Gibraltar Masters 2018
Gibraltar Masters 2018 Caleta, England Jan. 22-Feb. 1, 2018 Final Top Standings
1-7. GM Hikaru Nakamura USA 2781, GM Richard Rapport HUN 2700, GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave FRA 2793, Levon Aronian ARM 2797, GM Nikita Vitiugov RUS 2732, GM Michael Adams ENG 2709, GM Le Quang Liem VIE 2737, 7.5/10
8-25. GM David Howell ENG 2682, GM Abhijeet Gupta IND 2610, GM Debashis Das IND 2501, GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda POL 2724, GM Grigoriy Oparin RUS 2607, GM Wang Hao CHN 2711, GM Daniele Vocaturo ITA 2609, GM Boris Gelfand ISR 2697, GM S.P. Sethuraman IND 2646, GM Emil Sutovsky ISR 2673, GM Daniil Dubov RUS 2696, Lance Henderson dela Fuente ESP 2429, GM Ori Kobo ISR 2477, GM Ivan Cheparinov BUL 2699, GM Alexander Motylev RUS 2673, GM S.L. Narayanan IND 2573, GM Vladimir Epishin RUS 2536, GM Falko Bindrich GER 2605, 7.0/10 Total of 276 players Time Control: 100 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 50 minutes for the next 20 moves then 15 minutes play-tofinish with 30 seconds added to your clock after every move starting move 1.
Gibraltar is a very small, narrow peninsula covering 2.5 square miles located at the southern edge of Spain. It overlooks the Strait of Gibraltar and the northern coastal areas of Africa. If you look that up in the map you will note that it is thousands of miles away from England, and yet it is British Crown Colony. When asked, at the referendum in 2002, whether Spain and the UK should share sovereignty of Gibraltar, more than 98% of Gibraltarians said it should remain British.
Apparently it was captured by a Dutch force from Spain in 1704 and ceded in perpetuity to Great Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The landscape is dominated by the Rock of Gibraltar at the foot of which is a densely populated city area, home to over 30,000 people, primarily Gibraltarians.
It is a financial haven, with a maximum of £30,000 (approximately P2.1 million) in income tax regardless of how much earnings you have and there is also no inheritance tax, no VAT, no capital gains tax and low income and corporate tax.
Some trivia: In March 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono flew to Gibraltar, where they were married in a 10-minute ceremony at the British consulate by registrar Cecil Wheeler. It was the only place that could marry them at such short notice. Within an hour they headed for Amsterdam, and the Hilton hotel, where they spent their honeymoon in bed, accompanied by the world’s press, to call for world peace.
As for chess, Gibraltar every year hosts one of the strongest international chess opens in the world with huge prizes and they exert every effort to make chessplayers feel at home. There was an unfortunate conflict of schedules this year between the Tata Steel tournament and the Gibraltar Masters and so Magnus Carlsen et al could not compete in the latter tournament, but anyway there were enough big stars to go around and elite players Levon Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Hikaru Nakamura showed up in the island to do battle.
At the end there was a seven way tie on 7.5/10. The top four on tie-break went into a playoff for the title (time control: 10 minutes play-to-finish with a 5-second increment per move. If the score is still tied then two blitz games will be played with 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment). Semifinals
Levon Aronian beat Richard Rapport 2-0
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave beat Hikaru Nakamura 2.5-1.5 Finals
Levon Aronian defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 2.5-1.5
Levon Aronian got £25,000 (around P1.7 million) for finishing first, the other six players tied for 2nd-7th got £ 10,500 ( P750,000) each.
For Levon Aronian this is yet another super- win following his tremendous victory in the FIDE World Cup last September followed by another big win in the Palma de Mallorca Grand Prix in November. Even more than ever he affirms his standing as the top favorite to win the Candidates Tournament in March 2018. If he wins that too then it is on to a match for all the marbles — a world title confrontation with Magnus Carlsen.
Let us take a look at the chess he played in Gibraltar. First, a lightning attack which is surprisingly virulent.
Aronian, Levon (2797) — Hoolt, Sarah (2400) [A80] Gibraltar Masters 2018 Catalan
Bay GIB (3.18), 25.01.2018 1. d4 f5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Bg5 d5 4. e3 e6 5. Nf3 Be7 6. Bd3 Ne4 7. Bxe7 Qxe7 8.0– 0 0– 0 9. Ne2 c5 10. b3 Nd7 11. c4 dxc4 12. Bxc4 Nd6 13. Qc2 Nxc4 14. Qxc4 Re8 [ Conventional wisdom is that in such formations once Black manages to advance her e- pawn to e5 it should more or less equalize, but it is so simple to achieve that.]
15. Nf4 cxd4 16. exd4 Qd6 17. Ne5 Nxe5 18. dxe5 Qxe5 19. Rfe1 Qf6 20. Rad1 Qf7 21. Qb5 a6 22. Qb6 a5 [ Not yet time for 22... e5, which is met by 23. Nd5 ( threatening a fork on c7) 23... Rb8 24. Nc7 Rf8 ( where else? 24... Re7 25. Rd8+) 25. Rxe5 and the e5 pawn is lost for nothing]
23. Nd3 Ra6 24. Qd4 b5 25. Qc5 Qb7 26. Ne5 Qb6 27. Qc1 [ Sarah has been concentrating on the queenside but now she sees that Qg5 is very strong.]
