Last Thursday I was able to attend lecture and simul given by GM Evgeny Bareev. He is an elite GM, in October 2003 he was in fourth place in the world rankings, with an Elo rating of 2739. He reached the quarterfinals in the FIDE World Championships in 1999 and 2001, and was a semifinalist in the Candidates Tournament for the classical world championship at Dortmund 2002. Also he was a second to Kramnik in his matches with Kasparov and Leko. He wrote a book ”From London to Elista” which became a winner of the English chess federation 2008 Book-of-the-Year Award, the most prestigious chess book prize in the world.
The lecture was about Caro-Kann, which he is playing, also he answered some questions. I was impressed how easy he was throwing variations and lines, at the same time showing the whole picture of the opening. By the way, the “hot” line now is 1.e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. f3 – never saw it. I already tried it blitz and started also correspondence game with it. He talked about World Championship match, said that there is a chance that it will be in Sofia if there will be an additional 500,000 – 700,000. He said that there are tough times now, with the sponsors disappearing one after another. I asked him, what about Carlsen or Aronian becoming World Champion in the next 3 years and he said – definitely. He has a great sense of humor and the audience was really enjoing the conversation.
Then the simul started, there were 24 people playing. I was glad to get 1. e4, but his second move 2. Bc4 got me thinking.
Here is the game:
1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d3 Be7 4. f4
Crafty says I had to play 4….d5 here, I agree, I played 4 . … Nc6. 5. Nf3 d6 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3 Bd7 8. a3 h6 9. f5 – this is for playing too passively.
9. f5 Re8 10. Kh1 Na5 11. Ba2 c5 12. Rg1 Rc8 13. g4 c4 14. g5 – Crafty still estimates it only as 0.18, but I already had a bad feeling.
14. … hxg5 15. Bxg5 Nh7 – I didn’t like this move almost as soon as I did it, Crafty – 1.62 . 16. Bxe7 Qxe7 17. Nd5 Qd8
17. Nd5 Qd8 18. Qd2 Kh8 – threatened Qh6 19. Rg3 f6 – another bad move, Crafty offers - 19. … cxd3 20. Qxd3 Nc6 21. Rag1 Bxf5 22. exf5 e4 23. Qc4 exf3 24. Rxg7 with 1.6 estimate.
20. Rag1 Rg8 – Crafty again recommends cxd3 and Bxf5. 21. Nh4 Ng5 – I saw coming sacrifice, but g5 just prolonged the agony, so I decided what the hell! He thought max 2 seconds, then 22. Qxg5! – Black resigned (22. … Qe8 23. Rh3 fxg5 24. Ng6# or 22. … fxg5 23. Ng6+ Kh7 24. Rh3# ).
I asked for his autograph and he signed the score sheet. I was consoled by the organizer that one of the participating masters lost at the same time. The total was – +19, =3, -2, there were a few masters and experts, the rest I think – “A” and “B”.
June 25, 2009 at 12:55 am
What an experience.
To get the chance to play a super GM.
A quick look at the game Bareev’s pieces all work togther and have space.
The aggressive play with the f and g pawns opened up your position.
I once many years ago played in a simul against a lowly IM the difference between us was varst.
I was/am light years behind him.
This sort of thing shows the human side of the chess elite.
Was the lecture very useful,did he pitch it at about the right level.
Now you are mixing with elite GM’s you may not wish to assoicate with us chess lowlife anymore!!!!!!
June 25, 2009 at 11:34 pm
hehe, too funny Chessx, what a scream.
I played American GM Neil McDonald in simul once. He played your Bb5 against my Najdorf. I got a middlegame that looked endgamish, but he showed me how losing it was in short order (I think I may have played something crazy like ..f5, which was positionally flawed, but he knew what the flaw was). I saw him zig-zagg his queen through another guy’s position like swiss-cheese.
I don’t think the average GM giving a simul is going to play straight-up mainline anything. They will play something offbeat and probably catch a number of people in the same trap, same opening too I bet.
