Rising Stars beat Experience 33½-16½
Wang Yue will play in 2009 Amber Tournament

The first game to end today, and this didn’t come as a total surprise, was the one between Wang Yue and Evgeny Bareev. After 14 minutes and 9 moves the Chinese grandmaster proposed the draw that secured his ticket to the 2009 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament in Nice. In the press room his coach Li Wenliang apologized by saying ‘Only one short draw’ and of course he was right. No one blamed the revelation of the NH Tournament for this practical decision after he had demonstrated great fighting chess in all of his other games. Within two weeks the likable grandmaster shot up from 23rd to 10th place in the live rankings and didn’t fail to attract the attention of organizers. Not only did he win a spot in the prestigious Amber tournament, he was also, while he was still playing in Amsterdam, invited both to the Corus Tournament in Wijk aan Zee and the MTel Masters in Sofia. We’ll certainly hear more of him in the year ahead!

Erwin l’Ami finished his tournament with a win over Viktor Kortchnoi. The Swiss grandmaster had the feeling that he lost the opening battle because his opponent managed to keep him from playing the Queen’s Indian he had in mind. There were various moves Kortchnoi didn’t like in hindsight, the first one being 13...Ne7 where he believed he should have played the more solid 13...Nd4. Another one was 19...f3 which seems to shut out of play the white-squared bishop, but it mainly closes the kingside, the side of the board where Black should find his counterplay. Preferable was 19...h5 followed by ...h4. Once White managed to open the situation in the centre with 25.d4, Black was with his back against the wall. A mistake on move 34 hastened the end. After the game l’Ami showed it to the spectators in the commentary room, where much to everyone’s delight Kortchnoi joined him.

The game between Daniel Stellwagen and Artur Jussupow ended in a draw after 24 moves. Against the German’s Petroff Defence, the Dutchman hoped to attain something with the advance of his b and a-pawns. However, the optimism about his plan soon vanished when Jussupow played ‘all the correct moves’ and after four hours of play Stellwagen proposed to share the point.

Fabiano Caruana was faced by an Alekhine Defence in his game against Simen Agdestein. Once the Norwegian grandmaster pushed …f5 his beloved Dutch Defence came to mind, but this time the opening brought him a difficult position. The critical moment came on move 30, when Black’s moving the king to f6 turned White’s passed d-pawn into a killer. If instead he’d gone to g8, the position after 31.Rxd7 Ne8 would have been preferable for Black. Now things soon were hopeless for Black and after 36.Rd8 is was clear that the game wouldn’t last long anymore.

The last game to end was the clash between Ivan Cheparinov and Ljubomir Ljubojevic, which lasted 84 moves and almost six hours. In a Rubinstein Variation of the French Defence the Bulgarian played aggressively but failed to really embarrass his opponent. Except for one moment on move 28, where he could have gone 28.Ng4 instead of 28.Rd4. As it went the game was mostly balanced although in the ending the edge was on Black’s side. Ljubojevic also got his unexpected chance which he failed to grab. On move 58 he could have played 58…e4, when he continued 58…Rf8 they were back on track again to the draw.