MARK RUBERY CHESS
“The best ever bit of restraint in a similar situation was watching Etienne Bacrot beating Aronian in a France-Armenia match at the same tournament. I swear if you watched the end of the game, the handshake, the signing, the stopping the clocks, the walking away etc you wouldn’t have known who’d won the game. Bacrot managed to maintain a stony, Borg-like, utterly impassive expression until he was about 30 yards away from the board and approaching a separate area where his team-mates were waiting. Just before he was out of sight, he couldn’t hold it in any longer and a massive grin broke out before I could just see him virtually leaping into his team-mates arms, fists pumping and yelping for joy.” The subject of emotion in sport came up during some email traffic among a group of chess friends and this led to the question of whether it occurs much in tournament play. The former South African player (now Welsh), Tim Kett, weighed in with his eyewitness account of what unfolded at the 2009 European Team Championship: “I actually have seen a bit of it at major chess champs for instance when (the late, sadly) Vugar Gashimov won an ‘unwinnable’ lastround ending against Daniel Stellwagen to clinch the Gold Medal for Azerbaijan. His team mates Mamedyarov, Radjabov and co all rushed up to the board and had a massive group hug that ended with them all rolling on the floor together (much to Gashimov’s embarrassment).” The climax of the event was arrived at with the Azerbaijan - Netherlands match tied at
1,5 each the final game saw Vugar Gashimov eventually convert an extra pawn against Daniel Stellwagen in a rook ending that should have been drawn with correct play. 1st Azerbaijan 2nd Russia 3rd Ukraine 4th Armenia 5th Germany…38 teams Gashimov,V (2740) - Stellwagen,D (2630) [B12] 17th TCh-Eur Novi Sad SRB (9), 30.10.2009 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 c5 6.Be3 cxd4 7.Nxd4 Ne7 8.Nd2 Nbc6 9.N2f3 Bg4 10.0–0 a6 11.Rc1 Bxf3 12.Nxf3 g6 13.c4 Bg7 14.cxd5 Qxd5 15.Qa4 Qa5 16.Qb3 0–0 17.Bc5 Rfe8 18.Bd6 Nxe5 19.Nxe5 Bxe5 20.Rc5 Qd2 21.Bxe5 Qxe2 22.Qxb7 Nd5 23.Bg3 Rad8 24.h3 Re7 25.Qb3 Red7 26.a3 h5 27.Rc2 Qb5 28.Qf3 Ne7 29.Bc7 Rc8 30.Rfc1 Qd5 31.Qe2 Qb7 32.Be5 Rxc2 33.Qxc2 Rd5 34.Qc3 Kh7 35.Bh8 Nf5 36.g4 e5 37.gxf5 Kxh8 38.fxg6 fxg6 39.Qc6 Qxc6 40.Rxc6 a5 41.Rxg6 Kh7 42.Rb6 Kg7 43.a4 Rd4 44.b3 Rd3 45.Kg2 e4 46.Rb5 Kg6 47.h4 Kh6 48.Re5 Rxb3 49.Rxe4 Ra3 50.f3 Kg6 51.Kg3 Kf6 52.Kf4 Ra1 53.Rc4 Ra3 54.Ke4 Ke6 55.f4 Ra1 56.Rc6+ Kf7 57.Rc4 Ke6 58.Rc6+ Kf7 59.Kf5 Rxa4 60.Rc7+ Kf8 61.Ra7 Ra1 62.Kg6 a4 63.f5 Rg1+ 64.Kf6 Kg8 65.Rxa4 Rg4 66.Ra8+ Kh7 67.Ra7+ Kg8 68.Ra8+ Kh7 69.Kf7 Rxh4 70.f6 SEE DIAGRAM
…Rf4?? (A most unfortunate choice, particularly for the Russian team who would have got the gold medal on the event of a draw. Stellwagen should have moved the rook to e4, to keep the white king on the f-file, or to c4 or b4 to give checks from the side, or to h1, h2 or h3 to give checks from a sufficient distance.) 71.Ke6!
h4 (71…Re4+ 72 Kf5) 72.f7 Kg6 73.f8Q Rxf8 74.Rxf8 Kg5 75.Ke5 1–0 Tim continued…