Since we didn’t have one of these . . . a couple of thoughts after having had a chance to follow along:
Onishuk is making it look easy, although the position sure seemed messy for awhile - I’ve played these types of positions with white, and I always have the nagging suspicion I’m about to fall of a cliff.
Kamsky is a grinding machine, and he can so ‘effortlessly’ defuse counterplay. Wow, two wins in a row with black - and probably another one tomorrow . . .
I didn’t think Akobian ever had anything. Maybe I’m being too hard on the guy, but his games have seemed the least interesting to me of the US team members so far.
Robson did a nice job defending a cramped position with a bad kingside pawn structure. If you had told me around move 30 that the game would end up drawn, I would have been just fine with that result. There must be a reason that white’s line isn’t as popular against the ‘Berlin Wall’ but white seemed to have a small but persistent pull out of the opening.
It’s ok - I was probably the guilty party. It’s been fun to follow along on some of the games. Once Onishuk won his pawn (and Robson got the queens off), I found myself finding ‘the thread’ more often than not. Kamsky, however - in many places I simply had no clue how things were going to continue. Just goes to show that 2700s play a different form of chess.
11.c3 is rather pedestrian, and Robson seemed to improve with 11.Bf4. That said, perhaps black should follow along with the above, and after 11…Rxe1 12.Qxe1 play 12…Nf5. While 12…Ne8 hopes to reroute the knight, after 13.Nc3 black can’t play …d5 because of his loose knight after 14.Nxd5, so he has to settle for 13…d6 14.Nd5 when white has a risk-free spatial edge and the opportunity to claim the two bishops.
