Radjabov-Svidler, a poisonous tactic

This post is fairly (for which read 'very') trivial. Today is the last round of the Norwegian Super GM tournament, and, as I write, the games have been on for an hour. [today being a Saturday, and the round starting at 11am UK, I know I am going to be in trouble with Jane in a few hours time when our friends arrive mid afternoon, just as some of the games will be at their 'peak']

Sergey Karjakin is leading by half a point, and has a typical Najdorf as white against Topalov.

Magnus, half a point behind Sergey, has the toughest task, black against Aronian; whilst Vishy, also half a point behind, is black versus Wang. It is far too early to say, but Vishy's game in particular could go either way. Anand has had a good tournament (I loved his game yesterday versus Hammer, where he played coffee-house, though in *$ (Starbucks) terms, the flavour of his coffee was world-class), but Wang best Magnus yesterday, and both sides have weaknesses. We will see if Naka can outclass Hammer, but the position which presently appeals to me is Radjabov-Svidler.

Peter is playing his beloved Grunfeld, and, due to the increment (30sec/move) has two minutes more than when he started: so, of course, will almost certainly know this position. So I 'know' that black must be safe- Peter wouldn't have played Bb6 otherwise- but I can't help but look to see if Qd2 works, or why in particular it doesn't. Too much blitz playing, perhaps.

So I played it through on Stockfish, and black can indeed defend, in more than one way, but has to be careful. Exchange on f3, play Qc6 to hit the Bf6, play Bd8 if necessary, and everything is defended.

Playing a bit further, and playing a lot of natural moves, to see what happened, in one line I got to:

Stockfish gives this as equal (the present screenshot says +0.3 after the odd 1…Qf5, but it says 0.0 after 1…Ra8 for instance). Since white might be threatening h4-h5 I played the natural 1…h5 only for Stockfish to respond 2 Re1!! and +6.0: white's last move, before the diagram, Kg2, which I played just to permit a Rh1 move at some time, and to stop a Qh3 (I was playing both sides, making 'first thought' moves) contains venom. It is easy when the engine hits you with it: the Queen is overloaded: in CJS Purdy terms, it is also easy, with the Q tied to defending f6, and his thinking process of considering all smites.

Also, 1… Rc8 loses similarly: 2 Qh6!, for the same reason. There are not too many more losing moves in the position (1…a4? Is poor, and might lose, since after 2 Qa4, black's queen is tied to defending the Re8, so white just wins a pawn) but the position shows me once again that even the simplest of positions can contain poison.

Having written this blog, there have been some further moves: Radjabov took the knight, 1 Bd4, and Peter played 1…Qd4. So I guess the question is 'is the game anything other than a draw'.

Meanwhile, there has been drama in Wang-Anand, where according to the engine-armed kibitzers, Wang has just missed 17 Rd1 winning: I can more or less see what the engines are saying; but now will turn the Playchess 'chat' box off, since I much prefer to watch whilst thinking for myself.

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