What a round we witnessed at the Villa Marina yesterday! On the top three boards, Adams and Sargissian were both held to draws by Raznikov and Popilski, while Vachier-Lagrave, who had a certain edge throughout most of the game, finally got the better of Tarjan as the latter went astray with an unfortunate series of moves just before making time control.

Down on board 4 we find what has to be the game of the day as Daniel Gormally shocked Granda Zuniga, the world number 70 player, by taking him down in just 16(!) moves!

Danny was kind enough to annotate this game for us:

Gormally,D (2488) – Granda-Zuniga,J (2674) [D24]

ISLE OF MAN (2), 05.10.2014

[Danny Gormally]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 a6 5.e4 b5 6.e5 Nd5 7.a4 Nxc3 [7…e6 8.axb5 Nb6 tends to be a more popular line these days- the move in the game is somewhat risky.]

8.bxc3 Bb7 9.e6! [The only way to fight for the initiative.]

9…f6 [9…fxe6 might be played on a very good day but Black’s pawn structure is ruinous.]

10.Be2 Qd6 11.0–0 Qxe6 12.Re1 [I remember this from Glenn Flear’s book on the queens gambit accepted- he gave up to here and said White had good compensation. I was reasonably confident of finding the right moves over the board as it’s my sort of position.]

12…Qf7 [12…g6 May be an alternative. Basically White has good play against anything Black does. Maybe the Bishop can go to a3, intensifiying the pressure on the e7 point, for example.]

13.Nh4 b4?! [I don’t like this, as it weakens his structure, without achieving a great deal in return, although I must admit that I have no idea what Black should have done instead.]

14.Nf5! [Already I had devious ideas in mind.]

[I rejected 14.Bg4 Bd5 15.Nf5 because of 15…h5! although even here it seems like White has a good game after the simple 16.Bf3]

14…a5? [Just too slow.]

[Black’s position was already clearly unpleasant, although he can minimise the damage with 14…Nc6 15.Ne3 0–0–0 16.Bxc4 e6 17.Bd2 Though this still looks rather grotty- the Black king remains a target.]

15.Bf3!? [I saw here that I could already win the queen with 15.Nh6 but wasn’t sure about 15…Qd5 16.Bf3 Qxf3 17.gxf3 gxh6 when the open g-file and the spoiled White structure seemed to give him some practical chances; also I have no pawn breaks to undermine his grip on the position. I’ve seen much worse positions defended in one minute games!]

15…Nc6 [he really had to resign himself to 15…Bxf3 16.Qxf3 Ra7 even if this looks great for White after the straightforward 17.d5]

16.Nh6! [Now I win the queen in an even better version so he resigned.Obviously this wasn’t Granda’s best day at the office but from my point of view it’s always nice to get an opening that you’re comfortable with.]

1–0

On board 5 Tiviakov disposed of Smith in only 20 moves, while board 6 saw another upset as Elisabeth Paethz took out Gawain Jones in his beloved Sicilian Dragon.

Board 7 saw the English GMs clash between David Howell and Simon Williams, who already have a history of producing interesting games when facing each other. If anything, this is an understatement in the light of yesterday’s game! After an interesting and slightly unorthodox Pirc opening the game quickly became extremely sharp, especially when Simon decided to sacrifice a piece by playing 17…Nc6. The computer doesn’t usually like giving up a whole piece for nothing and credited Howell with a +4 advantage at some point, but the position was still extremely complicated from a human point of view. Despite admitting after the game that he had missed the 20.Rh3 resource, Simon managed to always create new threats and after a crazy time trouble phase (with both having to play their roughly 20 last moves on increment), the players repeated moves right after reaching the time control in what had already become an equal (yet crazy and worth checking out) position.

On board 8 Nigel Short was facing Dutch hopeful Jorden van Foreest, the current European U14 Champion, with the black pieces. In Nigel’s own words, he played and calculated well, but got slightly nervous as the game was nearing the time control and he somehow forgot about the strong 37.Nc5, despite having foreseen this motif and even having planned to prevent it by playing Kf8. After this tactical shot which forced the sequence 37…dxc5 (Black can’t move the queen because of 38.Ne6+ Qxe6 39.Qxf4) 38.Qxe5+ Rf6 39.Qxc5, the game was just a draw.

Board 9 saw Gupta beat Jedynak from an interesting endgame where he was a pawn down but had the bishop pair, while boards 10-16 were all fighting draws. This string of draws means that after only 2 rounds, there are just 5 players left on a perfect score: Vachier-Lagrave, Tiviakov, Gupta, Gormally and Paehtz.

On today’s menu we have the following clashes on the top boards: Gormally-Vachier-Lagrave, Paehtz-Tiviakov and Popilski-Gupta.

As usual, the games will start at 1.30pm and you can watch live here: http://www.iominternationalchess.com/live-games.html

Fiona Steil-Antoni (Press Officer)