There will be another quality event in the city of Liverpool as part of its celebrations leading up to its status as the European Capital of Culture in 2008. A prestigious six-round summit will be held from September 4-9 2007 with teams representing Britain, China, India and the European Union.
This is likely to be the strongest team tournament in the UK since the European Team Championships at Bath in 1973, as the Chinese, one of the great forces in world chess, have already declared a full strength side which includes Bu Xiangzhi, Wang Yue and Ni Hua (all in the world’s top 100), plus the sensational 13-year-old Hou Yifan who has already claimed the scalps of many leading Grandmasters this year and will be a tough proposition on the women’s board.
There will be teams of eight players with four open boards, two women’s boards and two junior boards, which in the chess world means players under twenty one.
The venue is the magnificent Concert Room of St George's Hall in the heart of the city. Britain will include former world title contender Nigel Short but possibly not Michael Adams, indeed one might even hope not, because if he has great success at the Candidates Matches at Elista in May he will instead be playing in the World Championship tournament in Mexico. For that reason the Indian team will be without Vishy Anand. He dominated the Rapid Chess at the Amber tournament but of course he is also a marvellous player without sight of the board.
V Anand - L Van Wely
Amber Blindfold Monte Carlo (5)
Sicilian Najdorf
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be6 8.Qd2 Be7 9.f3 0-0 10.0-0-0 Nbd7 11.g4 b5 12.Rg1 Nb6 (12...b4 13.Nd5 Bxd5 14.exd5 Nb6 and 12...b4 13.Na4 Qb8 14.g5 Nh5 both look reasonable for Black)
13.Na5! (Defending the c4 square and threatening Nc6)
13...Qc7 14.g5 Nfd7 15.Nd5! Bxd5 16.exd5 Nxd5 17.Qxd5 Qxa5 18.Bd3 (A typical pawn sacrifice in this line to open up the white squares for the unchallenged bishop which becomes immensely powerful)
18...Qc7 (18...g6 must be the move here)
19.g6 Nf6 (19...hxg6 20.Rxg6 Nf6 21.Rdg1! Nxd5 22.Rxg7+ Kh8 23.Rh7 mate)
20.gxf7+ Kh8 (With the aid of the variation above you should be able to work out what comes next)
Van Wely
I did think it was very odd that Bagheri's English suddenly became perfect when he started posting these game articles. I just assumed that he was hitting the English grammar books hard. 😉 On the other hand, maybe Malcolm Pein has a secret multiple personality disorder manifested in the form of Bagheri. 😉😉
I didn't really spend any time on trying to prove or disprove Bagheri's identity, but it is beginning to look like z00t may have hit the nail on the head with this one.