Gothenburg 2005

Round 3

by Tim Kett

"We have a win !" we yelped excitedly as the Irish came in to dinner. "What, you guys beat Finland ?" Baburin replied somewhat flabbergasted. "Well no, er, not quite that good but we have a game win !". It might not sound much, but it is in fact as many as the Irish have from 12 individual games themselves as we gleefully enjoyed pointing out !

3.19 30 Finland 3 - 1 39 Wales

       1 IM Sammalvuo Tapani 2441   1 : 0 FM Jones Richard 2325

       2 IM Karttunen Mika 2409        1 : 0 FM James David 2213

       3 IM Maki-Uuro Miikka 2390     1 : 0 Kett Tim 2192

       4 IM Nyysti Sampsa 2344        0 : 1 Spice Alan 2175

The rest of us went down, Richard narrowly and a bit unluckily, Dave and I more comprehensively.

Rich knew his opponent was, like himself, a red-hot theory merchant and after feverish prep studying the latest Anand and Topalov games in the Najdorf variation - they both duly ploughed straight down this months most topical line.

The other guy got the TN in with 13.Nb6 (varying from 13.Nb3 as played by Kramnik) but Rich kept cool and after some hairy tactics an ending of R & minor piece each materialised, in which he should have been perfectly OK. Unfortunately though he didn't find the right plan and White's advanced Q-side pawn suddenly got too big for him.

Dave was happy enough with his opening as he got the other guy away from his preferred Slav lines but he never really got anything going himself and slid into a slightly passive position and Black just gradually took over in space and initiative.

I was going to play the Leningrad Dutch but after 1.d4 f5 2.Nc3 I transposed to the Stonewall. Unfortunately, it was one of those never-very good Stonewalls and having two bishops against two knights was no compensation for his control over the key squares in a fixed pawn structure. Once the e-file opened up and he took full control of it, the game was over.

Alan essayed his usual 1.Nc3 and his opponent went down the 1...d5 2.e4 d4 3.Ne2 line. He didn't know enough about it though and Alan got a textbook advantage with 8.b4! undermining his opponents 'big centre'. By move 12 or so it was clear White had a big plus, but the Finnish IM grovelled hard and almost generated enough counterplay. Bravely turning down a draw offer Alan pressed on with R&B v R&N; getting his R to the 7th supported by the superior minor piece and cleaned up B's Q-side pawns, after which his own could not be stopped. A really well-played game from start to Finnish!

It might not sound much but every little plus has to be celebrated ... and we're off to do that right now !!

Its an interesting tournament at the top ... the Russkies got crushed by the French today. Germany lead with 3/3 - no-one predicted that but there's a long way to go and the title's very much up for grabs. Other good results for the Brits included Scotland's Colin McNab drawing with Ivanchuk of Ukraine.