succeeded in promoting a pawn and secured the full point.
Round 4
The difficulty of chess was illustrated in the game between Max Warmerdam and Khoi Pham. It seems natural to play 22.Nxb6, but the computer suggests 22.Naxc5! Bxc5 23.Nxc5 bxc5 24.Rd3!, which leads to a winning advantage. But why is capturing on b6 not a good move? Well, because of 22...Red8! 23.Qc1 f4! 24.Nxc8 Nd3! 25.Rxd3 Rxd3, resulting in the following position:
Both 26.Nd4 and 26.Ne7+ lead to a draw following a complex sequence of moves. It is quite possible that Pham did not foresee all of these, but after 22...Ne4 23.Rxc8 Bxc8 24.Qc1, White also captured the pawn on a5 and eventually won the game in 42 moves. Since the game on board 1 ended in a draw and Markuszewski lost to Gahan on board 3, Warmerdam moved into the sole lead.
Finally, a puzzle from the game Grooten vs. Zevenhuizen. How can one logically transition from the position in the left-hand diagram to the one in the right-hand diagram—with it being Black’s turn to move in both cases?
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Click on the > for the solution.
After 13...Nb4? 14.c6!, Black did not want to lose the exchange with 14...Nxc6 15.Bc5. Hence 14...b6 15.a3 Na6 16.b4 Nb8 17.Qb3 Kh8 18.b5, and the position shown in the diagram on the right is reached.
By the way, did you notice that the text contains links to the games being discussed?
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