CHESS

Young pretenders

Raymond Keene

With the exception of Judith Polgar and Joel Lautier this year's Interpolis tournament at Tilburg witnessed a line-up of the young hopefuls most likely to constitute a future challenge to the hege- mony of Kasparov and Karpov. The result was a sensation in that the 16-year-old Soviet defector Gata Kamsky (currently awaiting the more lucrative offer from either the USA or France before he decides on his eventual domicile) almost ran away with first place. Only a relative collapse towards the end when the teena- ger seemed nervous and tired robbed him of perhaps the most stunning outright victory ever achieved by a player of his age. Vassily Ivanchuk seized his chance to tie first by scoring some important victories towards the end, specifically in the last round with black against Nikolic.

Nigel Short's performance towards the end was tremendous, and until the dying moments of the tournament he had pros- pects of tying for first. A win in the last round would have achieved this desired goal. Instead, he went down tragically to Timman in a game where our top ranked player seemed suddenly and sadly bereft of form.

Andersson — Kamsky: Tilburg, Round 6; King's Indian Defence.

1 Nf3 N16 2 d4 g6 3 8f4 Bg7 4 e3 d6 5 h3 0-0 6 c4 c6 7 Nc3 Nbd7 8 Be2 a6 90-0 b5 10 Rd l Bb7 11 Nd2 bxc4 12 Nxc4 c5 13 d5 Nb6 14 e4 Nxc4 15 Bxc4 a5 16 Rel Ba6 17 Bxa6 Rxa6 18 e5 Nd7 19 exd6 exd6 20 b3 Ne5 21 Rc2 Rb6 22 Na4 Rb4 23 Bxe5 dxe5 24 Rc4 Qd6 25 a3 Rxc4 26 bxc4 e4 27 Qd2 f5 28 Nc3 Bd4 29 Nb5 Qe5 30 Qxa5 f4 31 Qc7 31 . . . Bx12+ Exploiting White's dreadful time trouble. This combination must have been completely unexpected for White. 32 Kxf2 Qb2+ 33 Re2 e3+ 34 Kf3 Qcl White lost on time. If 35 Kg4 Qdl 36 Kf3 Qfl + wins, or 35 Ke4 Re8+ is good enough. It is amizing that Kamsky could crush Andersson, one of the most difficult players in the world to beat, with black and using only one hour 43 minutes.

Gelfand — Kamsky: Tilburg, Round 8; Grunfeld Defence.

1 d4 N16 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 d5 4 cxd5 Nxd5 5 e4 Nxc3 6 bxc3 Bg7 7 NO c5 8 Rbl 0-0 9 Be2 cxd4 10 cxd4 Qa5+ 11 Bd2 Qxa2 12 0-0 Qe6 In another game from the same tournament, Gelfand — Ivan- chuk, Black did less well with 12. . . Bg4 13 Bg5 h6 14 Be3 Nc6 15 d5 Na5 16 Bc5 when Black's pressure against the white centre had evapo- rated. 13 Qc2 Qc6 14 Qd3 Qd6 15 Bb4 Qd8 16 Qa3 Nc6 17 Bc5 Bxd4 A long-range exchange sacrifice in order to secure dangerous passed pawns on the queen's wing. Since Kamsky took just over an hour to play the whole of this game It must be supposed that this variation was largely composed of some very impressive open- ing preparation. 18 Nxd4 Nxd4 19 Bxe7 Nxe2+ 20 Khl Qe8 21 Bxf8 Qxf8 22 Qe3 a5 23 Qxe2 a4 24 Rb5 Qe7 25 Ral Be6 26 e5 a3 27 Qf3 a2 28 Qxb7 Qd8 29 h3 Rc8 30 Rb2 Qg5 31 Rbxa2 Rcl+ 32 Rxcl Qxcl+ 33 Kh2 Bxa2 34 Qa8+ Kg7 35 Qxa2 Qf4+ 36 g3 Draw agreed.

Timman — Short: Tilburg, Round 14; Dutch Defence.

1 d4 e6 2 c4 15 3 g3 Short had done remarkably well with the risky Dutch in earlier games at Tilburg. Essentially though, the White players had been avoiding the classical approach based on the fianchetto of White's king's bishop. Timman fares much better in this game by adopting the traditional method which also involves the exchange of the dark square bishops. 3. . . Nf6 4 Bg2 Be7 5 NO d5 6 0-0 0-0 7 b3 Bd7 8 Ba3 Nc6 9 Qcl a5 10 Bxe7 Qxe7 11 Nc3 Be8 12 Qe3 dxc4 13 bxc4 Rd8 14 Rfdl Ng4 15 Q14 Bf7 16 Rabl e5 Speculating on the possible weakness of the f2 square rattler than defending dourly with 16 . . . h6. 17 dxe5 Rxdl + 18 Rxdl Qc5 19 Ng5 Bxc4 20 Nd5 Nd8 21 e6 Bxd5 22 Rxd5 Qa3 23 Rd7 Nc6 24 Bxc6 bxc6 25 e7 Re8 26 Qc4+

Kh8 27 N17+ Kg8 28 Nh6+ Kh8 (Diagram) Ironically, in view of Black's previous ambition against (2, the decision comes with a white queen sacrifice exploiting the vulnerability of the f7 square. 29 Qg8+ Rxg8 30 Nf7 mate.

lnterpolis Tournament, Tilburg

11 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 I G. Kamsky (USA?) — — 1/2 1 1 ½½0 1 0 11/211/2W/281h 2 V. Ivanchuk (USS11)1/20 — —1/20 1/21 1 1 V21/21/21 11/281/2 3 B. Gelfand (USSR) 01/21/21 — — 1 0 01/21 11/21/21/21 8

4 N. Short (Eng) V211/20 0 1 — — 1 0½0 11/21/21 71/2 5). Timman (1d) 0 1 00 11/20 1 — — 1/21/201/21/21 61/2

6 U. Andersson (Swe) 0 1/21/21/20 01/21 V21/2 — — 1/21/21/21 61/2 7 P. Nikolic (Yug) 01/21/201/21/201/21 V2V2V2— — 1/21/26 8 Y. Scirawan (USA) V21/20 1/21/201/20 1/201/201/21h — — 41/2

Position after 28. . . Kh8