Europe’s traditional New Year congresses include Stockholm and Groningen as well as Hastings and all have a history of producing speedy victories as the holiday season causes defenders to relax.
Hastings approaches its closing rounds this weekend and they can be watched free and live at hastingschess.com or, with move-by-move computer analysis, at chessdom.com or chessbomb.com.
It is almost unheard of for a 2600-rated grandmaster, ranked among the top 150 in the world, to lose in 10 moves but it happened in Groningen in original fashion. The unlucky player for whom this will be the unwelcome highlight of his career was China’s Qun Ma.
Qun Ma’s 8 Nb3 (8 e3 is usual) was novel and his 10 c5 planned Bxc5 11 Nxc5 Qxc5 12 Qe2 when White’s bishop pair offset the sacrificed pawn. But Black, an Israeli master, Danny Raznikov, spotted 10...Qxb3!! and White resigned in shock. If 11 Qxb3 Nf3+ 12 Kd1 Nxf2+ 13 Ke2 (13 Kc2 Nd4+ is worse) Nd4+ 14 Kxf2 Nxb3 15 Rb1 Nxc1 16 Rxc1 Bxc5+ and, smoke cleared, Black is a comfortable two pawns up.
Qun Ma v Danny Raznikov
1 c4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 d4 cxd4 5 Nxd4 e6 6 a3 Be7 7 g3 Qb6 8 Nb3?! Ne5 9 e4? Nfg4 10 c5? Qxb3!! 0-1
In the first round at Hastings the favourites were paired with lesser lights. England’s main hope is the No9 seed and British co-champion, newly crowned grandmaster Jonathan Hawkins, whose attacking play and reputation overawed his German opponent.
White’s 1 d4 f5 2 e4?! Staunton Gambit is reckoned not quite sound but Black made no attempt to rebutt it and soon returned the gambit pawn for an equal position. So Hawkins tried again with another pawn offer 10 d6!? and this time had better luck as Black got hyperactive with his queen instead of the solid 11...b6. The final mistake was 17...Bb7? (Qh6) when 18 Ng3 is winning. If 18...Qh6 19 f4 g6 20 Ndf5! One move later Black resigned in the face of Qd5 20 Rfe1 with Be4 or Qxg3 20 Nf5 when he loses at least a piece.
Jonathan Hawkins v Jürgen Brustkern
1 d4 f5 2 e4 fxe4 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Bg5 Nc6 5 d5 Ne5 6 Qe2 Nf7 7 Bxf6 exf6 8 Nxe4 Bb4+ 9 c3 Be7 10 d6!? cxd6 11 Qd2 Qa5? 12 Nf3 b6 13 b4 Qf5? 14 Bd3 Qg4 15 Nd4 0-0 16 h3 Qh5 17 0-0 Bb7? 18 Ng3 Qg5? 19 f4 1-0
After four rounds at Hastings the Chinese GM Zhao Jun was the only player on maximum points. Hawkins was half a point behind, along with GMs from India, France, Hungary and Brazil. The Israeli top seed, Maxim Rodshtein, had only 2.5.
3371 1 Rd1! If Kxa8 2 Kb6 Kb8 3 Rd8 mate. If Kc6 2 Ra7! Kc5 3 Rc7 mate. If Kc7 2 Ka6! Kc6 3 Rc8 mate.
