England were close to a medal last year at the 150-nation Baku Olympiad, so there were hopes as No4 seeds at the current European team championship in Crete. The event reaches its final rounds this weekend, with all games shown free and live on the internet with move-by-move computer and grandmaster commentaries for armchair viewers.
Results started to go wrong in the very first round, when Nigel Short’s endgame blunder, featured in this week’s puzzle, led to a 2-2 draw with lowly Moldova. Round 3 brought a 1.5-2.5 defeat by Poland, with Michael Adams losing to Radoslaw Wojtaszek on top board.
The fourth-round match with Italy sparked most comments on chess websites. A narrow win looked assured until the three-time British champion David Howell spurned a safe half-point in an attempt to exploit a small edge. It went wrong and he lost. Could the team captain have told Howell to settle for peace? The problem was that Howell’s addiction to time pressure, as usual playing much of the game on the 30 seconds per move increment, meant that he hardly ever got up from the board.
England’s underperformance is in line with most of their results other than Baku in the past decade. The central problem is that there are only six GMs, the five in Crete plus Matthew Sadler who is now a semi-amateur, at the elite 2650 rating level and ranked in the world top 100. No new grandmasters rated above 2550, 100 points below the national team level, have emerged so that Howell, aged 27, is the youngest in an ageing squad.
Four rounds from the end in Crete the No14 seeds, Croatia, had a narrow lead over the heavyweight teams from Russia, Hungary, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and a tight finish looks in prospect this weekend.
Earlier, Russia took the third round lead with this win which took a peculiar course. Black’s opening, a Caro-Kann sideline, is a speciality of the Czech Republic’s top players, but Viktor Laznicka’s personal score with it was a discouraging 0-3. They blitzed out the first 16 moves before Black produced 16...Be7, intended to improve on 16...,Rb8 17 Nxc3 or 16...cxb2 17 Qxb2 Be7 18 e6!
The novelty misfired as White kept up the pressure by 20 g4! and 23 e6! after which Black’s fxe6? led to a collapse. His only chance was 23...Qxe6 24 Nd6+ Bxd6 25 Qxc6+ Ke7 26 Qb7+ Kf8 27 Qxa8+ Kg7 though White still looks on top after 28 Qd5.
Ian Nepomniachtchi v Viktor Laznicka
1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 e5 Bf5 4 Nf3 e6 5 Be2 c5 6 Be3 cxd4 7 Nxd4 Ne7 8 O-O Nbc6 9 Bb5 a6 10 Bxc6+ bxc6 11 c4 Qd7 12 Nc3 dxc4 13 Na4 Nd5 14 Nxf5 exf5 15 Rc1 c3 16 Qc2! Be7!? 17 Nxc3 Nxe3 18 fxe3 Bg5 19 Rce1 g6 20 g4! fxg4 21 Ne4 Be7 22 Rd1 Qc8 23 e6! fxe6? 24 Qc3 Rf8 25 Rxf8+ Bxf8 26 Qh8 1-0
3519 1 Rc7! threatens 2 Rg7+ Kh6 3 Nf5 mate, or if 1...Kg6 2 Nf5! So Black had to create a king escape by 1...f5 2 exf5, after which White’s passed f5 pawn proved decisive.
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