[chessmind] Dennis Monokroussos: Round 2 of the ECC: The Empire Strikes Back

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Posted by Dennis Monokroussos:
Round 2 of the ECC: The Empire Strikes Back
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1224356278.shtml


   I noted when discussing [1]round 1 yesterday that there were a fair
   number of upsets*; not so today (but not none). While I won't cover
   them here, I'd like to draw readers' attention to some of the more
   interesting of today's games.
   Parker-Radjabov was in a way amusing: it looked as if Parker was doing
   all the work and Radjabov just sitting and waiting while his opponent
   built up his attack. Radjabov just collected the material his opponent
   offered, and that was that.
   Shirov-D'Costa was brief and saw Mr. Fire on Board win with a nice but
   brief combination.
   Cox-Motylev had a funny finish. Cox's 18.Ra3 was a reasonably if
   ungainly way to defend his b-pawn, but punished at the end of the game
   thanks to the blunder 28.Nxg4.
   Did I mention that Carlsen is playing? He is, and he showed his
   first-rate sitzfleisch skills against D. Mastrovasilis (2572). From
   early on, Carlsen had absolutely nothing in the game, but he kept on
   grinding for a long, long time. On move 54 his opponent made a first
   inaccuracy - simply recapturing on f4 would have maintained at least
   equality. Still, nothing was really wrong, but 61...Ne7 was a more
   serious step in the wrong direction, and things went downhill from
   there. A painful loss for Mastrovasilis, I'm sure, and one that
   reminds me of a similar loss I suffered to that great grinder Tony
   Miles back in 1999. Games like this aren't pretty, but they put food
   on the table.
   Petrosian (2629) - Zakarian (2261) was one of the few upsets today;
   Zakarian won with Black.
   Sutovsky-Efimenko was a very entertaining hackfest, and probably worth
   going through as an analysis exercise.
   Miroshnichenko-Kogan was a very long game, but interesting as an
   exercise in schematic thinking. White's win came in many stages, and
   the fun comes in figuring out at each stage what he ought to do and
   then how he can actually achieve it.
   You can download the games in PGN from the [2]TWIC site - just scroll
   down past the World Championship section.
   * Referring to individual games; I'm neither following the event as a
   club competition.

References

   1. http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1224275046.shtml
   2. http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic.html