Cover Story / Nakamura, Krush are champs
IM Anna Zatonskih 33. Qxb7 Rdd2 34. Qa7
IM Rusudan Goletiani
WFM Alena Kats
WIM Viktoria Ni
proved correct in the first game. He esti- mated that Zatonskih would avoid the critical variations that arise after 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 c6 4. h3 d5 5. Nf3 Nf6 6. e5 Ne4 7. Nxe4 dxe4 8. Ng5. “Giorgi spent a lot of time on it and told me what I needed to know. It’s not her style and it’s a rapid game.” Instead, Zatonskih did not advance her e-pawn and played more restrained, but failed to pose any prob- lems for her opponent. After the short respite spent plotting
Here there are different ways to win, but
34. ... Qf3 followed by the queen sacrifice on g3 and the double-rook mate was very appealing to me once I saw it.
34. ... Qf3 35. Rae1, White lost on time. White’s flag fell, so we didn’t get to see
.... Qg3 on the board (if White doesn’t take the queen, then h3 and g4 fall with check). This game came together very nicely for me on the board, but it was won much more by the thinking that went into it rather than any particular moves. I want to thank my coach for the heart he put into my preparation. I am pretty sure that was the difference between first and second place for me.
As has become customary at the
women’s event, after game one of a rapid tiebreak, a curious spectacle unfolds. The two combatants rush to their “corners” for advice. With the U.S. Championship com- pleted the previous day, the services of a dozen grandmasters were available. Krush enlisted a 13th, as her much-lauded coach GM Giorgi Kacheishvili flew out to St. Louis to assist for the weekend. For the 15- minute break, Krush and her mentor took a walk outside while Zatonskih commis- erated with Onischuk upstairs. Neither player sees the divisions that form as unfriendly; the services of capable sec- onds just across the playing hall do not denote any ill-will in their view. “It’s just friends helping others,” Krush said. “It’s not in any way unpleasant for me. This is not a vicious partisan thing. Everyone who rooted for Anna today can still be my friend.” Krush said Kacheishvili’s prediction
22 August 2012 | Chess Life
with seconds and coaches, the women reconvened for the second tiebreak game. Krush said the initial win did not alter her planning. “I was not changing strategies. I was playing 1. c4. I thought about going back to 1. d4. Even if she’s got some- thing prepared for (1. c4), it was probably for equalizing. She probably didn’t expect to have to play for a win.” In the second contest Zatonskih played
with more celerity. A strong attack brewed on Krush’s king and she labored to find a way to avoid a checkmate in the mid- dlegame. Ironically, her second rank became pitted with weaknesses this time around. Facing immense pressure, Krush played 23. Ng5 while Zatonskih was away from the table, hurriedly taking a bath- room break. Krush immediately saw the Zwischenzug 23. ... Qxf1+ won a rook for Black. She looked down, then across the room, awaiting her fate. Zatonskih arrived back at the board but paused for a few minutes. “I just thought maybe she’s savoring the moment,” Krush reasoned. Amazingly, Zatonskih did not find the one-mover. She played 23. ... Bxc2 instead, simply trading queens. Krush’s eyes got large and she sat straight up again, bolstered by her good fortune. Later, Krush said she “probably would have resigned” if Zatonskih had found the right move. Grandmasters in the lounge watching
on television screens thought the over- sight was verisimilitude. One came out to view the game in person to be sure. Krush needed a few moments to process the change of events and reconnoiter the position. “I wasn’t coming to grips with [the missed tactic]. What I was coming to grips with is that my position was still horrible. You get such a present, but you
WGM Sabina-Francesca Foisor
are still totally lost.” Little did she know that another gift-wrapped rook was in the offing later. She soon made a defensive Exchange
sacrifice to avoid immediate annihilation, and shunned trades to keep some volatil- ity in the position. Krush’s defensive determination took her down to one sec- ond twice. Her normal routine is to languidly depress the clock so gracefully that you cannot hear the stroke, almost in slow motion. But here she rapidly swung her hand to the left to pounce, lest she repeat the mistakes of 2008. “One of the moves was really scary. I saw the one and then I saw the six.” Eventually Zatonskih also joined her in
massive time pressure—the struggle to find the win brought her down to fewer than five seconds at one point. Then, as the win grew close, disaster struck. Zatonskih simply left her rook en prise to a back- ward knight capture. Krush grabbed the piece, the gift and the title. She ran down- stairs and outside, shrieking and sobbing slightly, and jumped into the embrace of the first friend in sight—Kamsky. “Gata was one of my biggest supporters—I could see how much he rooted for me throughout this tournament.” This was Krush’s first title that she
won through a playoff. She did not mind that the final game was full of blunders. Instead, her remarks were prideful of the tenacious defense that allowed the for- tune. “The only reason I got lucky in the end is that I put myself in a position to get lucky. I kept things together long enough. When you are given a huge present after a huge amount of suffering, you don’t begrudge the present. “When you get a little lucky at the end,
your happiness is magnified. This is the [title] that made me the happiest. You want to win without having to go to a playoff in a more stress-free way. You’re always aiming to avoid the tension and the drama at the end. What the fans want to see you do not want. Maybe I got a few gray hairs. Your happiness is proportional to the amount of stress and difficulty you had to get there.” The excitement that permeated the
final day turned bystanders into fans. The security guard that wanded the
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