Magical Morozevich

Alexander Morozevich lead his team Tomsk-400 to a win in the European Club Cup 2006. Tomsk-400, seeded third with an average elo of 2654, defeated strong teams including the creme de la creme of European chess players such as Svidler, Grischuk, Radjabov, Gelfand and Rublevsky. Morozevich scored 4 out of 5, only losing to Radjabov who has a similar uncompromising style as "Moro". Morozevich is a highly talented and original player who rather depends on his own intuition than on books or teachers. He often dazzles his opponents with unorthodox moves that make them loose track. A nice example is his game against Kiril Georgiev, a strong grandmaster from Bulgaria. Morozevich gets little to nothing out of the opening but then at move 23 he defends his knight with a highly original move and starts his magic:

(298) Morozevich,Alexander (2747) - Georgiev,Kiril (2680) [C45]
22nd European Club Cup 2006 (3), 10.10.2006

Analysis with Rybka 2.1o 32-bit

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Be3 Qf6 6.c3 Nge7 7.Nc2 Bxe3 8.Nxe3 Qe5 9.Nd2 d5 10.Bd3 dxe4 11.Bxe4 Be6 12.Qc2 0-0-0 13.Nf3 Qb5 14.b4 Rhe8 15.a4 Qh5 16.0-0 f5 17.Bxc6 Nxc6 18.b5 Na5 19.Nd4 f4 20.Nef5 Bxf5 21.Nxf5 Qg6 22.Rae1 Kb8 Diagram




23.Re4! and the Knight can not be captured because of mate or loss of the Queen ...f3 24.g3 b6?! [24...Nb3! was stronger, bringing the Knight into play] 25.Rf4 Re2 26.Qb1 Rdd2 27.Rxf3 Rb2 28.Qd1 Red2 29.Qa1 Ra2 30.Qe1 Re2 31.Qc1 Kb7 32.Qf4 and somewhere, somehow Georgiev has lost the initiative and has to face a counterattack instead ...Nb3 33.Rd3 Qe6 34.Rd8 Rad2 35.Rh8 Qe4 36.Nd6+ cxd6 37.Qf8 Qe8 38.Qxe8 1-0