Independent Pursuits: Chess

IVAN SOKOLOV increased his winning margin to two clear points in the Hastings Premier on Thursday with a victory against Jim Plaskett, to end up on 7/9. The games between Sadler and myself, Ponomariov with Shipov and Saltaev and Miles were drawn, while John Emms ultimately defeated Laurent Fressinet. That left a five-way tie for second between Emms, Ponomariov, Sadler, Shipov and me on 5/9. Plaskett, Miles and Fressinet made 3.5 and Saltaev 2.5.

In the Challengers, Bogdan Lalic was leading going into the last round but having a favourable tie-break then took a quick draw with White. Klaus Bischoff and Saidali Iudalchev both won, to catch up, and the two qualifying places for next year's Premier go to Bischoff and Lalic on tie-break. In tournaments in England, the control team always try to arrange the pairings to give people the chance of title norms and the Challengers yielded international master norms for Peter Sowray and Chris Duncan.

The World Amateur Championship ended in a tie between the Armenian Gaguik Oganessian and the Dane Dan Erichsen, with the former taking the title on tie break.

This was the 74th edition of this venerable tournament, which this time was sponsored by Hastings Borough Council with support from Onyx UK - mainly noted in chess circles for its sponsorship of the annual Grand Prix - and Castleham Industries (Hastings), which provided the programme and new demonstration boards. Long may the Hastings New Year tournaments continue!

You may think that 7/9 sounds pretty good; not to Alexander Morozevich who demolished a minusculely weaker field in Pamplona to the tune of 8/9. His margin too, was two clear points because Michal Krasenkow got 6 while Loek van Wely was third on 5.

This is how Morozevich demolished the former Women's World Champion.

In this extremely sharp line of the Scotch small differences can have a huge effect. In the diagram there has been a previous game, admittedly between hugely weaker opponents, in which White had played 15 Bg2. 15 Bh3! is an enormous improvement since if 15... d6 16 e6. Morozevich quickly got a big advantage and at the end was delivering mate.

White: Alexander Morozevich

Black: Xie Jun

Scotch Game

1 e4 e5

2 Nf3 Nc6

3 d4 exd4

4 Nxd4 Nf6

5 Nxc6 bxc6

6 e5 Qe7

7 Qe2 Nd5

8 c4 Ba6

9 b3 0-0-0

10 g3 Re8

11 Bb2 f6

12 Qd2 Nb6

13 .a4 Kb8

14 a5 Nc8(see

diagram)

15 Bh3 fxe5

16 Qxd7 Qf6

17 0-0 Bc5

18 Nc3 Nd6

19 Qxc6 Nb7

20 Qd7 Rd8

21 Nd5 Rxd7

22 Nxf6 Rd2

23 Nd7+ Ka8

24 Bxe5 Bb4

25 Bxc7 Nc5

26 Bg2+ Bb7

27 Nb6+ 1-0