Tuesday 2 November 2010

Two Kings Gambits!

The final of the Cape d'Agde tournament saw a remarkable showdown between Vasily Ivanchuk and Hikaru Nakamura. In the first game of their 2 game match, Ivanchuk decided to play the Kings Gambit, and managed to win after Nakamura declined to take the pawn. Then needing to win the second game, Nakamura decided to also play the Kings Gambit. In this case Ivanchuk did take the pawn, and held on to draw the game, and win the match.
While I'll include the first game below, it is better to go an watch the video of the final at www.blip.tv, especially to see the body language of both players as their opponent s-l-o-w-l-y pushed the f pawn forward 2 squares!

Ivanchuk,Vassily (2754) - Nakamura,Hikaru (2733) [C30]
Trophee CCAS KO Cap d'Agde FRA (3.1), 31.10.2010

1.e4 e5 2.f4 Nc6 3.Nf3 f5 4.d3 d6 5.Nc3 Nf6 6.g3 g6 7.Bg2 Bg7 8.fxe5 dxe5 9.Bg5 h6 10.Be3 0-0 11.0-0 fxe4 12.dxe4 Be6 13.a3 Kh7 14.Kh1 a6 15.Bg1 Rf7 16.Qe2 Nd4 17.Qd3 Nxf3 18.Qxf3 Rd7 19.Rad1 Bg4 20.Rxd7 Bxf3 21.Rxd8 Bxg2+ 22.Kxg2 Rxd8 23.Be3 g5 24.h3 Kg6 25.g4 c6 26.Rf2 b5 27.Rd2 Rxd2+ 28.Bxd2 Bf8 29.Kf3 h5 30.Ne2 hxg4+ 31.hxg4 Nd7 32.Nc1 c5 33.Na2 Nb8 34.c4 bxc4 35.Nc3 Nc6 36.Nd5 Nd4+ 37.Ke3 Kf7 38.Nb6 Ke6 39.Nxc4 Be7 40.Ba5 Nb5 41.Kd3 Nd6 42.Nxd6 1-0

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link, Shaun.
Really enjoyed watching it!