Kosteniuk Kristiansund 2010 Review

Hello everyone!
I’d like to share with you my review of the recently ended Kristiansund Open, in which I only got 13th place with 4 out of 6, a result I am not happy about.

It’s all started in the second round, where I faced the Swedish GM Emanuel Berg. I’m playing Black.

We played with the time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves, plus 30 minutes till the end of the game, without any incremental time. So in the position of the diagram my opponent had about 2 minutes to finish the game while I had about 10 minutes. In the diagram position (note Black is at the bottom), instead of spending some time and finding the most precise way I started blitzing away and played an unexplainable

54. … Kf5?? and after 55. Nxe4! white won the game after

55…Kxe4 56.h6 Ng5 57.Kb5 Kf5 58.Kxa5 Kg6 59.Kb6 Ne4 60.Kc6

Nxf2 61.a5 Nd3 62.Kb5 1-0

Instead of 54. … Kf5??, I should have played 54…Nxf2! 55.h6 ( 55.Nxe4 doesn’t win here Nxe4 56.h6 Nd6+ 57.Kc5 Nf7 58.h7 Ke5 59.Kb6 Kd6 60.Kxa5 Kc5 with a draw) e3 56.Nd5+ Kg5 57.h7 e2 58.h8=Q e1=Q and even though Black has to be precise here, he has big chances to make a draw.

After such a disappointing start I couldnt find enough strength to focus on the third game which was played on the same afternoon and lost it as well. Even though after this I was able to finish with 3 out of 3, my overall result was just 4 out of 6.

Here is a nice tactical blow from the 5th round, where I was playing White against Rune Normann:

The game started with the Dragon variation, Black wasn’t careful enough and let me (White) start a very dangerous attack.

Can you find the way for White to finish the game?


Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women’s World Chess Champion
www.chessqueen.com

Tags: kosteniuk chess, kristiansund
Posted in Chess | 3 Comments »