A typical representative of the modern generation, Sevian is capable of universal opening play in the opening.
The Italian has almost replaced the Ruy Lopez as the favorite opening of white players. The current pawn structure has been played in thousands of games in the past decade.
This has been one of many systems employed by Black today. It will be interesting to see if Sevian has come up armed with any new schemes for the variation. After all, the opening has already seemingly maxed out, and it is difficult to come up with new schemes with the system, with both white and black.
The move is a prelude to open up the center if when he wishes. Also, note that he doesn't develop his queenside knight or bishop. He emphasises that he can still take the dark bishop out to the kingside, instead of developing the knight, which is considered as regular.
In such positions, Black need not worry about any quick action by White, as such misadventures might weaken White's position. Till both sides develop all their minor pieces, the game will proceed at a slow pace.
Strangely, there are no published games of Sevian in this position, indicating that he might be facing this position for the first time over the board. But we can rest assured that he would have studied the position deeply before employing it against a strong opponent.
The point here is that, this being the traditional 'bad' bishop with its own central pawns in the same color, the bishop is kept out of the 'pawn chain' in the center. Thus, the bishop is kept in this diagonal for the best effect, where it exerts important pressure on the center.
After all, the knight is considered inferior to the bishop in open positions with lots of piece activity. Note that all this must be already familiar to both players, as Abdusattorov himself has played this position twice in the past, against Wesley So and Vidit Gujrathi.
But what does White gain by giving up the bishop so voluntarily? The point is that the considerable time spent by Black to exchange the bishop is one consideration. Also, with one of the pieces guarding the center disappearing, White can hope to maintain a strong center in the long run. And he can always exchange dark bishops, thus nullifying Black's bishop pair advantage.
True to his playing style, Abdusattorov looks for active play, even with black pieces. The knight move aims for an early attack on the white kingside and also to move up his king's bishop pawn if the chance arises.
Sevian has a threat here: to drive away the black knight, which is currently supporting his dark pawn in the center.
Black has to resort to this recapture to justify his knight move in the earlier turn. Also, he wishes to ask a question to White: Will he recapture with the pawn or knight?
It might have looked logical to capture the black pawn with the pawn instead of the knight. After all, pawns belong to the center, don't they!?
In this particular position, if the recapture is done with the pawn, then White's doubled pawns in the knight file may get distinctly weakened. This is the reason why Sevian prefers to recapture the central pawn with his knight.
Abdusattorov has played this position before against Wesley So, when he opted to develop his bishop here. When he makes such a change and employs a new move, it is an indication that he has already studied this position deeply before and comes well armed.
We can also be assured that Sevian, too, should know this game, in his home prep for Abdusattorov. It will be interesting to see how both players continue, as this is an original position for both of them.
A new move in the opening by Abdusattorov! Such a move in the opening is termed a 'novelty' in professional jargon. A novelty is a creation of a professional chess player, analyzing the position at home and getting a new move ready to play it on the board. This is the typical opening preparation of a top pro chess player.
Sevian decides on a calm developing move, getting his bishop out on the counterpart bishop's same diagonal.
Black once again dares White to capture with he pawn, which will weaken White's queenside pawn structure. And, if Sevian captures the bishop with his own bishop, he can easily free up his kingside by pushing his bishop pawn.
As we opined, capturing the bishop with the pawn might have weakened White's queenside pawns. Hence, this recapture is almost forced. Now, it remains to be seen if Black indeed gets equality here with home preparation.
In turn, Black also gets ready to push the bishop pawn on the kingside. This is what Abdusattorov must have been raring to go from the beginning. After all, he loves his dynamic play, and opening files and diagonals on the kingside is something he is always ready to do.
Sevian aims to fix the pawns on the queenside, not bothering to mobilize his pieces. We can sense a certain rigidity to Black's pawn structure in the queenside now, which probably Sevian counts to his advantage.
The position is almost completely level, and hence bereft of any active play. Typically, what will follow is a long period of piece maneuvering before either of the sides can find any scheme to play for an advantage.
Abdusattorov has consumed just 13 minutes for his 17 moves so far, which is highly impressive. Comparatively, Sevian has consumed 58 (!) minutes on his clock. Of course, all this matters only if Abdusattorov will benefit by such hard work on the board.
Abdusattorov probably wishes to preserve his pawn structure on the kingside, instead of doing anything rash. He might now turn his attention on White's central pawn, which has slightly become a target for attack now.
