February 17, 2002 Shattering a Maginot Line To Get Grandmaster Status Related Articles Chess Column Archive
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LESIEGE/BLACK NAKAMURA/WHITE
Position after 32...Kh3 The Bermuda Invitational Tournament at the Fairmont Southampton Princess Hotel Jan. 21 to Jan. 30 ended in a three-way tie for first among the grandmaster Giovanni Vescovi of Brazil and the international masters Hikaru Nakamura of Westchester and Leif Erland Johannessen of Norway. They each scored 6-3 in the nine-round event, which was the premier part of the yearly chess celebration in Bermuda. Both Nakamura, who is 14 and the United States junior champion, and Johannessen got grandmaster norms for their achievements. The most brilliant game of the tourney was Nakamura's victory over the Canadian grandmaster Alexandre Lesiege in the first round. Nakamura started aggressively against Lesiege's Najdorf Sicilian Defense, and just when it looked as though the Canadian had set up a Maginot Line, Nakamura went right through it with a superpowerful rook sacrifice. Beautiful. A Golod-Kaspi game in Maccabia last year veered off after 8 Qd2 Nbd7 9 f3, with 9...h5 10 O-O-O Qc7 11 Kb1 Be7 12 g3 O-O-O 13 Nd5 Nd5 14 ed Bf5 15 Bd3, the idea being that 15...Bd3 can be met strongly by 16 cd and an attack on the c line. | |
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