Gunpowder fireworks in Round 9 of FIDE Grand Swiss
The ninth round of the FIDE Grand Swiss started earlier than usual because of the planned celebration with loud music and fireworks of the Gunpowder Plot. Most of the players were in a fighting mood, but chances were missed left and right. Fabiano Caruana messed up the opening and risked losing against Bogdan-Daniel Deac. Hikaru Nakamura needed two mistakes by Ivan Cheparinov to win a technically winning position. Parham Maghsoodloo beat Alexey Sarana to join the five other players in the lead with 6.5 points. In the women’s section, Rameshbabu Vaishali topped Antoaneta Stefanova with the black pieces to emerge as the sole leader with 7 points, ahead of Anna Muzychuk and Tan Zhongyi with 6.5 points. Round nine started three hours earlier than usual for the open section and an hour and a half earlier for the women’s section. The reason for this was the planned firework celebrations for the commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot – an attempt by Guy Fawkes to blow up the Parliament and kill King James I on 5 November 1605. Fortunately, this plot failed, so in Britain, its failure is celebrated by big fireworks. At 6:30 pm, fireworks and loud music were planned to take place some 150 meters from the Villa Marina, so in order not to affect the players, the organisation decided to move the round earlier. It is not easy to adapt to changes in the usual routine, and this particularly applies to chess players, who like to have their days as predictable as possible. The brain gets used to hard work at certain hours, and then suddenly shifting this time to an earlier hour may result in the brain protesting and not functioning at optimal capacity. Be that as it may, the players were at their boards at 11:30 am, and the round started without anybody being late. A crow that somehow found its way inside the venue celebrated this punctuality with loud caws for several minutes before seeing itself outside in the sunny weather. On board one, Fabiano Caruana used a rare idea in the Giuoco Piano against Bogdan-Daniel Deac. It has been employed only once before, in a correspondence game played in 2020. White usually plays 12.a4 in this position, but Caruana went for 12.Bd5!? instead, immediately using the fact that Black’s knight is no longer on f6 controlling the d5-square. The idea of the bishop move is to allow for the Nc4-e3 maneuver to target the weakened f5-square. This move set Deac thinking, but despite that, the opponents followed the correspondence game Muljadi – Burgarth until move 16, when Deac deviated by castling short. Whether it was because of the early starting hour or not, Caruana forgot his preparation and immediately ended up in a dangerous position. The position required concrete actions – 17.Nf5 Qf6 18.d4 with an unclear position. Caruana played the slow 17.a4? and after 17…g4! 18.hxg4 hxg4 19.Nh2 Qg5 was in real trouble. He pursued his queenside activity with 20.b5, and here, Black missed a golden opportunity. Bogdan-Daniel played the natural 20…Na5, and after the queen retreated to c2 he won a pawn by taking on e3 twice. However, Black could have played the very strong 20…Nf4! which would have given him a big advantage. The point of the move is that it doesn’t really sacrifice a piece because Black has …Ne2xg3 with checks when the knight on e3 is lost. After Black won a pawn, White exchanged queens and obtained sufficient compensation for the pawn in the form of his better pieces and control over the f-file. White threatens with Ne3, transferring the knight to an excellent square, where it targets the pawn on g4 and controls the f5-square. Caruana used his activity to regain the pawn and a draw was reached after 43 moves. On board two, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi chose a popular line against Andrey Esipenko’s Ruy Lopez. In this line, White defends the e4-pawn with d3, saves his bishop from an exchange by playing a3 and develops the queen’s knight on c3. Esipenko chose a variation where he exchanged the light-squared bishops, and soon enough, the players could have repeated moves. Many games were here with the repetition 15.Bg5 Ng4 (or 15…Nd7) 16.Bd2 Nf6, but Vidit decided to continue the game with 15.Re1. The ensuing play unfolded on the queenside, where the a and b pawns were exchanged. The open files gave White some initiative, but Black remained solid. Without weaknesses on either side White’s control over the open files on the queenside can bring little. After the queens, one pair of rooks and the bishops were traded, a draw was agreed on move 37. On board three, Hikaru Nakamura confidently played 1.e4 against Ivan Cheparinov, which was met by the Petroff Defence, a recent addition to Ivan’s repertoire. After the standard moves, Nakamura opted for the sideline 5.c4, aimed at reaching the usual Petroff positions by avoiding the main theoretical lines after the more usual 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3. Even in a sideline, Cheparinov was well prepared and obtained a good middlegame position as both players finished development. White’s IQP gave him a space advantage and free-piece play, while Black achieved smooth development, leading to a dynamically balanced middlegame. The decisive moment in the game came relatively early. After 10 minutes of thinking, Cheparinov went for the pawn sacrifice 17…Nf5? instead of the composed 17…Rb8 or 17…Qd6 (intending to meet 18.Bxd6 with 18…cxd6) defending the attacked pawn on b7. As it turned out, the sacrifice was not sound. After only three minutes, Nakamura picked up the pawn for nothing with 18.Nxb7 Qd5 19.Nc5. Perhaps what Cheparinov missed was that here 19…Bxc5 fails to 20.Re5! and White retains his extra pawn. Further exchanges followed, and by move 30, White had a technically winning position. Nakamura is usually flawless when converting material advantage, and up to a certain point, that was the case in this game, too. However, on move 36 an interesting moment arose. You wouldn’t expect it in this situation that White has only one (!) move to keep the winning advantage, but that was the case here. The move in case