Ruthless efficiency
1. Wesley So USA 2808, 9.0/13 2. Magnus Carlsen NOR 2840, 8.0/13 3-5. Baskaran Adhiban IND 2653, Levon Aronian ARM 2780, Wei Yi CHN 2706, 7.5/13
6-7. Sergey Karjakin RUS 2785, Pavel Eljanov UKR 2755, 7.0/13 8. Anish Giri NED 2773, 6.5/13 9-11. Penteala Harikrishna IND 2766, Dmitry Andreikin RUS 2736, Radoslaw Wojtaszek POL 2750, 6.0/13
12. Ian Nepomniachtchi RUS 2767, 5.0/13
13. Richard Rapport HUN 2702, 4.5/13 14. Loek Van Wely NED 2695, 3.5/13 Average Rating: 2751 Category 21 Time Control: 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 50 minutes for the next 20 moves, then 15 minutes play to finish with 30 seconds added to your time after every move starting move 1.
After the 79th Tata Steel Group “A” tournament finished Wesley So was already ranked no. 2 in the world with a live chess ELO rating of 2822, the 6th highest rating ever in the world. And he has answered the questions of his critics:
Wesley So strives to win only one or two games in a tournament and then draw all the rest. This is of course not true. Against the best players in the world you try your best but that does not guarantee a win — you try to catch them in the opening, find the small weaknesses in your opponent’s position, concentrate your forces to provoke more weaknesses, etc. etc. but your opponents have no intention of cooperating with you, and these people are thoroughly schooled in not creating weaknesses. But no one can play perfectly all the time, and when these weaknesses come up Wesley is more than capable of spotting and exploiting them. In Tata GM Wesley won the most games ( five) and his closest pursuers ( Magnus Carlsen, Baskaran Adhiban, Levon Aronian, Wei Yi) only had four. And the Filipino GM was the only undefeated player. This is just dominance, not “winning two games and then drawing all the rest.”
Wesley So just plays risk-free chess. What is going to happen to him when his opponent also plays risk- free chess? I think this tournament proved that Wesley does NOT play risk- free chess. He plays ACCURATE chess. What do I mean? You remember Peter Leko, a tremendous chess player and two- time World Championship Candidate who challenged Vladimir Kramnik in the Classical World Chess Championship 2004 and drew the match 7–7, with Kramnik retaining the title. At his best he was almost unbeatable, but when the opportunity arises he sometimes cannot get himself to grab it with two hands, take decisive action, give up a pawn or two and bring home the point. Here in Tata whenever he sees a chance Wesley grabbed it and cashed in with ruthless efficiency.
Ruthless efficiency — Wesley So got an edge from the opening and he pushed it home giving no chances. We saw him do it versus Penteala Harikrishna (see the Chess Piece column of Jan. 31st) and we will give you another example today, against the Polish GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek.
By the way, it is no mean feat to “get an edge from the opening” from GM Wojtaszek. Aside from being the highest rated player from Poland, one of the world chess powers, he has been one of the seconds to Viswanathan Anand since 2008. In particular, Wojtaszek prepared the openings of the former World Chess Champion in his successful title defence match against Vladimir Kramnik in 2010, against Veselin Topalov in 2012, against Boris Gelfand in 2013, and in 2014 against Magnus Carlsen.
He is such an openings expert that the GM commentators Peter Svidler (it would be an insult to have to introduce him to the reader) and Jan Gustafsson (the famous chess journalist/ historian Edward Winter has named him one of the five top chess commentators in the world) have said that the perfect tag team in chess is for Radoslaw Wojtaszek to play the first 20 moves in a game and then Magnus Carlsen to take over afterwards. Some observers remarked that perhaps after 60 moves Sergey Karjakin should replace Carlsen, but that is another story.
The usual continuation here is 6.0–0 dxc4 7.Qc2 a6 8.Qxc4 b5 9.Qc2 Bb7. The text move 6.Qc2 used to be a surprise weapon for some grandmasters (Aronian, Kramnik, etc) but lately so many games have been played with it that soon it may become a main line as well. Oh, by the way, remember NM Edgar de Castro, one of the top Filpino players in the ’70s and the esteemed chess columnist of one of our Filipino dailies? This was his favorite move.
There is a subtlety here, one which I am sure is not lost to Wesley — 6...dxc4 7.Qxc4 a6 can transpose to the main line, but now White has the option of skipping 0–0 for the time being and go for 8.Ne5!? or 8.Bf4 with its own complications, but one thing is for sure — White’s pressure down the long diagonal is real.
