Nakamura Beats Gelfand

All Things Chess
1

[Event “World Team Chess Championship 2010”]
[Site “Bursa/Turkey”]
[Date “2010.01.09”]
[Round “5”]
[White “Gelfand Boris”]
[Black “Nakamura Hikaru”]
[Result “0-1”]
[ECO “E97”]
[WhiteElo “2761”]
[BlackElo “2708”]
[Annotator “Robot 4”]
[PlyCount “66”]
[EventDate “2010.??.??”]
[WhiteTeam “ISR”]
[BlackTeam “USA”]
[BlackTeamCountry “USA”]
[TimeControl “40/5400+30:1800+30”]

  1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5
    Ne7 9. Nd2 Ne8 10. b4 f5 11. c5 Nf6 12. f3 f4 13. Nc4 g5 14. a4 Ng6 15. Ba3 Rf7
  2. b5 dxc5 17. Bxc5 h5 18. a5 g4 19. b6 g3 20. Kh1 Bf8 21. d6 axb6 22. Bg1 Nh4
  3. Re1 Nxg2 24. dxc7 Nxe1 25. Qxe1 g2+ 26. Kxg2 Rg7+ 27. Kh1 Bh3 28. Bf1 Qd3
  4. Nxe5 Bxf1 30. Qxf1 Qxc3 31. Rc1 Qxe5 32. c8=Q Rxc8 33. Rxc8 Qe6 0-1
2

I don’t know the refutation of 24. Kxg2 . I guess that was the key point in the game; Gelfand played 23. Re1 expecting to be able to play 24. Bf1.

3

After staring at it a bit more, what I can see is

  1. Kxg2 h4 (the knight was blocking this pawn last move) and then
  2. h3 Bxh3+ 26. Kxh3, Qd7+ 27. Kg2 h3+ or
  3. Bd3 (so the king can escape) Ng4 (threatening gxh2) 26. fxg4 f3+ 27. Qxf3 (27. Kf1 g2+ 28. Kf2 Qh4+ 29. Ke3 Bh6++) Rxf3 28 Kxf3. White could also try 26. h3.

Interested in what others think.

4

In his notes to the game published today, Nakamura says 24…Rg7 (like a previous game of Charbonneau I didn’t know about) and doesn’t mention 24…h4.

So is h4 worse?