The illegal move incident
Russia Championship Higher League Yaroslavl, Russia June 26-July 6, 2018 Final Top Standings
1- 2. GM Alexey Sarana RUS 2573, GM Grigoriy Oparin RUS 2587, 6.5/9
3-8. GM Ernesto Inarkiev RUS 2684, GM Denis Khismatullin RUS 2627, GM Mikhail Kobalia RUS 2608, GM Vadim Zvjaginsev RUS 2633, GM Kirill Alekseenko RUS 2621, GM Sanan Sjugirov RUS 2663, 6.0/9
9-12. GM Alexander Motylev RUS 2659, WGM Aleksandra Goryachkina RUS 2505, GM Aleksandr Rakhmanov RUS 2627, GM Igor Lysyj RUS 2630, 5.5/9 Total of 59 Participants Time Control: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, then another 30 minutes for the rest of the game with 30 seconds added to your clock after every move starting move 1.
On Wednesday I reported on the final standings of the Russia Championship Higher League, the Top 5 of whom will qualify to play in the 2018 Russian Super Finals to be held later this year. One of our readers noticed the name of Ernesto Inarkiev among the qualifiers — wasn’t he involved in an illegal move incident with world champion Magnus Carlsen? What was that all about?
Well this happened during the Blitz portion of the 2017 King Salman World Rapid/ Blitz Championships held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Quick Historical Recap: The Blitz event is a 21- round tournament played over 2 days. Each player is given 3 minutes for the entire game with 2 seconds added to your clock after every move starting move 1. The reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen had 13 wins, 6 draws and 2 losses (16/21) to win it. Tied for second place with 14.5/21 were Sergey Karjakin and Vishy Anand.
You will recall that the event in general was very successful for Vishy Anand, as he won the Rapid Event (15 minutes for the entire game with 10 second increments after every move) undefeated with 10.5/15, beating Magnus Carlsen in their individual game.
But I digress. In the first round of the blitz this is what happened.
Carlsen, Magnus (2837) — Inarkiev, Ernesto (2689) [B20] World Blitz 2017 Riyadh KSA (1.1), 29.12.2017 1.e4 c5 2.a3 Nc6 3.b4 cxb4 4.axb4 Nxb4 5.d4
You can’t imagine Magnus Carlsen playing the Wing Gambit? Maybe in Classical Chess, but the different time controls all have their own unique winning tactics with their specialized opening systems.
5...d5 6.c3 Nc6 7.exd5 Qxd5 8.Na3 Bf5 9.Nb5 Rc8 10.Nxa7 Nxa7 11.Rxa7 e5 12.Nf3 exd4 13.Nxd4 Bd7 14.Nb5 Qxd1+ 15. Kxd1 Bc6 16. Bd3 Bc5 17. Re1+ Ne7 18. Ba3 Bxa3 19. Rxa3 Rd8
A lot of people will automatically take their king out of checking range with 19...Kf8, but Inarkiev has a good idea — with 19...Rd8 he would threaten ...Bxb5 and then use the tempo gained to move his king to c7, closer to the center.
20.Nd4 Kd7 21.Ra7 Rhe8 22.Kc2 Kc7 23.Rb1
It turns out that the Black king is not so safe on c7. White wants to play Nxc6 followed by R1xb7.
23... Rb8 24. f3 Nd5? 25. Nxc6! Kxc6 26.Bb5+ Kb6 27.Rxb7+! <D>
The idea behind 27. Rxb7+ is that White is now transposing into a pawnup endgame after 27...Rxb7 28.Bxe8+ Kc7 29. Rxb7+ Kxb7 30. Bxf7 Ne3+ 31.Kd3 Nxg2 32.Kd4.
Guess what Inarkiev did here? Well he played.
27...Ned3+ <huh!?!?>
Inarkiev obviously did not notice that he was under check and executes a check himself, so now both players are under check. Under the rules Magnus could have simply stopped the clocks and claimed a win because of his opponent’s illegal move. Instead, in the heat of the moment, Magnus played…
28.Kd3
And now Inarkiev stopped the clocks and claimed a win for himself because of his opponent’s illegal move! Unbelievable, right? The position is illegal so any move that Magnus makes other than claiming a win is illegal.
And you know what? The arbiter accepted the reasoning and forfeited Carlsen!
Completely stunned, the world champion got up from his chair and started walking out of the playing hall. On the way out though someone suggested to him to talk to the chief arbiter Takis Nikolopoulos first — this was good advice as Nikolopoulos overruled the arbiter’s decision and decided that the game should continue from the position currently on the board which, surprisingly enough, is a legal position.
After some reflection Inarkiev refused to continue and the game was then forfeited in favor of Magnus Carlsen.
1–0
All’s well that ends well? Note quite. Inarkiev submitted an appeal but the Appeals Committee immediately threw it out. As Malcolm Pein, a Member of the Committee, pointed out, if you make an illegal move in blitz and claim a win if your opponent doesn’t spot it “we’d have anarchy.”
There were a lot of indignant voicing complaining about Inarkiev’s “absurd” (as Garry Kasparov puts it) claim. My personal take on the whole situation was that Inarkiev, who is not known as a bad sport, simply spotted a hole in the rules and just wanted to have a bit of fun.