27...Ra7 28.Qg5 Rae7 29.Rd3 Qc7 30.Qe3 Bb7 31.Rc1 Qb8 32.Nd7 Qa8 33.Qg5 Kh8? <D>
Black should have played 33... h6. Now White’s attack begins. 34.Nf6! Rc8
[34...gxf6 35.Qxf6+ Rg7 36.Rc7 Reg8 37.Rdd7 Qf8 38.Rxg7 Qxg7 39.Rxg7 Rxg7 40.Qxe6 White is clearly winning] 35.Rcd1 Rf7
The knight is still immune: 35...gxf6 36.Qxf6+ Rg7 37.Rd8+. 36.Nd7 Rg8 37.Rh3
With the idea of Rxh7+, Kxh7, Qh5 mate.
37... h6 38. Ne5 Rf6 39. Rxh6+! Rxh6 40.Nf7+ Kh7 41.Nxh6 Bf3 [41...gxh6 42.Rd7+]
42.Nf7 Threatening Qh4+, Kg6, Ne5 mate. 42...Rf8 43.Qh4+ 1–0
Black chooses to resign rather than 43...Kg6 44.Ne5 mate, or 43...Kg8 Ng5 and a massacre.
And now we have another example of Aronian’s queen meandering all over the board, but once it gets to the kingside the attack is hard to defend. Aronian, Levon (2797) — Sethuraman, S.P. (2646) [A13] Gibraltar Masters 2018 Catalan Bay GIB (9.3), 31.01.2018 1.c4 e6 2.g3 d5 3.Bg2 Nf6 4.Nf3 dxc4 5.Qa4+ Bd7 6.Qxc4 c5 To be followed by ...Bc6. Aronian prevents that right away.
7.Ne5 Qc8 8.Qd3 Nc6 9.Nxd7 Nxd7 10.Nc3 Be7 11.Qb5 a6 12.Qa4 Nd4 13.0– 0 0–0 14.d3 Nb6 15.Qd1 Rd8 16.Bd2 Qd7 17.Rc1 Rac8 18.b3 h6 19.Kh1! Would you believe this is an attacking move? Watch.
19...Nd5 20.Nxd5 exd5 21.e3 Nc6 22.Qh5 Qd6 23.f4 a5 24.a4 Rb8 25.e4 dxe4 26.Bxe4 b6 27.g4 With Bc3, Rg1 and Rcf1 to follow.
27...Nd4 28.Bc3 f5
Taking the b3 pawn accelerates White’s attack. There will follow 28... Nxb3 29.Be5 Qe6 30.Rce1 and it is already looking very scary for Black. 29.gxf5 Bf6 30.Rg1 Re8 Did Black slip up here? Let us take a look at the alternatives.
30... Kh7 31. Rxg7+!! Kxg7 ( Or 31... Bxg7 32.f6+) 32.Rg1+ Kf8 33.Qxh6+ Ke8 34. Bxd4 Bxd4 ( 34... Qxd4 is hopeless after 35.Qh7) 35.Bc6+ followed by mate;
30... Kf8 31. Rg6 Qe7 32. Rcg1 Rd6 33. Bxd4 Bxd4 ( 33... Rxd4? 34. Rxf6+! Qxf6 35. Rg6 Qe7 36. f6 gxf6 37. Qxh6+ Ke8 38.Rg7 and wins) 34.f6! Bxf6 35.Bd5 Rbd8 36.Rxh6! and wins;
Best defense appears to be 30...Kh8 31.Rg6 Qf8 32.Re1 when there is no immediate win for White in sight. 31.Qxh6 Rbd8 32.Rce1 Re7 33.Re3 1–0
Sethuraman resigns because of 33.Re3 Kf8 (33...Nxf5 34.Bxf5 Rxe3 35.Rxg7+! followed by mate) 34.Qh8+ Kf7 35.Qh5+ Kf8 36.Reg3 threat is Qh8+ followed by Rxg7+. Black can still wriggle around a bit but sooner or later the king will get caught.
The 2018 Chess Calendar has the Aeroflot Open (Moscow, Russia) to start Feb. 20- March 1. This is the world’s toughest open tournament with only players rated 2550 and above automatically allowed entry.
March 6-14 is the Reykjavik Open in Reykjavik, Iceland. This year it has been named as the Bobby Fischer Memorial in honor of Fischer who would have turned 75.
I don’t imagine though any of the eight (8) candidates (Sergey Karjakin, Levon Aronian, Ding Liren, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Alexander Grischuk, Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and Vladimir Kramnik) participating in these events. It looks like the next time we will be seeing any of them in action will be the Candidates Tournament in Berlin, Germany from March 10-28. This should be a real humdinger of an event.