Yeah, he sorta “punked” you already on move 4, but totally understandable, caught you off-guard in a quick game.
The Be7 move is an error, so he got in a King’s Gambit without even having to gambit the f-pawn. The bishop belongs on c5 with check in this case, as you probably already know.
After that, maybe leave the king in the center or castle queenside as 0-0 looks hard-pressed to defend (these are situations where I am not as inclined to take Crafty’s word for it). I’m not sure what ..h6 was for, but that seemed to be the last real move, probably didn’t matter after that.
I remember Bareev back in the days of Adams and Salov and Judit Polgar and Shirov. I believe he’s from Moscow, so I find it surprising he’d be in the USA (not sure where you are located).
I’m surprised that anyone was able to beat him, but I guess you never know until you try. I remember once in an important game, may have been candidates match, he dropped a piece because he made a visual error where he though he had already made a move on the board that he hadn’t made yet. All that work, I think he was winning, for nothing. One of those blunders Chesstiger likes to point out. hehe.
I applaud you on your courage to play him.
Wish I had attended the lecture. The fantasy var. of the Caro-kahn is tricky. I tried to adopt it once, but couldn’t keep it straight, you have to just “know” some of the sacs, …e5 sac, and other scarier sacs.
June 25, 2009 at 11:49 pm
You are right about at least the idea of ..d5 anyway, it is the classic response to the king’s gambit, but Be7 is just so bad, IMHO. Ideally, you’d like to sac the d-pawn, then perhaps even Bd6 and his light-bishop is blocked out and also e5 is reinforced some, or even sacking a pawn on d6 and retaking with the bishop, but Be7 is just so final, not enough time to recover as White sacs a knight on f3 already even in main-line king’s gambit variations, it’s a very quick attack, just like the Smith-Morra.
It was my response to …e5 for a while, the KG was, and yes I did sack pieces and win, it’s one you really need to know theory on.
I think the KG is bad, BTW, just because of the c5 to g1 diagonal vulnerability throughout the game, positionally, but he got it in under favorable terms.
June 26, 2009 at 12:03 am
Here’s the equivalent of Crafty saying “ooooh yeah, I furgot!”:
1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d3 Be7 4. f4 d5 5. exd5 exf4 6. Nf3 Nxd5 7. Nc3 Ne3
8. Bxe3 fxe3 9. Qe2 Bc5 10. d4 Bxd4 11. O-O-O c5 12. Ne5
*
A stronger engine is probably a better choice when taking a suggestion as gospel. I like the Rybka on Chess Assistant, but yes I still use Crafty mostly, guess I’m dumb.
June 26, 2009 at 11:34 am
chessx – mixing doesn’t mean playing like them
. IM is not lowly, it’s a mandatory 2400, I watched once closely how FM ( mandatory 2300) played 3 friendly games and I was impressed by the fact how much more than me he saw. The lecture was very good and he was sometimes like a professor at the university and sometimes like a stand-up comedian – when he was asked why Kramnik lost last time, he said “it’s because I wasn’t with him!” – everybody laughed. You can see the pictures at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/82698797@N00/
The one with me (not my best photo, but only one with elite GM) is whatever I play in Sicilian + 4, don’t want to advertise it too much.
linuxguy – read above. I don’t think Be7 is so bad, it was actually an advice from WFM, I lost to her in Italian as Black, that it could be better than Bc5, and I didn’t see much use in the past for Bc5 in Giuco Pianissimo where I thought it was going, Be7 is useful against Bg5. My mistake was to try it here, right with GM, not even trying blitz. d5 was all I needed, funny that in Vienna game I played d5 (against f4), in KG I play it too (though not sure I would play Falkbeer against GM), but here I didn’t see it. That’s why they are better than us, they see the whole picture – how he saw connections in Caro-Kann with French, etc.
