Harikrishna wins György Marx Memorial

The IV. György Marx Memorial took place from 28 July to 7 August 2006 in Paks, Hungary, in commemoration of the famous physicist György Marx. The event is intended to give the most talented young local grandmasters an opportunity to gain experience. The main patron of the tournament is József Kovács, the director-general of Nuclear Power Plant Ltd. Paks. The venue was College of Paks, Dózsa György str. 95, Paks. Time controls were 2 hours for 40 moves, then 1 hour till the end.

The venue in Paks, Hungary

Participants

Final report

Top seed Pentala Harikrishna, India, won the event, a clear point ahead of the second placed Zahar Efimenko of Ukraine. Wang Yue of China and Zoltan Almasi of Hungary shared 3-4. The other two Hungarian players, Ferenc Berkes and Peter Acs landed at the bottom of the table.

The winner: India's second strongest GM Harikrishna

Harikrishna did not lose any games and won three, with a 2717 performance. Efimenko drew all his games except for one, against Acs, which he won. His performance was 2655, 23 points more than his nominal 2632 FIDE rating.

We have been informed that the tiebreak system used to generate the above table, Sonneborn-Berger, was not used in the official final table, which however does not give the tiebreak ranking. It looks like this:

• Download all games in PGN

The drawing rate in this tournament was high, with 76% of the games ending without result. Interestingly only two of the seven decided games were won by White; five went to Black.

In the last six rounds there was only one decided game (Almasi vs Harikrishna, 0-1, in round eight). The other seventeen were all drawn. The average length of all games was 39 moves, the shortest was a ten-mover between Harikrishna and Wan Yue in round eight. Three games were drawn in less than 20 moves. The two longest games were hard-fought draws with Wang Yue on the white side: 85 moves against Almasi and 101 moves against Acs. In that game the Chinese player had the upper hand in the whole game, but finally Acs liquidated to a Rook vs Rook + Bishop endgame, which again takes us to the silicon oracle of our endgame database.

The start of a fateful game

Wang Yue (2626) - Acs,P (2520) [E81]
4th Marx György Mem Paks HUN (8), 05.08.2006

The position, say our five-piece tablebases, is a theoretical draw, with almost any legal move by Black holding. Acs starts off well: 83...Rd1 84.Rg6+ Kf7 85.Ra6 Ke7 86.Ke5 Re1+ 87.Be4 Kd7 88.Ra7+

Black has three legal moves of which only one loses: 88...Kd8? Now the position is no longer drawn, it is mate in 25 moves. Unfortunately the youthful Wang Yue hasn't a clue how to win it. 89.Kd6 Ke8 90.Bd5 Kf8 91.Rf7+ Ke8 92.Rf3 Kd8 93.Rf2 Re7 94.Rf8+ Re8 95.Rf7 Re1 96.Rd7+ Ke8.

The positions is still winning for White, with mate in 22 moves. 97.Rg7? This move turns it into a theoretical draw. The correct continuation was 97.Rf7 (mate in 22), or 97.Rc7, Rb7 or Ra7, with the mate coming in 24 moves. 97...Kd8? Oops, 97.Rf1! was the only defence. Now the endgame tablebases announce mate in 18. 98.Rb7 Rc1 99.Ra7 Rc2 100.Rd7+ Kc8 101.Rh7. The game is still won, with mate to follow in 21 moves, and the computer continuation, with "perfect play" on both sides, looks like this: 101...Kb8 102.Rf7 Rc1 103.Rb7+ Kc8 104.Ra7 Kd8 105.Rf7 Re1 106.Bf3 Re3 107.Bc6 Rd3+ 108.Bd5 Re3 109.Rd7+ Ke8 110.Rb7 Kf8 111.Rf7+ Ke8 112.Rf4 Rd3 113.Rg4 and Black must give up the rook for the bishop or be mated in a few moves. [Click to replay]

We have been informed that due to technical difficulties the game relay stopped at move 101, in the above position. The players continued for another 20 to 30 moves, which nobody registered. In the final position Acs's king was no longer on the eighth rank and Wang was just giving a lot of checks, apparently trying to win on time. Acs claimed a draw, with both players having just minutes on their clocks. The arbiter, IM Janos Tompa, decided that White no longer had winning chances, since his king had escaped from the "danger zone". He pronounced the game a draw. This did not happen in the above board position, as we previously reported.

If you are nervous about an encounter with this kind of endgame, here are some remedial options:

• Workshop: Fritz Endgame Turbo 3 - Part 1
• Workshop: Fritz Endgame Turbo 3 - Part 2
• Buy Fritz Endgame Turbo 3
• Shredder 10 and the Shredderbases

Picture gallery

Efimenko, Wang Yue, Harikrishna, Berkes and Acs pose in front of the FIDE obelisk

India vs China, after move eight. Two moves later the game ended in a draw.

The playing venue in the auditorium of the college

The winner, Pentala Harikrishna, recieves his trophy

Celebrating with some fine Hungarian champagne

Links

Official web site