Slowly, we can see that White has a mild space advantage here, though it is nothing significant yet. Comparatively, White pieces seem to have more freedom to pursue any active plan in the future.
Now Black is ready to bring his rooks towards the center, thus completing his piece development. It remains to be seen if he can find any more active operations to pursue.
In the long run, White may keep his king in the corner at some point, thus be ready for other measures which do not require the white king in its current square.
White's position is without any weaknesses; Black pieces will find it difficult to target any area to pursue any action. But that is the case in any such opening positions. The next 10 or so moves are crucial, as it will show if either ofthe player can come up with any concept of play to pursue.
There is a certain ambiguity to this rook move, which may puzzle the opponent, trying to guess the ideas behind such a move. A strong opponent will also realize that this rook is capable of action in the future in different areas: on the kingside, defending the center, or simply being useful in the third rank. There lies the usefulness of this move.
This is a typical position where no immediate action is possible for both sides; hence, both opponents will take their time to undertake any significant action.
Black wants to keep the king out of the way on the kingside, too, but it may not be of much use anyway. This looks more due to Abdusattorov's desire to play quick, non-committal moves rather than moves with a clear purpose.
Though the game is moving at a slow pace, we can say that it will remain to be a maneuvering struggle forever. With White having a solid center, he will always dream of an offensive action in the long run.
The bishop reroutes to a more active square, casting its eye on White's central pawn
White doubles his rooks behind the pawn, making sure it is as well protected as it can be
Black gets ready to double his rooks too, eyeing the central pawn in the semi-open file
In the long run, Black will find it difficult to open his center due to the 'bind' produced by White's pawn in the center.
With every exchange, Black may be able to free up a certain crampedness to his position.
This is a typical device at the top levels. Instead of asking one large question, or conducting one huge attack, it may sometimes be more beneficial to make small threats such as this, the queen aiming to capture the black pawn in the flank.
As the old maxim in chess goes, "it might be more annoying to the opponent to pose many small questions rather than one big question."
This looks like a tiny mistake, weakening the queenside pawn structure. It might have been more prudent to move the bishop pawn instead of the knight pawn.
A tiny concession. White doesn't seem to have any concrete reason behind this queen retreat. It was probably done more out of an urge to play quickly while being down on the clock.
It looks like Abdusattorov's ploy to play quickly is working, after all!
Black too makes a 'small move' to once again ask Sevian to make a decision. These are typical moves played by pros when they do not wish to make any big decision on the board.
We might see a threefold repetition of moves here and a draw, for all you know. Unless Abdusattorov can find a way to act concretely to move the game forward with a plan.
In his urge not to commit anything, Abdusattorov commits a mistake, allowing the white pawn to move forward and attack the rook. It will pave the way for the white knight to move forward eyeing a juicy square inside white's position.
Probably not wishing to do anything committal, Sevian misses the opportunity to take advantage of Abdusattorov's error.
Black wishes to triple his major pieces on the semi-open file and prepares the Alekhine's Gun totake pressurize the white pawn in the center. This is again a tiny mistake, as it allows the white pawn to be pushed forward. But probably Abdusattorov is now convinced that Sevian is not going to play any concrete measures as such.
The sins committed since long time ago have come to haunt Abdusattorov here! It was indeed wrong on his part to weaken the queenside as such, creating weaknesses that are being attacked by white now.
This pawn thrust looks more emotional than pragmatic. If White pushes his own forward, in return, the black bishop would paint a sorry picture in the corner of the board.
This sadly looks like part of a pattern in this tournament for Abdusattorov. The youngster's desire to play aggressively at all costs seems to lead him more into trouble than reward for his boldness?
Black's bishop paints a sorry picture now, and White holds all the trumps in the position. As an aside, the black pawn in the flank is being attacked by the white Queen too.
Perhaps realizing his own predicament, the bishop tries to find relevance now. The pawn structure getting fixed on the light square now, the bishop will stay passive for a long time
Now there will be massive piece exchanges, after which White will still hold a slight advantage, hopefully.
Queen + Knight is always a good combination to have against Queen + Bishop in an endgame. Only, it is not greatly effective in the current position, as both sides have limited material left on the board.
With each exchange of pieces, White lost that much ammunition in attacking the black position. Unfortunately for Sevian, his lack of time on the clock was the basic reason for this exchanging spree.
