Chess: England to take on superpowers at world team championship in Astana

England have been confirmed as one of the 10 finalists in next month’s world team championship in Astana, Kazakhstan, where China, Russia and the US are expected to fight it out for the gold medals. Last year, England finished fifth, the squad’s best performance since 1998, at the 184-nation Batumi Olympiad which was a qualifier for the world teams.

China won the Olympiad in 2018 and the US in 2016, while Russia is the longtime superpower which has recently unleashed new global talent with the victories of Daniil Dubov, 22, in the world rapid and Vladislav Artemiev, 20, at Gibraltar.

Their top players were ready to prepare seriously for the world team at Moscow’s Aeroflot Open, which began this week with China’s 19-year-old Wei Yi as top seed and Dubov as one of his main rivals. But after just an hour’s play at the Cosmos Hotel the opening round was aborted due to one of the many bomb scares currently affecting Russian cities.

Too bad for those whose painstaking opening prep was revealed to their opponents in that first hour. There will be a double round on Saturday to catch up, with the morning round, live online and free to watch, starting at 6.30am. Aeroflot is a tough event, and when round one was replayed on Wednesday with a faster time limit both Wei Yi and Dubov were held to draws.

Also in progress is the Champions Challenge at St Louis, where the possible US team members for Astana, led by the world No 2, Fabiano Caruana, are meeting high-class opponents in four days of rapid and blitz.

England’s world championship team is the Olympiad quartet of Michael Adams, Luke McShane, Gawain Jones and David Howell. The 2650-rated Nigel Short and Matthew Sadler were unavailable, so the veteran Jon Speelman doubles as reserve and analyst but will only play in an emergency in the nine rounds from 5 to 14 March.

Russia and some other nations like their players to prepare for a team event at a training camp, but the individualistic English have always opted for competitive tournaments. A few weeks ago Howell, who tied third, Adams and Jones all scored well at Gibraltar so are in good form.

McShane is an amateur who plays less, but he will be in action this weekend at Ireland’s traditional Bunratty international open. The 35-year-old may be given a brief not to lose on second board so as to improve the chances of Jones and Howell scoring match-winning points. An analysis at the 2018 Olympiad, where McShane was also board two, showed that he performed better against stronger opponents.

The youngest grandmaster Dommaraju Gukesh, 12, had a brutal learning experience from an experienced Russian in the opening round at Aeroflot. It is possible that Boris Grachev had only modest ambitions at the start in a symmetrical Semi-Slav, but Gukesh’s unjustified pawn sacrifice 13…Nc5? followed by further dubious choices in the next few moves gave White a head of steam for a classical king’s side attack with queen, knight and rook starting with 20 Ng5! 

Sharp and vigorous play chased the black king into the open, and 29 Rf6+! sealed it. The end would be 30…Kh4 31 Qf2+ Kxg4 32 Qg3+ Kh5 33 Qh3 mate.

Boris Grachev v Dommaraju Gukesh,
Aeroflot Moscow 2019

1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 e3 e6 5 Bd3 Nbd7 6 0-0 Bd6 7 Nbd2 0-0 8 e4 e5 9 cxd5 cxd5 10 Re1 Re8 11 exd5 exd4 12 Ne4 Nxe4 13 Rxe4 Nc5? 14 Rxd4 Nxd3 15 Qxd3 Bc5? 16 Re4 b6? 17 Rxe8+ Qxe8 18 Be3 Bxe3 19 fxe3 Bb7 20 Ng5! g6 21 Qd4 Qe7 22 Ne4 f5 23 Nf6+ Kf7 24 Rc1 Rd8 25 e4 fxe4 26 Rf1 Ba6 27 Rf4 g5 28 Nh5+ Kg6 29 Rf6+! Kxh5 30 g4+ 1-0

3607 1…Rd5! with the point 2 Nd6 Nxd6 3 exd6 Bxd6! 4 Bxd6 Rd8! (not Rxd6? 5 Bxh7+ and 6 Rxd6) when White loses one of his bishops and the game is level.

source: theguardian.com