Nutcracker Classical 2015

“The Nutcracker Match of the Generations takes place in Moscow 20th to 25th December 2015. A team of “Kings” Boris Gelfand, Peter Leko, Evgeniy Najer, Alexander Morozevich plays a Scheveningen classical and rapid chess match against a team of Russian “Princes” Vladislav Artemiev, Ivan Bukavshin, Mikhail Antipov and Grigoriy Oparin.-TWIC”

Leko won a nice Semi-Slav as White

Leko-Bukavshin after 31..Qe7(diagram)

After 31..Qe7

White should have played the crushing 32.Qg4! but instead Leko went for the prophylactic King shuffle 32.Kh2 and ground out a technical ending.

Najdorf 6.h3(B90)

Giri had an interesting novelty as early as move 9 in rd2 of the Qatar Masters.

Grandelius-Giri

9.f5(diagram)

After 9.f5

Giri played 9..Bd7!?N the point is not immediately clear. The bishop supports ..b5 and after ..b4, the bishop later resurfaced after ..Bb5.

Later in the game after 25.Kb1(diagram)

After 25.Kb1

Black got a big attack going after 25..a4

The Closed Spanish

The game Konguvel-Bok  shows how Black can generate chances for Black.

After 24.Rf1(diagram)

After 24.Rf1

Black got kingside play with 24..Qh4

Sicilian Paulsen/Kan

The 7.Qf3 line is the big fashion now.

Ponomariov-Ly

White finally got the kingside attack going and broke through eventually.

After 37..Nd7(diagram)

37..Nd7