Max Illingworth in Chess Publishing: “It’s best to wait for the opponent to take so they lose time with the exchange, whereas it would be Black’s pieces that activate if White blinks first.”
So that if White now plays 8.cxd5 he has 8...Nxd4! 9.Nxd4 cxd4 10.dxe6 Bxe6 11.Bxb7 Rb8 12.Bf3 Rc8 13.Qa4 d3 (or 13...Bc5) 14.exd3 Qxd3 15.Be3 Rc2 Black has the initiative.
[ 9... Bxc5 10. b4 Bb6 11. Nbd2 Bc7 12.Bb2 e5 13.e3 Black’s center is wobbly]
[12...Nxd5? 13.cxd5 Qxd5 14.Ng5 with the double threat of Qxh7 mate and Bxd5]
GM Viktor Mikhalevski has been successful with 13.b3! here but Wesley prefers to maintain the tension. One example of GM Viktor’s games continued 13...Be6 (Ilingworth pointed out that here Black missed 13...e4! 14.Nxf6+ Qxf6 15.Qxe4 Bf5 16.Qf4 d3 17.Ra2 g5 18.Qd2 dxe2 19.Qxe2 Rfe8 20.Qf1 Qc3 Black is at least equal) 14.e4 Bg4 15.Rf1 Rc8 16.Qd3 Re8 17.h3 Bh5 18.Nh4 and White is better although it is not clear how he can make headway. Mikhalevski,V (2523)- Gerzhoy,L (2245) Tel Aviv 2001 1–0 40.
After the game Wesley opined that 18...Be6 would have equalized. But I am not so sure: 19.b5 Na5 20.Nxe5!? Nb3 21. Qf4 Nxc5! ( 21... Nxa1? 22. Rxa1 Ra7 23.Qd2 Black is in a dangerous position as White threatens 24.b6 with all the winning chances.) 22.Rxd4 Qa5 23.Rdd1 Black remains a pawn down, albeit with some compensation.
A “mysterious rook move” but surprisingly what this is the move that the top chess engines Stockfish 8, Houdini 5 and Komodo 10.3 all want to play. It discourages ...Bxf3 as after exf3 the rook is exerting pressure down the e-file. It also prepares his next move.
Now his fianchettoed bishop gets full rein along the long diagonal. With some very accurate little moves Wesley is slowly but surely increasing his edge.
Aside from the threat of Na5 this steed also protects c5 opening the way for Wesley to capture Black’s a-pawn.
White’s advantage has become decisive.
[26.Bc6?? axb3]
[28...Bxc4 29.cxb7 Bxb3 30.Rxb3 Rb8 31.Rc1 Rxb7 32.Rc6 Nb6 33.f4 The Black center will crumble]
POSITION AFTER 31.RC1
Of course Wesley saw this trick from way back. If now 31...Bxb3 then 32.Rc8 wins on the spot.
31...Be6 32.Rc8 Rxc8 33.dxc8Q+ Bxc8 34.b6 1–0
Wojtaszek resigns as the b6– pawn will cost him a piece.
The remaining question now is whether Wesley So will become world chess champion. He has got what it takes, but somehow Paul Keres keeps popping up in my mind. There is a special feature that the popular chess Web site chess24 has just run on Paul Keres, the so-called “Great Estonian” and indeed one of the greatest players in history, but also one who never got to play a match for the world championship. As the author Joosep Grents points out, Keres could not have come much closer. From 1953 until 1959 he finished second in three Candidates Tournaments in a row. It was just not in the cards.
To speculate on what is going to happen in the future is not the point of this column today. It has already been 16 days since Wesley So won the 79th Tata Steel Masters tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands, but this is chess history, and we will not forget this victory. To all those detractors of Wesley So who say that he has turned his back on his country — c’mon, give the guy a break. He is still a Filipino citizen. Playing for the United States now, that’s true, but not unlike any other Filipino who left Philippine shores in search of a better life and better income.
Will he ever become world champion? He has a good chance, but who knows? At this point in time, what matters is that he has energized all Filipino chessplayers with his exploits deep in chess elite territory just when the country is seriously in need of heroes. And he has reminded everybody from St. Louis, Missouri, to Baku, Armenia to London and in Wijk aan Zee, Wesley So has reminded everyone in the chessplaying world that the Filipinos can play chess.