A brilliant individual result took the honours at the European Club Cup in Skopje, where Russia’s Siberia narrowly outpointed Azerbaijan’s SOCAR in the gold medal match between elite squads financed by oil money.
The England No1, Michael Adams, scored 4/5 for SOCAR, the best performance on his board and one which saw his rating lead over David Howell, the No2, jump from a dozen points to more than 40.
But it was the former world champion Vlad Kramnik, top board for Siberia, who stole the show with 4.5/5 against elite opponents. Kramnik’s dream at 40 is another shot at the global title by becoming Magnus Carlsen’s challenger. His bravura result raised him to world No4, with a big gain on Anish Giri, the young Dutchman who is his rival for the final 2016 candidates place based on rating.
Kramnik was so far behind Giri before Skopje that his hopes of catching his rival are still remote, and his candidates chance appears to rest on the wildcard place available to whichever country hosts the tournament. Kramnik needs Switzerland, where he now lives, or Russia, where he would contest the place with Alex Grischuk who also has strong claims, to be the successful bidder. Fide, the global chess body, has yet to announce any firm offers.
A high point for Kramnik at Skopje was his game against Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov, an echo of their bitter Toiletgate world title match in 2006 and its cheating allegations. The pair have not spoken since, do not shake hands before or after the game and hold separate press conferences to explain the moves.
The light in Skopje was substandard, and Kramnik asked for a lamp beside his board. Long ago, at the 1958 Munich Olympiad, Mikhail Botvinnik (who later taught Kramnik) had such a lamp, while Bobby Fischer often made demands about the light. Kramnik’s other opponents agreed to the lamp, but Topalov vetoed it, to which Kramnik responded “That’s okay, I’m even better blindfold”.
Topalov probably did not notice that Kramnik was experimenting with Colle-style d4, Nf3 and e3 openings at the World Rapid a week earlier, so when their game transposed into a sharp Queen’s Indian he was caught unprepared. He took 20 minutes for his 11th move, which chickened out of the crucial and unclear 11...Nf6 12 Qh4 Ne4 (several GMs have fallen for the trap Nc6? 13 Bg5 g6 14 Ba6!) 13 Qh3 Qxd4 14 Bf4 Nf6 15 Ne2 Qa4 16 Rfc1.
The f pawn advance created some weak squares in Black’s game, which Kramnik exploited by 15 Bb5! 21 Bxd7! when the opposite coloured bishops help his attack, 25 h4! and 29 Rxd5! Topalov had other ways to defend but his position was always difficult according to Kramnik in his solitary post-game conference in which he referred to “my opponent” rather than “Veselin” or “Topalov”, an echo of the 1978 world title match where Soviet media avoided saying that Anatoly Karpov was playing the defector Viktor Korchnoi.
Vlad Kramnik v Veselin Topalov
1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 e6 3 e3 c5 4 Bd3 b6 5 0-0 Bb7 6 c4 cxd4 7 exd4 Be7 8 Nc3 d5 9 cxd5 Nxd5 10 Ne5 O-O 11 Qg4 f5?! 12 Qe2 Bf6 13 Bc4 Re8 14 Rd1 Nd7 15 Bb5! Bxe5 16 dxe5 Qe7 17 Nxd5 Bxd5 18 Qh5 g6 19 Qh6 Rec8 20 Bg5 Qf7 21 Bxd7! Qxd7 22 Bf6 Qf7 23 b3 Qf8 24 Qf4 Rc2 25 h4! Rac8 26 h5 Qe8 27 Rd3 R2c3 28 Rad1 gxh5 29 Rxd5! exd5 30 e6 R3c7 31 Rxd5 Qxe6 32 Qg5+ Kf8 33 Rxf5 Rf7 34 Qh6+ Ke8 35 Re5 Rc6 36 Qxh5 1-0
The world youth championships are currently under way in Greece, where England’s best medal hope is Akshaya Kalaiyalahan, of Nonsuch School, Surrey, in the girls under-14 category. She is the reigning British woman champion, and the No2 seed. Games are live and free online with computer commentary at chess24.com or chessbomb.com, starting at 1pm.
3414 1 Rd3! with no reasonable defence to Rh3-h5+ and f3/Qf3 mate.
