| Jun-19-15 | | Mating Net: What a barn burner of a game. White had some decent compensation for the Queen, but couldn't force the e pawn through. Well done by Black to hunt down the enemy King. |
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| Jun-20-15 | | thomastonk: Nepomniachtchi twittered: <That awkward moment, when you lose a +10 position in the spirit of helpmate.> Well, what did he mean? Possibly 37.e7?. Instead 37.♗xh5 looks completely winning: without Black's h-pawn White can push the e-pawn, and there is no threat of ♕xc4+/♔f5/♕c8+/♔g5/♕g4 mate. |
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| Jun-20-15 | | fisayo123: Very original idea from Nepo. Normally, you don't castle queenside in the Sveshnikov, but he did anyway and had a substantially winning position until 37.e7?? What's sad is that as is usually the case with Nepo, he had a lot of time on the clock in a complex position, but didn't use it. |
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| Jun-20-15 | | AzingaBonzer: The position was only really definitively winning for White if he was a computer. It's easy for a human, any human, to blunder in such a complex position. |
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| Jun-20-15 | | dumbgai: Was Yangyi short on time? Maybe Nepo tried to move fast to exploit his opponent's time trouble but ended up blundering himself. It certainly looks like the type of position that would warrant spending a lot of time thinking. |
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| Jun-20-15 | | AzingaBonzer: <dumbgai>
Yu's time was lower than Nepomniachtchi's, but it wasn't super low (like, less than 10 minutes). Nepomniachtchi probably just got overconfident in his victory. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Yu's 4.5/5 is much cooler to look at than a 3.5/5. |
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| Jun-20-15 | | AzingaBonzer: Honestly, though, I was kind of surprised at how bad of a situation Yu managed to get himself into before Nepomniachtchi blundered. Everyone's talking about 37. e7??, but what bad moves did Yu make before then? Was it Qa5? A bit unexpected, given his solid performance in the first four rounds. |
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| Jun-29-15 | | ex0duz: <AzingaBonzer: Honestly, though, I was kind of surprised at how bad of a situation Yu managed to get himself into before Nepomniachtchi blundered. Everyone's talking about 37. e7??, but what bad moves did Yu make before then? Was it Qa5? A bit unexpected, given his solid performance in the first four rounds.> Yeah, 24. Qa5 is the 'bad move' that stands out and most likely where Yu really started to go wrong. But from what i remember, i think 25.Rf7 is also a bad move. So two bad moves in a row.. which lead to basically a losing position(but only if you're a computer.. :P) 30. Nxb3 was also a 'bad' move.
But like i was saying, in these kinds of complex/open positions, i guess it can be forgiven since it turns it into a crazy middle game which forces Nepo to have to decide what to do with his Queen and be very accurate in how he 'wins the won game'(which as we all know is hard to do), and in the end, he picked the wrong continuation and got burnt since he couldn't follow through all the way(with his queen sac) and miscalculated something along the way(for him to play e7). I guess there was simply just too many 'good moves' from him to choose from that he ended up getting cocky/overconfident and then chose a bad move(e7) which turned a completely winning position into a completely lost one. So yeah. While 24.Qa5, 25.Rf7 and 30.Nxb3 were 'bad' moves from Yu, in the proper context of the position, i think he was playing wild to force Nepo to go wrong along the way, and go wrong along the way Nepo did with 37.e7 and thus being the last one to blunder, he lost. IMO, moves like Nxb3 was what kept his chances alive and forced Nepo to blunder after. IF he played it safe, he woulda just been grounded down slowly. This way he at least has counterchances, and he took his chances and won. This is the type of game i like to see. A nice HUMAN game, with both players trying to play aggressive and force the other to miscalculate and blunder.. As opposed to an opponent making one small positional mistake which is then exploited slowly and without letting the other have any counterplay whatsoever. While i can enjoy a game like that too, i much prefer these wild/emotional high stake positions(where one move can = instant loss), and you must keep your calm and calculate, rather than playing on instinct and losing.. like what Nepo did in this game with e7, since he had like 30 mins left still when he played that IIRC. That's just being too cocky/overconfident, he deserved to lose. |
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Jul-18-15
 | | Breunor: According to Soltis' column, 30 e7 wins for white. 24 Qa5 is black's mistake. He also said black should play 30 Rxb3 31 a x b3 a2 ch 32 Ka1 e4 which wins for black. Finally, 36 Rd5 37 Kf5, or 37 Bh5 would win for white, but Soltis says like everyone here, these can be hard to find on the board. |
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Kibitzing
sac: 30...Nxb3