GM Alexandr Predke (SRB, 2598) vs GM Peng Li Min (SUI, 2568) · ½-½
Board 1, Switzerland vs Serbia · Italian Game, Two Knights Defence, Modern System with 4.d3 (C55) · 90 minutes for 40 moves, then 30 minutes, plus 30 seconds per move
By Professor Zugzwang AI Coach . This analysis was written by a Bogner Chess AI coach.
Round nine, table eleven, Switzerland against Serbia, both teams on eleven match points. Peng Li Min sat with Black on the top board across from GM Alexandr Predke, 2598, an established tournament grandmaster thirty rating points above him and with the choice of weapon. Predke reached for the quietest thing the Italian has to offer: , the slow Italian, the system in which White holds a small structural edge, keeps the queens on into the middlegame, and waits for the opponent to hand out half a pawn too many.
Thirty-two moves and roughly an hour of thinking later, the position on the board was an opposite-coloured bishop endgame in which neither side could force anything with the pawns that were left. There is no single big mistake in this game; there is the twentieth move, which cost Peng twenty-eight minutes on the clock, and the four moves after it that already made the endgame visible. It was the third grandmaster draw of this tournament, after rounds three and six, and the quietest of the three.
The freeing break: 13...d5
Twelve moves of book and a set of manoeuvres in which both sides have ticked off everything familiar: the white bishop pins the knight from b5, the black knight retreats to d7, and the d5 square stays contested. The move to play now can be written in one line: the d-pawn goes to d5, because at least it stands there once instead of waiting twenty moves for the chance.
accepts that White will answer and double the black pawns, which is exactly what happened. The price is roughly a third of a pawn, the return is the bishop pair and a centre Black is no longer only guarding. The alternative stood a fifth of a pawn worse; both moves take the position on, only the pawn push clears the centre.
The rule: in the slow Italian, the side playing for equality does not wait for the moment when the break is safe, it plays the break in the moment when it is possible. The alternative is twenty moves of standing a fraction too small.
GM Alexandr Predke (SRB, 2598)
GM Peng Li Min (SUI, 2568)
The move that ate the clock: 20...c5
After the exchange in the centre, which White set off with and which cleared the pawns on f6, e5 and d5 in three moves, the position is settled: White is a pawn up, Black has two bishops and the open b-file. Anyone who takes their ease here loses slowly to the rest of the game.
Nearly two thirds of masters at this board play a queen move here, usually or , and put the queen on an active square. Peng did not. He thought for twenty-eight minutes and played . The pawn steps next to its own d-pawn, turns the doubtful isolani into a future passed pawn, and the queen is asked to wait. Of every move he made on this day, that was the one on which he spent nearly a third of his clock.
The rule behind it is often waved through: with the bishop pair down a pawn, activity does not come from a better queen, it comes from better pawns. A queen without a break is only one more piece in the crowd; a break without a queen can rearrange a whole position.
GM Alexandr Predke (SRB, 2598)
GM Peng Li Min (SUI, 2568)
The plan behind 20...c5: 22...d4
Two moves after the long think it was clear what belonged to. White had walked the rook from a3 across the third rank to e3 to double on the e-file; Peng answered with , the move the c-pawn had made possible. The pawn steps to a square no knight can reach any more, and it becomes a passed pawn with the c-pawn covering its back.
The rest is calculation: , a sequence Peng handled in four moves and rather less than seven minutes. The dark-squared bishop trades itself for the white knight, White's kingside picks up a pawn cluster it will not sort out again, and the rook on e4 sits in the way of the black battery. White stands about an eighth of a pawn better here; a second chance is not going to come out of this position.
The rule: a passed pawn is not there to advance itself, it is there to make the opponent spend moves stopping it. As long as White has to guard the d-pawn, he cannot put the rest of his position in order, and in those moves you play what you decided on before.
GM Alexandr Predke (SRB, 2598)
GM Peng Li Min (SUI, 2568)
The rooks leave the e-file: 25.Qg4
At the end of the twenty-fifth move White had twelve minutes forty-six seconds on the clock, Peng had thirty-two minutes forty-eight. One look at his own clock explained the move: offered the queen trade in a position in which White could not win any of the pawns and the d-pawn could only be stopped by the bishop. Without time for an attack, only the trade is left.
Peng took it, because with the queens off the black pieces are the stronger set. : the rooks leave the board in pairs, and what is left is the opposite-coloured bishop ending. The white bishop on d2 sees the dark squares, the black bishop on d5 sees the light ones; neither can really work on the other side's pawns.
The rest is arithmetic: , each side eats its way to one of the opponent's pawns and the material is even again. Opposite-coloured bishops with symmetric material and no passed pawn on the colour of one of the bishops are not an endgame you win, they are one you no longer lose. White offered a draw, Black accepted.
GM Alexandr Predke (SRB, 2598)
GM Peng Li Min (SUI, 2568)
Verdict
Half a point on board one with Black against a grandmaster rated 2598, thirty points above him, and one move, , that shows how a strong player steers a quiet game when he cannot win it and must not lose it. Predke had reached for the quietest weapon in his repertoire and got the quietest answer to it. The third grandmaster draw of the tournament, after the tactical one in round three and the defensive one in round six, and the only one in which both sides saw where the position was going before the moves came. On board one of a Swiss team, that is the half point the other three boards then carry the rest of the way.
Moves
½-½
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