TOP 100 SPORT SITES
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| Melissa McFerrin <strong>First job:</strong> Graduate assistant basketball coach, Wayland Baptist University bizjournals.com |
Svidler surrenders to teenage talent It's a familiar and classic chessboard scenario. Little-known teenager gets to play White in a major event against established top grandmaster (here a four-time Russian champion). The GM takes the game too casually, chooses some dubious moves in a misguided attempt to unbalance the position, and bang! the teenager wades in with powerful tactical shots, the rite of passage giant-killing act is completed, and the defeated GM feels a touch older.The one unusual feature in the game below, from the just completed Russian championship, won by Alex Grischuk, is that the loser does not eke matters out, hoping that the youngster's nerves will work the oracle, but resigns so early that internet watchers speculated whether the game was incomplete. And it is true that, although Black's final position is poor and he was running short of time, most GMs would wriggle on for a few moves, if only to prevent the game being technically a miniature, that is 25 moves or less. And another result is a lop-sided commentary mainly devoted to a rationale for Svidler's premature surrender.Black's committal h5,f6 and g5 advances created weak squares, White settled his knights at c5 and e5, then 23 c3 left Svidler plenty of choices, none of them good. Black must try to counter the threat of Nxe6 Qxe6 Ng6+ and Rxe6, but if Ne7 24 Ned7 or Bxe5 24 Rxe5 threatening both Rxe6 and Qxg5, or 23...Kg7 24 Ned7 Rfe8 25 Nxf6 Kxf6 26 Re5 with g4 to follow, or 23...Ng7 24 Bxh7 Kxh7 25 Qd3+ and Qg6, or finally 23...Rae8 24 axb5 axb5 25 Ra6 threatening Bxb5 and Qe2. So premature resignation? Arguably Svidler just saved energy for the next round.S Sjugirov v P Svidler1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 e5 Bf5 4 Nf3 e6 5 Be2 Nd7 6 O-O Bg6 7 Nbd2 Nh6 8 Nb3 Nf5 9 Bd2 h5?! 10 g3 a6 11 Rc1 b5 12 a4 Be7 13 Ra1 f6?! 14 Bf4 O-O 15 Bd3 Re8 16 h3 Bh7 17 exf6 Bxf6 18 Re1 g5?! 19 Be5 Rf8 20 Qd2 Nxe5 21 Nxe5 Qd6 22 Nc5 Kh8 23 c3 1-03119 This tough puzzle (by John Nunn, 1986) acquired an unintended further hazard when both kings and queens were misplaced. The answer, which Mikhail Botvinnik, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov failed to find, is 1 e4 Nf6 2 f3 Nxe4 3 Qe2 Ng3 4 Qxe7+! Qxe7+ 5 Kf2 Nxh1 mate.3120 1 Qc2 (threat 2 Qxg6 mate) Rg8/f5 2 Bg2 traps the queen.ChessLeonard Bardenguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
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San Antonio scores international basketball championship FIBA Americas has awarded USA Basketball and San Antonio Sports the 2010 FIBA Americas U18 Championship for Men. feeds.bizjournals.com |