He lost to 2 experts, the field was pretty strong, I read somewhere that they don’t actually like playing with 1900+ in simul. He told us a story, how Kasparov played simul in Israel and it was most of their youth national team (all from Russia) – not exactly masters, but they just won the European high-school championship. He lost 3 games, drew 5 out of 25 and was very upset and angry. From “New York Times”:
“Contacted a few hours later by telephone, Mr. Kasparov was still fuming. The level of players was unusually strong for a simultaneous match of that size … and the noise and commotion that the organizers allowed made it impossible to concentrate, he said.”
June 26, 2009 at 2:18 pm
I remember reading about that simul, but Kasparov had opponents like Gregory Serper (I believe may have been one of the ones that beat him), lots of players that soon after that became top players in the world.
In the KG, the bishop sometimes develops to g7, sometimes to e7, but the trick there is that it develops to e7 before Nf6, which blocks it in (Be7 in the KG threatens Bh4+, which makes more sense if you are holding onto a gambit pawn on f4).
I guess I would play Nc6 instead, wating, (not that it’s a great move) but I don’t like to play against KG either, big reason I don’t play …e5 as White.
June 28, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Wow, what an opportunity meeting Bareev! Glad to hear your chess-fu is alive and well.
June 29, 2009 at 2:07 am
Correction for a typo that I made earlier – I played IM John Donaldson in a simul, and not GM Neil McDonald (confused the names).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Donaldson_(chess_player)
June 29, 2009 at 4:30 am
I envy you. Playing against such great GM, even if its in a simul, is a fun experience.
I dont remember his name but a few years ago, in the first round of the international tournament of Leuven, i was paired against an Ukranian GM rated 2500+. What surprised me was that took things slowly, taking advantage of the small inaccuracies i played.
June 29, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Great observation, Chesstiger.
I get more crushing mates from 1500 and 1600 players on FICS than from 1900 and 2000 level.
At the higher levels they seem to be looking for those positional innacuracies, converting your dropped pawn, keeping you from building a sound defensive position.
They seem to have no trouble sacrificing a pawn or two to keep your pieces or king undeveloped or uncoordinated once they’ve grabbed the initiative – the pressure stays on from the first mistake, like Rollingpawns alludes to.
June 29, 2009 at 2:51 pm
likesforests – I know you are busy, still I hope you will be able to play a few online games between changing diapers at 3 and 5am
. Really, I hope you gradually return to our online community and your chess study/play.
chesstiger – it’s pleasure to watch GMs playing too, I still remember how many years ago I was able to visit an international tournament and see Lev Psakhis (Soviet Champion in 1980 and 1982) and others. They are just a different kind of people, chessloser was right comparing them with the rock stars, for me they are.
linuxguy – regarding KG – there were played 10 games by KG out of 1574 in 2009 in Canada
(rated – 1200 – 2400), so it’s 0.6%, don’t think it should be a reason not to play e5. I think in US you have a pretty good chances to play with IM/GM, even regular game, though depends of course where you live. Here you can play in Canadian Open, so if you play in open section you can get them, and/or – $25 for simul with GM Adams or GM Ni Hua. The thing is it’s air-fair to Edmonton, 8 days in hotel, not counting 160 bucks entry fee. Though, I realized, that in the last 2 big tourneys there was GM, rated ~2500, I even talked to him a year ago(in Russian), but for the chance to play with him you should be in the Open section. I am not quite there yet and don’t want to get a beating.
June 30, 2009 at 12:57 am
I missed my chance to see Karpov in Vegas many years ago, and to see past World Champion GMs like Bronstein, Tal, and Spassky. Any of the “kids” of this generation might be a partial let down for all that travel.
There is a 6 round tournament this 4th of July weekend, but I’d have to ditch a B-Day party and seeing relatives.
I wonder what they do to an American these days who gets a passport and hops on a plane to Canada. Do they charge you anything for entering the country or anything weird? Not sure which city you are in there if you are in Canada.
June 30, 2009 at 1:43 am
As I desribed in one of my first posts I saw Taimanov in 80s. With passport there shouldn’t be a problem getting to Canada, nothing weird, except passport
. I live in Toronto.