Cover Story
enforce given that neither player knew what amount of time they would begin with anyway. Krush then came up the stairs. “You are late a little bit,” Zatonskih said. “OK,” Krush replied, and the two submitted their bids. Krush did not engage the issue. Before the match began, she said, “It’s going to be civilized. If you’re going to have a civilized game, you have civilized rules.” The issue was now moot. Chief Arbiter Carol Jarecki opened the
envelopes to reveal Krush’s bid of 45 min- utes—the maximum allowable time which almost assuredly would give her white. Zatonskih’s card showed 27 minutes, meaning that she would take black with less time and draw odds. After another five minute break, Jarecki rang the bell and Zatonskih came to the board five seconds after the clocks were started. Krush clearly wanted white and felt so
confident in her previous opening against Zatonskih that she played it for a third straight game. Some spectators openly questioned the stubbornness since Zaton- skih was able to play through 15 moves with no time off of her clock. In the process, she unleashed an improvement from their second game, 13. ... Nd3+. Zatonskih said she prepared the move and wanted the chance to play black to use it. Ten moves later they were back to equal time on the clock, owing largely to Krush having to deal with the immobility of her center pawns. In that time she also balked at a potential Exchange sac- rifice with 24. Rxh5, perhaps her last chance to complicate the game. “She panicked and decided not to sac,”
GM Hikaru Nakamura said. “It’s a must- win situation and you have to do something to make your opponent uncomfortable.” A short time later all life was gone and Krush resigned in a hopeless position. The Abrahamyan-Baginskaite match
was no less wild. Their four previous games had all ended with white victo- ries, including Abrahamyan’s Evans Gambit win from the opening round of the preliminaries. In the semis, the trend meant nothing. Baginskaite revenged the earlier defeat by beating the Evans Gam- bit the second time around. “I didn’t expect [Abrahamyan] to repeat
openings,” Baginskaite said. “In women’s chess, we’re always trying to surprise everybody.” The following day she was charged with the same task that flum- moxed Zatonskih—holding a draw to advance. It would also be her birthday. When asked how she planned to cele- brate, Baginskaite said, “To work.” The black pieces came up spades again
as Abrahamyan feasted on all of her opponent’s pawns in the endgame, forc- ing a rapid tiebreak alongside the other women in the semifinals. Abrahamyan, the much less experienced player, said
32 Chess Life — July 2011
her previous tiebreak with Goletiani for the 2005 Championship gave her some useful experience for the next day’s rapid games. “I learned a lot of patience from that match,” she said. This tiebreak proved less dramatic than
Zatonskih-Krush. Abrahamyan shelved her Evans Gambit and used the Giuoco Piano successfully to win round one. A dour Baginskaite stayed at the board for some time after the loss, looking down at her notation sheet. She could not recover in the second game and Abrahamyan won her third straight to advance to the finals. “I don’t know how that happened,”
Abrahamyan said, admitting that her hands were still shaking. “It was proba- bly hard for her to play after her loss (yesterday).” Abrahamyan praised her coach, IM Armen Ambartsoumian. “He definitely deserved the credit.” Abrahamyan, Zatonskih and Krush
(who went on to win the third-place match) also ended up with the three invi- tations to the next Women’s World Cup. Many considered the winner of the epic
semifinal Krush-Zatonskih would be crowned the champion. After all, the only interregnum between Zatonskih’s run of championships came from a pair of Krush titles. The prediction was not easy to fulfill. The finals matchup of Zatonskih-Abra-
hamyan represented two players on an upward trend. After more than a decade in the top-50, Zatonskih crept over 2500 FIDE for the first time and had just become one of the top ten women in the world (she lost 15 Elo points in St. Louis but as of May was number seven at 2537, by far a personal best). Abrahamyan had added 100 points to her USCF rating since the 2010 Championship, and this 2011 edition ended with her 29 Elo points to the good, a personal best. The match began with dynamics when Abrahamyan chose the kid-friendly Mil- ner-Barry Gambit. The opening, named after a Briton who helped decode the Ger- man Enigma machine, did little to riddle Zatonskih. Abrahamyan sacrificed a pawn on move six and remained down exactly one pawn until a draw was agreed 36 moves later. “I wasn’t expecting the French,” Abra-
hamyan said. “I didn’t spend a lot of time preparing. She played the French against me before and I was surprised. She played it again, and I was surprised, again.” Fridman found a piece-winning tactic
for his wife and when Zatonskih saw it, she gasped. “Oh my god. Unbelievable.” After her marathon with Krush, she seemed satisfied that at least she did not blunder away one of her own pieces. “I was so tired. I had the feeling that I played 20 hours of chess (yesterday).” In the next day’s battle, a mostly placid middlegame turned into a complex knight
versus bishop ending where all three results were possible. Zatonskih chose not to repeat the position and instead allowed mutual breakthroughs, but she quickly found herself playing for two results—a draw or a loss. With only increment to play on, Abrahamyan could not find a winning line and Zatonskih barely saved the game. The two would go the final day of the tournament still tied. For Zaton- skih, it was her third straight match that needed a tie to be broken.
King’s Indian Defense, Fianchetto Variation (E63) IM Anna Zatonskih (2616) WFM Tatev Abrahamyan (2424) U.S. Women’s Championship (Round one, second game), 04.27.2011 Notes by Abrahamyan
At some point during every tourna-
ment I reach a point when I feel like I can list all my weaknesses in chess. I am not sure if it’s a point of desperation or con- structive self-criticism, but it’s hard to ignore the patterns that emerge con- stantly. I think a lot of weaknesses that are common for players around my strength come up in this game and I hope the reader finds them useful.
1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. c4 Bg7 4. Nc3 0-0 5. g3 d6 6. Bg2 Nc6 7. 0-0 a6
This was the fourth time in the tour-
nament I had this position. Before the tournament, I had a -7 score in this line, so I was expecting to face it quite a few times.
8. b3 Rb8 9. Nd5
-trlwq-trk+ +pzp-zppvlp p+nzp-snp+ +-+N+-+- -+PzP-+-+ +P+-+NzP- P+-+PzPLzP tR-vLQ+RmK-
After 9. Nd5
9. ... e6 In our game in the preliminaries I tried
9. ... Bg4 10. Bb2 e6 11. Ne3 Bxf3 12. Bxf3 e5 13. Bxc6 bxc6 14. dxe5 Nd7 15. c5 dxe5 16. Qd2 Nxc5 and even though I ended up winning, I had some trouble with my pawn structure.
10. Nxf6+ Bxf6 11. Bb2 Bg7 11. ... e5 would have been more accu-
uschess.org
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