Endgame lessons at the Chigorin Memorial 2011

by ChessBase
10/29/2011 – The annual M. Chigorin International Chess Festival was held in the Hotel Azimut from October 12-22 in St. Petersburg, with a rapid tournament and, of greater interest to us, a nine-round Swiss with classical time controls. It was won with a clear half-point lead by GM Dmitry Bocharov. We use the opportunity to give you your weekly point-winning endgame lesson by GM Karsten Müller.
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M. Chigorin International Chess Festival 2011

The Chigorin Memorial Open in St. Petersburg was won by GM Dmitry Bocharov with a clear first score of 7.5/9, half a point ahead of his clear of his nearest rivals (eight of them with 8.0/9 apiece). Here are the final top scores:

# Name Pts Fed. Rtng Perf WWe BH BH2
1 GM Bocharov, Dmitry 7.5 RUS 2582 2724 +1.51 51.5 39.5
2 IM Onischuk, Vladimir 7.0 UKR 2483 2746 +3.10 53.0 42.5
3 GM Lintchevski, Daniil 7.0 RUS 2558 2703 +1.71 53.0 41.5
4 GM Khismatullin, Denis 7.0 RUS 2635 2684 +0.58 52.0 40.5
5 GM Zvjaginsev, Vadim 7.0 RUS 2666 2699 +0.38 51.5 40.0
6 GM Smirnov, Pavel 7.0 RUS 2580 2678 +1.12 51.5 40.0
7 GM Azarov, Sergei 7.0 BLR 2648 2728 +0.90 50.0 40.0
8 GM Gabrielian, Artur 7.0 RUS 2531 2643 +1.37 48.0 37.5
9 GM Shomoev, Anton 7.0 RUS 2577 2583 +0.19 46.5 36.0
10 GM Khalifman, Alexander 6.5 RUS 2627 2662 +0.49 54.5 43.5
11 GM Maiorov, Nikita 6.5 BLR 2558 2647 +1.21 52.0 40.5
12 IM Oparin, Grigoriy 6.5 RUS 2413 2658 +2.99 50.5 39.5
13 GM Andriasian, Zaven 6.5 ARM 2615 2604 -0.02 50.5 39.0
14 GM Ionov, Sergey 6.5 RUS 2540 2595 +0.86 50.0 39.0
15 GM Vorobiov, Evgeny E. 6.5 RUS 2581 2615 +0.55 49.0 38.0
16 GM Volkov, Sergey 6.5 RUS 2614 2612 +0.07 48.5 38.0
17 GM Kovchan, Alexander 6.5 UKR 2569 2595 +0.43 48.5 38.0
18 IM Demchenko, Anton 6.5 RUS 2574 2541 -0.23 47.5 37.0
19 GM Burmakin, Vladimir 6.5 RUS 2588 2589 +0.09 47.0 37.5
20 GM Popov, Valerij 6.5 RUS 2545 2540 +0.07 46.0 35.5
21 GM Malakhatko, Vadim 6.5 BEL 2543 2579 +0.54 46.0 35.0
22 GM Neverov, Valeriy 6.5 UKR 2508 2563 +0.81 44.0 34.0
23 GM Maletin, Pavel 6.5 RUS 2579 2515 -0.50 41.0 32.5


Second place for... oops, sorry, not Alexander Onischuk, the US grandmaster...


...but Ukrainian GM Vladimir Onischuk, rated 2483, with a 2746 performance in this Open


Third place: GM Daniil Lintchevski of Russia, 2558, 7.0/9 points, 2703 performance


14-year-old FM Kirill Alekseenko performed at a 2658 level and achieved a GM norm


Janna Karaseva of Russia, rated 2030


Maria Lysenko of Russia, rated 2019

There are a lot of new faces in this photo gallery, with most of the images clearly identified with a mouse-over caption. Such a relief – it is hard to understand the point of the usual photo dumps without any indication of who the players might be.

Endgame analysis by GM Karsten Müller

The PGN file contains a total of 1135 games, which we have not been able to scan for the most interesting overall examples. That will happen in then next issue of ChessBase Magazine, where you will find the best games annotated usually by the players themselves. Today we simply bring you three lessons which our endgame expert Dr Karsten Müller picked out from the event.

Distant Opposition

Simplification into a pawn ending must always be considered carefully. In the following example Khalifman controls everything:

Corresponding Squares

This theory is quite advanced and usually only occurs in its basic forms, when the concepts of opposition and triangulation are all you need to master. But sometimes the real deep theory is needed to really understand what is going on:

Deep Breakthrough

When exchanging into a pawn endgame always great care is called for. In the following example Tunik had calculated far ahead:

Karsten Müller in ChessBase Magazine

Do you like these lessons? There are plenty more by internationally renowned endgame expert Dr Karsten Müller in ChessBase Magazine, where you will also find openings articles and surveys, tactics, and of course annotations by the world's top grandmasters.

Click to go to the ChessBase Magazine page

Apart from his regular columns and video lectures in ChessBase Magazine there is a whole series of training DVDs by Karsten Müller, which are bestsellers in the ChessBase Shop.

Reports about chess: tournaments, championships, portraits, interviews, World Championships, product launches and more.

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