Chess

In the old days, chess tournaments used to last up to a month due to the old Soviet era time limit that the players had to endure: 40 moves each in two-and-a-half hours followed by an adjournment.

Nowadays a fortnight is normally the longest that tournaments run, adjournments have thankfully departed from this world (except in odd pockets of resistance such as the London League) and time limits have accelerated from a crawl to a trot and, in many events, a wild canter.

However, there is still the odd longer event. Alushta, one of the main centres of Ukrainian chess, recently held one of its longest tournaments ever: a nine-player double rounder

The tournament, which finished on 12 June, came to my attention in a short report by the Ukrainian grandmaster Mikhail Golubev in Alex Baburin's splendid internet newspaper Chess Today (www.chesstoday.net). There were four foreigners taking part but the Ukrainians dominated proceedings, with the 18-year-old IM Andrey Sumets first on a massive 12/16, ahead of GM Yaroslav Zinchenko and IM Dmitry Kononenko on 11 and Golubev himself on 9.

Golubev gave a few of his own games, including this extremely thematic last-round victory.

In a classical King's Indian, the two players carried out their respective plans with White advancing on the queenside while Black prepared a kingside attack. Ingenious ways have been found over the years for White to defend himself but you have to know exactly what you're doing, and in this case 18.h3, a move that can be quite good when the knight stays on f2 since then the Black attack may be seriously impeded, merely created a weakness.

Nevertheless, White could have prepared to run his king with 22.Bf3! Rh7 23.Re1. Instead, the wildly overoptimistic 22.a5? allowed Black to attack unopposed and, after preparing to attack with the heavy artillery down the file, Golubev sent in the cavalry with the excellent 24. Nxg4! If 25.Bxg4 Qh8 26.Bh3 Bxh3 27.gxh3 Rxh3 28.Qg4 Rf8! (against Qd7+) the threats at least regain the piece with a big advantage, but as played White was blown away.

Dmitry Tishin vs

Mikhail Golubev

Alushta 2006 (round 18)

King's Indian

1.d4 d6 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 g6 4.Nc3 Bg7 5.e4 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.b4 Ne8 1O.c5f5 11.Nd2 Nf6 12.f3 f4 13.Nc4 g5 14.Ba3 Ng6 15.b5 dxc5 16.Bxc5 Rf7

17.a4 h5 18.h3 Bf8 19.Bf2 g4 20.hxg4 hxg4 21.fxg4 Bd6 22.a5 Rh7 23.Bf3 Kg7 24.Re1 Nxg4 25.Kf1 Qg5 26.Nxd6 cxd6 27Ke2 Nxf2 28.Kxf2 Rh2 29.Rg1 Nh4 30.Kf1 Nxf3 31.Qxf3 Bg4 32.Qd3 f3 0-1

Copyright 2006 Independent Newspapers UK Limited
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.