***** By the way, let me talk to you about the Wing Gambit. 2. b4 is the Wing Gambit. White’s idea is 2. b4 cxb4 3. a3, hoping to deflect Black’s c- pawn, then dominate the center with an early d4. GM Joe Gallagher calls it “a forgotten relic, hardly having set foot in a tournament hall since the days of Frank Marshall and Rudolph Spielmann. White sacrifices a pawn for... well, not a lot.”
But the elite chess circuit is becoming a bit too boring. The exciting chess nowadays is in the faster time controls because players are more willing to take risks. Trot out a gambit and then try to wipe out your opponent from the board. If your tactics should backfire then who cares? You don’t have time to brood as the next game is coming up in 15 minutes. In GM Simon Williams’ words, you should simply sit down, play some gambit and let loose with some old fashioned coffee house rubbish.”
At the less than elite levels, the Wing Gambit is not that easy to meet. Let me tell you a quick story: In the 2000 Istanbul Olympiad where I was team captain, the Philippine team was on a good roll and we met Mongolia in round 9. The matchups were:
board 1 GM Bazar Hatanbaatar 2507 vs GM Eugene Torre 2542
board 2 GM Dashzeveg Sharavdorj 2445 vs GM Rogelio Antonio, Jr. 2548
board 3 IM Odondoo Gambold 2415 vs GM Bong Villamayor 2548
board 4 FM Duurenbayar Erhembayar 2292 vs Idelfonso Datu 2345
As the match unfolded our two GMs on boards 1 and 2 came under heavy pressure while Idel Datu couldn’t make any headway against the solid play of his opponent. And then there was this game on board 3.
Ganbold, Odondoo (2405) — Villamayor, Buenaventura (2495) [C00] Istanbul ol (Men) 34th Istanbul (9.3), 06.11.2000
The players were seated at the table and waiting for the arbiters to start the clocks. Our team had defeated Singapore in round 6 3.5– 0.5 and upset China 2.5–1.5. We stumbled against Ukraine 0.5–3.5 in the previous round and hoped to get back on track in this round. I was standing at my designated spot behind our players and felt someone brush against me. It was the legendary Ignatius Leong of Singapore — he whispered good luck and I asked him who the player was on the Mongolian board 3. “Oh, Ganbold! Sometimes he plays like an idiot and sometimes like a genius.” I really broke out a big smile — GM Bong will take care of him — he is way too solid for a sometimesidiot-sometimes-genius opponent! Or so I thought.
1.e4 e6 2.Nf3 d5 3.e5 c5 4.b4!?
The French Wing Gambit. 4...cxb4
In his book on the French Moskalenko suggests that the best way to meet this is 4...d4 5.bxc5 Bxc5, which he considers fine for Black, a main line going 6.Ba3 Qa5 7.Bxc5 Qxc5 8.c3 Nc6 9.cxd4 Nxd4 10.Qa4+ Bd7!! 11.Qxd4 Qc1+ 12.Ke2 Bb5+ with a terrific attack for the knight.
5.a3 Nc6
GM Neil McDonald suggests that 5... d4! is the most logical here as it prevents White from establishing his center with d2–d4.
6.axb4 Bxb4 7.c3 Be7 8.d4 f6
This is a thematic move in the French, but perhaps the best approach here is to weaken nothing on the kingside and challenge White to make progress. For this purpose better would have been 8... Bd7!? 9.Bd3 Rc8 10.0–0 a6 11.Nbd2 Na5 12.Qc2 Qc7 13.Bb2 Nh6 etc. etc... I am sure GM Bong knew that — but he was the higher-rated player and wanted to win!
9.Bd3 Qc7 10.Bf4 f5 11.g4!?
Didn’t see that coming. At this point GM Bong started taking up a lot of time between moves while on the other hand Ganbold continued blitzing out his.
11...fxg4 12.Ng5 Bxg5 13.Bxg5 Qf7 14.Qxg4 Nge7 15.Rg1 Nf5
Black starts seeing ghosts. 15...0–0 16.Qh4 Ng6 (this is a better square for the knight rather than f5 because here at least it blocks the g-file) 17.Qg3 Bd7 18.h4 Qf3 holds for Black.
16.Na3 0–0 17.Nb5 Kh8
This was really infuriating. Up to here Ganbold had only taken around 15 minutes while GM Bong was almost at the end of his time. At this point Ignatius, who had been carefully looking at the other boards of the match, came up to me again and told me “I hope the Philippines doesn’t lose too badly against Mongolia.”
18.Qh3 h6?? 19.Bf6! 1–0
The threat is Bxf5 followed by Qxh6. To meet this threat Black has to give up a lot of material, so he resigns.
At least this story has a happy ending. Idel Datu just ran over his opponent while both GM Joey and Eugene turned around their games and equalized. Both of them would not agree to a draw and continued playing even after most of the other players had gone home — at one point most of the playing hall was darkened and their games were the only ones still in progress. Finally both of them won and we beat Mongolia 3-1.
I was really very proud of our two GMs.