Though a large part of the danger has passed, Black still needs to be accurate in his defense here. After all, the advantage of the Queen+Bishop battery is that they can attack targets of any color. Whereas the Queen+Bishop battery can attack targets only in the color of the bishop!
This long-range defense should be able to save Black's position here, even though White's queen+knight battery looks threatening. After all, there are very few pawns and pieces left on the board, making Black's job easier.
And added to the dimension is that Sevian has still not completed the time control, with about two minutes on his clock.
Sevian must be heaving a sigh of relief now! He has been under pressure for the past hour of so, being under the pressure of the clock to play quickly.
Unfortunately for Sevian, his position doesn't much promise him to try for an advantage here. Though he is not in any danger of losing the game, he cannot mount much of an attack against the black position, either.
Abdusattorov defends cleverly, exploiting the exposed nature of the white king. Though Black's bishop as well as the bishop pawn are threatened, this queen move defends against both the threats tactically
Perhaps exhausted by playing under time pressure for so long, Sevian decides to simplify the game into an equal knight vs. bishop endgame. The game is moving towards a draw now.
Little material is left on the board now. The game is surely moving towards ending in a draw.
In his desire to play aggressively and taste his first win of the tournament, Abdusattorov seemed to lose his sense of danger at one point, making his bishop passive with an antipositional thrust in the kingside.
However, one of the reasons for such risk-taking play from Abdusattorov was Sevian's lack of time. Being low on time since move 29, Sevian was unable to exploit his opponent's weak play. He was probably looking mainly at saving his own skin, rather than playing to win the game.
Thus, Abdusattorov benefited from his opponent's time pressure, which saved him from a possible weak position.
Thus, Sevian has now scored draws in all his games and is currently placed in the middle of the points table.
But Abdusattorov's standing in the tournament table is of concern, as he is placed in last place with three losses and two draws. After a rest day tomorrow, Abdusattorov will definitely look forward to coming back into the tournament to score his first victories.
What makes a player frequently go on a piece-exchange spree while being short of time? Just as Sevian did in this game?
During time pressure - any kind of pressure, for that matter - a familiar craving for a mind is relief. Over the chessboard, it is achieved by exchanging off as many pieces as possible. Almost invariably, exchanging without a specific purpose only reduces one's advantage.
Also, with each exchange, a position enters a new configuration. That requires the brain to adjust itself to the new pieces equation and think afresh. Such a task is difficult when one is short of time—the very reason one shouldn't exchange pieces under time pressure!
Of course, strong players know all these basics, but their minds still succumb to the temptation due to the pressure that the clock brings to their minds during the game!
Such a formation of major pieces in a line, with the rooks in the front and the queen in the rear, is dubbed as Alekhine's Gun. Perhaps it refers to a game where the fourth world champion in the history of the game employed it first.
It is such terminologies and folktales that constitute a 'chess culture,' making the game interesting!
Sometimes, there is a curious kind of time trouble errors on the chessboard: mistakes done while playing quickly to avoid time pressure, rather than errors made in time pressure itself! 😉
Sevian has 12 minutes remaining on his clock here, compared to Abdusattorov's 57. About 45 minutes advantage in the clock for Abdusattorov!
Though the position remains equal, one senses a few things in White's favor: the typical crampedness of the black bishop in the long run, compared to the white knight; Black having lesser space to maneuver his pieces; and Black not being able to make any more plans but to keep his pressure on White's central pawn and wait.
So, even though it is an equal position, we can say "White is more equal than Black." 😉
Abdusattorov has hardly spent any time in the opening, thus showing his preparedness. But Sevian has spent about 33 minutes on the clock by now. This may not be a significant detail in terms of time consumed, but it might be a fact that Sevian has to make sense of the nuances of the position over the board. Abdusattorov might know this position deeper than his opponent.
That's a nice nugget to observe!
Welcome to the fifth round of the Sinquefield Cup!
We have an unpredictable game in our hands today. On one hand, we have Sam Sevian who has played his solid brand of chess to score four draws, thus remaining undefeated on 50%
At the same time, we have the brilliant Abdusattorov, who has had a rough tournament, managing just a solitary draw from four games. Though his chess is ambitious and enterprising, his tactical form seems to be uneven, with many errors in dynamic games. He desires for such full-fledged fight in all the games, but hasn't scored well in such positions so far in the tournament.
Hence, what do we expect? As he is a personal favorite of mine, I only wish Abdusattorov to put up an improved show today! He has to show that all is not lost, after all...