WORLD CHESS CUP UPDATE: MALAKHOV FORCES WESLEY SO TO A STAND-OFF
By Salvador Lopez
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 01 Dec 2009
(Special for philboxing.com) -- As expected, it was a tough as nail Vladimir Malakhov who showed up in Game 1 of the Round of 16 match against Filipino teen sensation Wesley So in the ongoing FIDE World Chess Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia forcing the latter into a draw on the 65th move. (The tournament is being held as an integral part of the World Chess Championship Cycle 2009-2011).
Playing white, Wesley So played with the queen pawn opening to which Malakhov responded with the Slav Defence opting for the rarely played Schlecter variation and hoping to confuse his young opponent. The game soon steered its course to the well-trodden paths of the Chebanenko variation, an opening Malakhov was very much familiar with. Though scientific evaluation of the resultant position tends to favour So, his advantage was nothing but minuscule and has to work patiently if he wants to increase his advantage, not to mention the fact that the position suits Malakhov’s style more than the former. To his credit, So maintained his slight advantage until the endgame where he could entertain the prospect of winning without risk in a position where he had an active rook and a well posted Knight stationed at d4 (in front of Black’s isolated pawn at d5) against Black’s “bad white-squared bishop” (i.e., a bishop having a very restricted scope, hence, can only have limited participation in the battle) and a rook destined to keep watch on its counterpart’s activities. Aware of the importance of the game (as he was playing the White pieces which would be equivalent to the player on serve in tennis), So continued to press the action looking for a way to make a breakthrough. Nonetheless, Malakhov refused to wilt under pressure and made some cute maneuvers - putting his rook behind enemy lines and literally stuck his bishop’s nose in front of white’s pawn in a virtually ‘untouchable’ position and forcing a stand-off in the game well played by both sides.
With the draw, So will have to face Malakhov with the black pieces in their second game, considered a disadvantage at this level of play, although the teen prodigy had the same black pieces when he scored upset victories over Gata Kamsky and Vassily Ivanchuk earlier in the tournament. Malakhov is comfortable playing with either 1.e4 or 1.d4 but would likely opt for the former which he has been using so far in this competition except for his 1st round match where he faced a much lower-rated opponent. In such case, So will likely recourse to the solid French defence (1....e6), the same opening he used to defeat the aforementioned players, and Malakhov, to be triumphant, will have to break the spell of losing with the white pieces against the former in such chess opening.
Of the other matches played yesterday, only two games ended decisively (the others were drawn): wins by Shakriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan) over Czech Victor Laznicka (Czechoslovakia) and Peter Svidler (Russia) over Alexei Shirov (Spain, formerly of Latvia) in games won by the player handling the black pieces. The Shirov-Svidler game was a theoretical Gruenfeld where the former went astray in a fairly even but unbalanced position and had to pay dearly when the latter defended with finesse that lead to a beautiful counter-attack.
Play resumes today at 6pm Manila time.
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