CHESS

Umro Niels Hoeg (1876-1951) was a Danish chess composer, one of the main developers of retro-analytical chess problems. The mate in two (White: Kc4,P:a7,c7; Black: Ka5) was composed in 1926. White has to finesse the promotions. Can you find how? (Solution next week.)

The U.S. Championship

The 2009 U.S. Championship will be held at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center in St. Louis, May 7-17. It offers more than $130,000 in prize money and features 24 players, including the top three grandmasters in the United States: Gata Kamsky, Hikaru Nakamura and Alexander Onischuk. The defending champion is GM Yury Shulman. The official web site is http://saintlouischessclub.org/US-Championship-2009.

An Armenian Triumph

There is something mysterious about the way the Armenians play chess. It is hard to pinpoint precisely what the secret of their success is. Tigran Petrosian became a national hero in Armenia during his reign as the world champion from 1963 to 1969. The Armenian team won the last two Chess Olympiads, in 2006 in Turin, Italy, and last December in Dresden, Germany. Their leading player, Levon Aronian, is dominating the FIDE Grand Prix circuit, a world championship qualification. Last week, he finished first in Nalchik, Russia, a full point ahead of another Armenian, Vladimir Akopian. And Akopian, in turn, shared second place with Peter Leko, who is Hungarian but has an Armenian wife. A coincidence? And I didn't even mention Garry Kasparov's mother, Klara, who is also Armenian.

Aronian secured the tournament victory in Nalchik by defeating Leko, a tough defender who rarely loses, in a dramatic last-round game. Leko as black played the Parma variation of the Nimzo-Indian almost perfectly, fixing Aronian's hanging pawns. The similarity between Petrosian and Aronian is striking: both succeeding as excellent tacticians disguised as positional opening players. Petrosian often anticipated what his opponents could not even guess. Aronian thrives in positions where others may despair. Other players look at the mountains and see the peaks. Aronian sees the valleys behind the peaks. He moves his pieces in hypnotic circles, often mesmerizing his opponents. They begin playing less precisely and, as Leko did, eventually blunder.

Aronian - Leko

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 0-0 5.Bd3 d5 6.Nf3 c5 7.0-0 dxc4 8.Bxc4 Nbd7 (This Nimzo-Indian variation is named after the former junior world champion, the Slovenian grandmaster Bruno Parma.) 9.Qe2 b6 10.Rd1 (Black has to guard against the d-pawn breaks. For example, in the line 10.d5 Bxc3 11.dxe6 Ne5 12.exf7+ Kh8 13.bxc3 Bg4 14.e4 Qe7 black was holding his own.) 10...cxd4 11.exd4 Bxc3 (The exchange avoids the messy variation 11...Bb7 12.d5!? Bxc3 13.dxe6! Bxf3 14.Qxf3 Ne5 15.exf7+ Kh8 16.Rxd8 Nxf3+ 17.gxf3 Raxd8 18.bxc3 Nd5 19.Bg5 that usually leads to a draw.) 12.bxc3 Bb7 13.Bb3 (This retreat, controlling the central square d5, is a tribute to the American GM Robert Byrne who played it almost a half- century ago. Others like to play 13.Bd3, aiming the bishop toward the black king.) 13...Qc7 14.c4 Rfe8 (In the game R. Byrne-Silva Nazzari, Mar del Plata 1961, black played 14...Rfd8, but after 15.Bb2 Qf4 16.Rd3 Nf8 17.Ne5 Ng6 18.Nxg6 hxg6 19.Rad1 Rd7 20.Qe5 Qe4 21.f3 Qxe5 22.dxe5 Rxd3 23.Rxd3 Ne8 24.a4 Bc6 25.Ba3 Rc8 26.c5! white opened up the game for his bishops and won the endgame in 56 moves.) 15.Bb2 Qf4 16.Qe3 Qf5 (16...Qxe3 17.fxe3 strengthens white's center.) 17.Ne1 (The regrouping begins.) 17...b5!? (It is interesting that neutralizing the hanging pawns with the b-pawn is not mentioned in GM Ivan Sokolov's latest work "Winning Chess Middlegames -- An Essential Guide to Pawn Structures." In his otherwise excellent book, the Dutch grandmaster discusses only breaks with the e-pawn.)

