David Howell, the England No2, scored one of his career best results this week when the 25-year-old from Seaford, East Sussex, shared second prize at the Paul Keres memorial tournament in Tallinn, Estonia. This evocative rapidplay was staged to commemorate the centenary of the birth of the attacking legend Keres, one of the best and unluckiest players never to win the world championship.
Howell scored 8.5/11, half a point behind Igor Kovalenko of Latvia and level with Israel’s Boris Gelfand and India’s Surya Ganguly. The English grandmaster had led with 7/8 but stumbled in the ninth round, when he blundered when clearly better against the top seeded seven-time Russian champion Peter Svidler. Howell also won the most brilliant game of the tournament, sacrificing three pawns, then a knight, then a rook to create a mating attack. It was uncannily reminiscent of Keres’s own imaginative brilliancy which first made his name as a 19-year-old at the Warsaw Olympiad in 1935.
Keres is a national hero for Estonians, who believe with some justification that Soviet officials had coerced him into playing badly against the Russian Mikhail Botvinnik at the 1948 world championship. He was voted Estonia’s sportsperson of the year in 1959 and 1962, and later sportsperson of the 20th century. When he died of a heart attack in 1975, 100,000 attended his funeral. Estonia’s national bank has just issued 500,000 €2 coins with Keres’s name and portrait to commemorate his centenary.
Mystery still surrounds some key incidents in Keres’s career. He won Avro 1938, one of the strongest ever tournaments, and then challenged Alexander Alekhine for the world championship. Alekhine preferred to play Botvinnik, but negotiations for that ceased abruptly in September 1939. From 1941 to 1943 Alekhine and Keres both played in Germany, yet there was still no title match. In 1944 Keres may have travelled by boat from Sweden to try to take his family to the West, but was caught as the USSR reoccupied Estonia. Normally that would have meant a death sentence but friends in high places, plus his status as a national icon, saved him. No wonder he was always reticent about that period in his life.
Howell’s triple pawn gambit created an e5/Ne4 base for his attack, though Black could have made it harder by 16..Nb5! In the game, the attack played itself and White made most of his remaining moves at blitz speed until Black resigned in the face of f5 28 Bd5+ forcing mate.
David Howell v Rinat Jumabayev, Tallinn 2016
1 c4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 e6 6 g3 Qb6 7 Ndb5 Ne5 8 Bg2 a6 9 Na3!? Bxa3 10 bxa3 Nxc4 11 O-O O-O 12 Bg5 d5 13 Rc1! Nxa3 14 e4 d4 15 e5 Nd7 16 Ne4! Nxe5? 17 Nf6+! gxf6 18 Bxf6 Ng6 19 Qh5 e5 20 Rc6 Qd8 21 Qh6 Qxf6 22 Rxf6 Bg4 23 Bd5 Be2 24 Rxg6+ hxg6 25 Qxg6+ Kh8 26 Qh6+ Kg8 27 Be4 1-0
Paul Keres v William Winter, Warsaw 1935
1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 e5 Nd5 4 Nc3 e6 5 Nxd5 exd5 6 d4 d6 7 Bg5 Qa5+ 8 c3! cxd4 9 Bd3! dxc3 10 O-O cxb2 11 Rb1 dxe5 12 Nxe5 Bd6 13 Nxf7! Kxf7 14 Qh5+ g6 15 Bxg6+ hxg6 16 Qxh8 Bf5 17 Rfe1 Be4 18 Rxe4 dxe4 19 Qf6+ 1-0
3425 1 f6! Bxf6 2 Re8+ Kh7 3 Qg6+! fxg6 4 Bg8+ Kh8 5 Bf7+ Kh7 6 Bxg6 mate.
