Gelfand vs. Nakamura

Hikaru Nakamura began the New Year by leading the United States to a silver medal at the chess World Team Championship. On the heels of that success, Nakamura continued his impressive play in Wijk ann Zee, Netherlands, which annually hosts the world’s most prestigious annual chess tournament. Nakamura won two of his first four games and drew the world champion Vishy Anand. The tournament concludes on Jan. 31.

Nakamura has adopted an extremely bold style. At key attacking points Nakamura looks to sacrifices a piece. The sacrifice opens up lines and facilitates an attack on the king. Objectively, it may not be the best move, but the sacrifice has the added advantage of throwing his opponents off balance. Nakamura threw Loek Van Wely off balance in Wijk ann Zee with such a sacrifice, just as Nakamura threw Boris Gelfand off balance a two weeks earlier at the World Team Championship.

With this hint in mind please try to find black’s boldest move in this week’s position.

Fritz 11 recommends that black capture white’s pawn on d6 with its bishop on f8 (bxd6). The chess program evaluates bxe6 as half-a-pawn better than Nakamura’s move. A full pawn usually means winning.

But Nakamura boldly rocked Gelfand’s confidence with the surprising knight takes pawn on g2 (Nxg2).

Chessbase magazine gave this move “A double exclaim.” It immediately took Gelfand off his game, Gelfand hadn’t calculated it, and he figured his opponent had.

If the white king takes the knight, black generates dangerous attacks against white’s king. For example, after kxg2 black’s queen steps onto d7, threatening to occupy h3 with the support of its bishop. Meanwhile, black’s rook is eager to target white’s king from g7. As it turns out, black’s attack can be rebuffed and white can secure a half-a-pawn endgame edge.

Gelfand lost the psychological battle and didn’t challenge Nakamura’s sacrifice to a debate. Instead, his response to Nxg2 illustrates another point of the move. Gelfand’s d6 pawn captured black’s pawn on c7. After this, black’s knight captured white’s rook e1, winning the exchange.

Black now threatens checkmate in one. If allowed, black’s g3 pawn marches onto g2 with the support of the knight.

Play thus continued: White queen took knight; black pawn to g2, checking white; king took pawn; black rook to g7, again checking white, etc.

The lesson here, as illustrated by Nakamura, is that chess is sometimes a game of poker.