18.c5 (Leko did everything right, fixing the hanging pawns. He blunted their dynamic strength by forcing one of the pawns to advance, creating a wonderful blockading square on d5. But white's bishop pair, dormant at the moment, can wake up and the passed c-pawn can sprint to the goal line.) 18...Nd5 (Black can exchange the light bishops with 18...Bd5 19.Bc2 Be4, but after 20.Bxe4 Nxe4 21.Nd3 Nef6 22.a4 white opens up the game on the queenside.) 19.Qg3 Nf4 20.Rd2 Nf6 21.f3 N6h5 22.Qf2 Bd5 23.Bc2 Qg5 24.Kh1 Bc4? (Leko is overplaying his hand, trying too hard to limit the white pieces. He should have stayed on the long diagonal with the bishop and played, for example, 24...Red8.)

25.g3 (Aronian begins pushing the black pieces back.) 25...Ng6 (Jamming the knights on the kingside is not a good idea. Maintaining the central blockade 25...Nd5, with the idea 26.Nd3 Ne3 or 26.Ng2 f5, was better.) 26.Ng2 Bd5 27.Ne3 Nf6 (After 27...Bc6 28.Be4 Ne7 29.Bxc6 Nxc6 30.d5! opening the game is in white's favor.) 28.h4!? Qh5 29.Nxd5 Nxd5?! (Black should have considered 29...Qxd5, because the queen is now trapped on the kingside.) 30.Re1 Red8 31.Rde2 Rab8 32.Bc1 (White's forces are encircling the black queen.) 32...h6 33.Kg2 Nc3?! (A tactical blunder in a difficult position.)

34.Re5! (The splendid exchange sacrifice is a creative way to unleash the pawns.) 34...Nxe5 35.Rxe5 (Aronian proceeds thematically. Others may prefer 35.dxe5, threatening 36.g4 and forcing 35...f5 36.exf6.) 35...f5 36.Bb3 Nd5 37.Rxe6 Kh8 38.Qe1 (Threatening 39.Qe5 Nf6 40.Rxf6! gxf6 41.Qxf6+ Kh7 42.Qe7+ Kh8 43.Bf4 and black is helpless against 44.Be5+.) 38...Nf6 39.Qe5 Re8 40.c6! (After breaking the blockade, the white passed pawns begin to roll.) 40...Rbc8 41.Qxb5 Qg6 42.h5! (Diverting the black queen squashes any hopes black may have.) 42...Qxh5 43.Bf4 a6 44.Qxa6 Nh7 45.c7 Ng5 46.Rxe8+ Qxe8 (After 46...Rxe8 47.Bxg5 hxg5 48.c8Q wins.)

47.d5! (It was possible to go wrong with 47.Bxg5 hxg5 48.Bf7?! Qxf7! [but not 48...Qd7 49.Qg6 and white wins] 49.Qxc8+ Kh7 and now black has drawing chances either after 50.g4 Qxa2+ 51.Kh3 Qe2!; or after 50.Kg1 Qd5 51.g4 Qxd4+ 52.Kg2 Qd2+ 53.Kh3 Qe2!) 47...Ra8 48.Qc4 Kh7 49.d6 (The connected passed pawns, supported by the bishop pair, come crashing down.) 49...Qe1 50.Qf1 Qe8 51.Qd3 Qd7 52.Qc4 Qe8 53.Bxg5 hxg5 54.Qg8+! (The clincher! After 54...Qxg8 55.Bxg8+ Kxg8 56.d7 white queens one of his pawns.) Black resigned.

The final standings of the fourth FIDE Grand Prix in Nalchik were as follows: Aronian, 8½ points in 13 games; Leko and Akopian, 7½ points; Alexander Grischuk of Russia and Etienne Bacrot of France, 7 points; Evgeny Alekseev of Russia and Boris Gelfand of Israel, 6½ points; Gata Kamsky of the United States, Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine, Peter Svidler of Russia and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan, 6 points; Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine, Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan and Pavel Eljanov of Ukraine, 5½ points.

Solution to Last Week's Puzzle

April 27: White draws by Ladislav Prokes (White: Kh4,Rf5,Ba4,P:f3; Black: Kh1,Bg2,Ne6,P:a2):

1.Rd5 Bxf3! (1...a1Q 2.Rd1+ Qxd1 3.Bxd1 draws) 2.Bc6!! a1Q (on 2...Bxd5 3.Bxd5+ Kg1 4.Bxa2 draws) 3.Rd1+! Qxd1 4.Bxf3+ Qxf3 stalemate.