I follow the footsteps and chess tips of the professional chess grandmaster Bogdan Lalic (Croatia)…
“I only drew in the 3rd round of London League despite being White and
playing the player of grade 195 and elo 2092. He was very tough, an inactive player from Catalunya, now living in England and who stopped to play chess for some years but was one of the most promising juniors in Barcelona when he was about 20 years old.
I was close to winning but he kept finding all the time the only moves in his time scramble and then I could see nothing else that allowing move repetition because he was
too active.
The last sequence of moves I started to play worse because he made me tired with all those best defences, I almost became angry why he is defending so well.
In short I could not believe my eyes, I am just not accustomed to see 2100 elo players playing like that, but maybe in the West that had now become a rule rather than an exception. Terrible to which state chess was brought by bloody computers.”
GM Lalic, Bogdan (2492) – Pi Pares, Alberto (2092) DRAW
“How difficult it is to keep Elo up nowadays shows my statistic from elo rated games for the period from May 2010 to December 2013, more than 3,5 years, In that period my lowest Elo was 2454 ( November 2011 ) while my highest Elo was 2507 ( May 2012 ).
In that period I first fell down from 2496 to 2454 then I recovered to 2507 and then I dropped again and all together I lost 7 Elo points ( so on average was about 2488 or so ).
In that period I played 72 different competitions and 564 Elo rated games from which I won 210 games, drew 337 games and lost 17 games ( 15 times with black: twice to GM Grachev and twice to GM Saric Ivan and onces to GMs Melkumyan, Inarkiev, Shanava, Radulski, Jones, Buhmann, Martinovic Sasa, Gurevich Mikhail, Hracek, Corri Jorge and once to FM Tesic Csaba ), and 2 times with White ( to GM Shomoev and to IM Franco Alonso ).
This just shows how competitive chess is nowadays and how difficult it is to keep Elo up and why so many GMs had dropped with Elo even to 2400.”
“In my days when I used to play a lot of chess in the 1990tees, chess used to be a good profession for gentlemen, good hotels, conditions, etc., even prizes. Now chess is a profession not for gentlemen, but for TRAMPS, that is a sad truth about chess in the 21st century. There are many reasons why it is like that, but it so, we have to hear the reality of the so called chess profession.”
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“You know what I cannot understand and will never understand:
1) The game Gashimov-Gelfand, Black just does one mistake 10…0-0? instead of 10…Bxf5 and loses in 16 moves after 11 Nxg7!
2) The game Gashimov-Grischuk, Black just did one mistake ( we cannot talk about mistake as the choice of variation ), his mistake is 18…gxf3 but anyway his position is already clearly worse, at the end 1-0 in 33 moves.
3) The game Gashimov-Lalic,B 1-0 in 25 moves, I really do not see where is my mistake in this game!!! Is it a mistake 8…Nxc3 instead of 8…Bf5? Not really, 8…Bf5 is more accurate but it requires knowing a lots of opening theory also, after 8…Bf5 9 Qe1 0-0 10 Nxe4 dxe4 11 Bxe4 Bb4 12 c3 Re8 which can sacrifice a queen after 13 Bxf5 Rxe1 14 Rxe1 with good compensation for a queen ( Rook, Bishop plus a pawn ).
Later, is my 10…h6 a mistake? Not really, computer gives as better moves 10…Re8 or 10…Be6 but even houddini gives as 10…h6 as third best move by me ( not much worse that those frist two choices ). The move is preparing Be7-d6 and …Qd8-f6 so that he can never sacrifice on h6 after Be3 and Qd2.
Up to move 18 all chess programms give for me as at least equal position ( very slight advantage for me due to better pawn structure ). However after he plays 19 Rf4 I am lost in all variations because I cannot prevent Rf6 sacrifice of the rook!!!
Ok, Gelfand and Grischuk did some mistake which you can pinpoint ( 10…0-0 and 18…gxf3? but I did not and still went down in 25 moves how is that possible???
We played on the 1st board in Cappelle la Grande 8th round and I remember I was very angry at the time, I was convinced that Gashimov then used computer and that felling stayed all the time. Either I played against a complete genius or I do not know, but the game is surreal, I scientifically proved that this is not possible, to lose like a patzer without commiting any obvious mistake. Or maybe we are just now living in another time for chess, I do not know.”
GM Gashimov-GM Gelfand 1:0
GM Gashimov-GM Grischuk 1:0
GM Gashimov-GM Lalic 1:0
This rook sacrifice against GM Lalic has happened before and is not a new idea of GN Gashimov.
After doing some research it is safe to say, that Gashimov had seen this sort of combination before as it has happened a few times in other games in the past. Replay the games below and see for yourself.
Flip Board: Press F-Key (or click e7 or d2 on top)
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