Cover Story
play for an advantage. Best is 31. ... Qd8 32. Qa6 Rxd4 33. Qxb7 Rd1+ 34. Rxd1 Qxd1+ 35. Kf2 Qd2+ 36. Kg3 Qg5+ with a perpetual.
32. Qe3 Rc3 33. Qf4 h6 34. h4 Rc2 35. d5 Qc5+ 36. Kh2 Qf2 37. Qb8+ Kh7 38. Qg3 Qd4 39. Qf4
Black is unable to make progress with-
out trading queens, but as we will see that is a very risky decision to make.
39. ... Kg8 40. Qb8+ Kh7 41. Qf4 f6 42. h5 Qe5? 43. Qxe5
Black must have badly misjudged this endgame.
43. ... fxe5 44. Kh3 g6 45. Ra1! Rb2 46. Rc1 Even stronger was 46. Ra7!. Then 46.
... Rxb6 47. d6 Kg7 48. hxg6 Kxg6 49. d7 Nd8 50. Ra8 Nf7 51. d8=Q Nxd8 52. Rxd8. Black will face a very long struggle to make a draw, and likely an unsuc- cessful one.
46. ... Rxb6 47. Rc7+ Kg8 48. hxg6 Na5 49. Rc5 Nb3??
The black knight is going in the wrong
direction. 49. ... Nb7 50. Rc8+ (50. Rc6 Rxc6 51. dxc6 Nd6 52. Kg4 Kg7 53. Kh5 Ne8 is level) 50. ... Kg7 51. Rb8 Rb5 52. Re8 leads to a position similar to the game. Black is in trouble, but still breath- ing.
50. Rc6 Rb7
-+-+-+k+ +r+-+-+- -+R+-+Pzp +-+Pzp-+- -+-+P+-+ +n+-+P+K -+-+-+P+ +-+-+-+-
After 50. ... Rb7 If 50. ... Rb8, then 51. Kh4 Nd4 52. Rc7
Rb1 (52. ... Ra8 53. Kh5) 53. Rc8+ Kg7 54. d6.
51. Re6?? White repays the favor. The ensuing
time scramble was riddled with errors, but even after this error, with the white pawns rolling down the board, Black faced a very difficult defense. 51. d6! Rd7 (51. ... Nd4 52. Rc8+ Kg7 53. Rc7+) 52. Rc8+ Kg7 53. Rc7 Nc5 54. Rxc5 Rxd6 55. Rxe5 with an easily won game.
51. ... Nd4 52. Rxe5 Kg7 53. Re8 Kxg6 54. f4 Rb3+ 55. Kh4 Rd3 56. d6 Ne2 57. f5+ Kf7 58. Re7+ Kf6 59. Re6+ Kf7 60. Rxh6 Rd4 61. Re6 Nf4? 62. Re7+ Kf8 63. Kg5 Nd3 64. e5 Nf4 65.
24 Chess Life — July 2011
g4 Nd5 66. Ra7 Ne3 67. Kf6 Nxg4+ 68. Ke6 Re4 69. d7 Rxe5+ 70. Kd6, Black resigned.
Despite a few obvious mistakes from
both sides (it was a rapid game after all) I was very happy with my play and of course thrilled to beat such a powerful player as GM Onischuk to make it into the semifinals.
Running to congratulate his friend, Hammer bounded up the stairs, tripped and instinctively grabbed the railing for support, which broke off the wall. Ham- mer was too excited to be embarrassed and he recovered his balance to give Shankland a bear hug. “My Norwegian friend out-prepared him,” Shankland said. “Hammer’s the man.” “This was supposed to be my vaca-
tion,” Hammer said. “A week off in St. Louis. I didn’t expect him to qualify for the semifinals.” Local GM Ben Finegold was blunter: “I thought it was more likely that Nakamura would become a diplomat than Shankland winning the U.S. Champi- onship, but now I don’t know.” The two group winners bracketed with
the opposite group’s second-place fin- isher in the semifinals. Hess-Shulman and Kamsky-Shankland would be two- game matches under classical time controls. The outcomes had the chance to produce an all-teenager final or a repeat of last year’s championship culmination. The biggest fireworks of the semis came
early. Shankland allowed an obvious tac- tic and the audience speculated if he sacrificed a pawn intentionally. Again, Finegold clarified: “I’ll go to court and testify that he missed it.” Not satisfied with his opponent’s latent pressure, Kam- sky did not bother with the pawn and spent 30 minutes trying to play like Tal again. He looked at a nebulous bishop sacrifice on Shankland’s king and went for it with 17. ... Bxh3. Shankland accepted immediately and played the next four moves instantly. Kamsky’s posture stiff- ened as he puffed his cheeks and wrinkled his brow. With his king pried open, Shankland descended his queen down a staircase, covered the mates and rebuffed the attack. But with the worst behind him,
Shankland did not push too much in the piece-for-two-pawns ending and the game was agreed drawn. Kasparov, watching the games live, commented, “It’s a pity he didn’t use such a great chance against Gata.” “I went for the sacrifice and he outcal-
culated me,” Kamsky said. “It was a great psychological trick.” Shankland said missing the early tac-
tic was “pretty embarrassing,” adding, “With all due respect, I think we both deserved to lose this game.” Shulman and Hess arrived at a compli-
cated position just short of the time con- trol and agreed to a draw to reserve the fight for the next day. In the rematches, Hess said he played
some “loose moves” and settled for another draw with Shulman. Shankland showed his willingness to play for a win as Black by choosing the Sicilian against Kamsky. The two repeated the game Sha- balov-Brooks from the 2009 U.S. Championship, where White accepted fractured pawns but tried to stifle Black’s pieces with piercing bishops. This time White got the better of things, and after 17. Rab1 Shankland looked like he was suffering for the first time all event. “Sam is looking at these bishops and he’s nerv- ous,” Hammer said. The diagonal domination bore fruit as
Kamsky kept the bishops the whole game and slowly improved his position for the win and advancement to the finals. “I’m still very happy with my result,” Shank- land said. “I learned a lot from this post-mortem. Obviously it was an expen- sive lesson.” He would go on to win the third-place match—an astounding finish considering that he contemplated retire- ment and in the last three championships he had finished 23rd, 21st and 23rd out of 24 players. Neither Hess nor Shulman had lost a
game all tournament, but one of them nonetheless would be eliminated via faster time controls. They drew their first rapid game, giving Shulman white in game two.
King’s Indian Defense (KID), Classical Variation (E94) GM Yury Shulman (2698) GM Robert Hess (2701) U.S. Championship (Knock-out), 04.25.2011 Notes by Shulman
This was another amazingly organized
U.S. Championship. And another second place for me! Like last year (when I was much closer to victory), I get another moment of enjoyment for having a great result mixed with the disappointment of losing the final battle to Gata Kamsky. With his strong, steady play Gata unde- niably deserves the champion’s title! But in order to challenge Gata, I first had
to beat Robert Hess, who had an amazing tournament to this point. We drew two regular games where I failed to exploit all the chances I had. The first rapid game, while fun, was drawn after a number of errors, bringing us to this game.
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 This move came as a surprise to me—
Robert has always been known for his Nimzo-Bogo-Indian opening repertoire. The fact that he already had tried the
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