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GM Nigel Short Lecture and Simultaneous Exhibition

Lecture

In his lecture, an endgame lesson which was both helpful and entertaining, Nigel analysed a game played earlier this year between himself and Portuguese GM Antonio Fernandes in Luanda, Angola.

Needing only a half point, Black opened with the Petroff (Nigel has promised to ban it, if he is ever made FIDE president, or at least to require players “to pay a fine to their opponents for playing such boring stuff”). Black continued, through the middlegame, playing what Nigel described as “vacuum chess” (trying to “hoover up all the pieces” to reach a draw).

In the endgame, the focus of his presentation, Nigel showed how, as White, he pressed for extra space (“space, the final frontier”) and used subtle manoeuvres (and impressively deep analysis) to pull out the full point.

Here’s the game (with Nigel’s annotations):

White: Short,Nigel (2682)
Black: Fernandes,Antonio (2404)

2011.05.22 Cuca Open (6)
Luanda

C42 Petroff
[Nigel]

Simultaneous Exhibition

In the simul, Nigel played 32 games simultaneously. He won 28, drew 3, and lost only 1. But guess which game we’re going to focus on :) (Apparently, even grandmasters don’t always look out for queen checks.) Actually, many of Nigel’s wins were brutal crushes; he blew some of his opponents right off the board! We’ll try to show some of that destruction soon, to give a more balanced view of things.

White: GM Short, Nigel (2698)
Black: Lawless, David (2055)

2011.09.19 ACC Simultaneous (28)
Toronto, ON

C80 Ruy Lopez

ACC Simultaneous Exhibition Player List

#	Name	CFC#	CFC Rating	Result
1	Jeff Back	111052	2009	0
2	IA David Cohen	100234	1904	0
3	Joel Graham	152317	1799	0
4	Yuanchen Zhang	148449	1961	0
5	Lawrence Garcia	106367	1433	0
6	Jim Mourgelas	108540	1485	0
7	Derick Aghamalian	146782	1604	0
8	Hayk Oganesyan	152587	1332	0
9	Evnato Frias	152975	1125	0
10	Gerhard Gross			0
11	WCM Jiaxin Liu	149747	1502	0
12	Kevin Noble			0
13	Rhys Goldstein	110906	2005	0
14	Daniel Wiebe	132137	1996	0
15	Hugh Siddeley	120619	2024	0
16	Ken Kurkowski	104537	1601	0
17	Jean-Marc David	151900	1127	0
18	Daniel Zotkin	146857	1689	0
19	FM Brett Campbell	101324	2251	½
20	Leif Becker	101244	2047	0
21	Rayleigh Becker	151788	1301	0
22	Stuart Brammall	145597	1959	0
23	Christopher Knox	136503	2048	0
24	Arkadiy Ugodnikov	146626	1842	0
25	Alejandro Renteria	152628	1434	½
26	Daniel Aparicio	149967	2058	0
27	Kevin Gaffney	102701	1632	0
28	David Lawless	112068	2055	1
29	Zehn Nasir	148198	1841	½
30	Manuela Renteria	152627	1750	0
31	Wajdy Shebetah	148432	2124	0
32	George Supol	152286	1404	0
#	Name	CFC#	Rating	Result

.pgn for games

[Event “Cuca Open”]
[Site “Luanda, Angola”]
[Date “2011.05.22”]
[Round “6”]
[White “Short, Nigel”]
[Black “Fernandes, Antonio”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “C42”]
[Annotator “Nigel”]
[PlyCount “113”]
[SourceDate “2011.09.27”]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Bd3 Nf6 6.h3 Be7 7.c3 Nbd7 8.Bc2 0-0 9.d4 Re8 10.0-0 Nf8 11.Re1 Be6 12.Nbd2 c6 13.Nf1 N6d7 14.Bf4 d5 15.Qd2 Ng6 16.Bg3 Ndf8 17.Re2 Bd6 18.Rae1 f6 19.h4 Qc7 20.Bxd6 Qxd6 21.g3 Nh8 22.Ne3 Qd7 23.h5 Nf7 24.Nh4 Nh6 25.f3 Qc7 26.Kf2 Qf7 (26… Bf7 27.Nef5 Nxf5 28.Nxf5 Rxe2+ 29.Qxe2 Re8 30.Ne7+ Kh8 31.Bg6!! Nxg6 32.hxg6 Bg8 33.Qe3) 27.g4 Qc7 28.Neg2 Bd7 29.Qf4 Rxe2+ 30.Rxe2 Qxf4 31.Nxf4 Re8 32.Rxe8 Bxe8 33.Bd3 Bd7 34.c4 Ne6 35.Nxe6 Bxe6 36.c5 Nf7 37.b4 Bd7 38.a4 a6 39.Ke3 Nd8 40.Nf5 Bxf5 41.Bxf5 h6 42.Bc8 Kf7 43.Kf4 Ne6+ 44.Ke3 Nd8 45.Kf2 Ke7 46.Kg3 Kf7 47.Kh4 Ke7 48.f4 a5? (48… Kf7 49.g5 Ke7 (49… fxg5+ 50.fxg5 hxg5+ 51.Kxg5 Ke7 52.Kg6 Kf8 53.Kf5 Ke7 54.Ke5 Nf7+ 55.Kf4 Nd8 56.Kf5 Kf7 57.Ke5 Ke7 58.b5 axb5 59.axb5 Nf7+ 60.Kf5 Nd8 61.Bxb7 Nxb7 62.bxc6 Na5 63.c7 Kd7 64.Kg6 Nc6 65.Kxg7 Nxd4 66.Kf6+-) 50.Kg4 Ke8 51.gxh6 gxh6 52.Kf5 Kf7 53.a5 Kg7 54.Bxb7+-) 49.bxa5 Ne6 50.Bxb7 Kd7 51.a6 Kc7 52.Ba8 Nd8 53.a7 Nb7 54.Kg3 Kc8 55.a5 1-0

[Event “ACC Simultaneous”]
[Site “Toronto, Canada”]
[Date “2011.09.19”]
[Round “?”]
[White “Short, Nigel”]
[Black “Lawless, David”]
[Result “0-1”]
[ECO “C80”]
[WhiteElo “2698”]
[BlackElo “2055”]
[PlyCount “84”]
[SourceDate “2011.09.20”]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Nxe4 6. d4 b5 7. Bb3 d5 8. dxe5
Be6 9. Re1 Bc5 10. Be3 O-O 11. c3 Qd7 12. Nbd2 Bxe3 13. Rxe3 Nc5 14. Nd4 Ne7
15. Bc2 Bg4 16. N2f3 Ng6 17. h3 Bxf3 18. Qxf3 Ne6 19. Rd1 c6 20. Nf5 Rae8 21.
h4 f6 22. exf6 Rxf6 23. Qg4 Ngf8 24. Rde1 Rg6 25. Qf3 Rf6 26. Qh3 Rd8 27. h5
Nf4 28. Qg4 N4e6 29. b4 Qf7 30. g3 Kh8 31. f4 Rd7 32. Nd4 Rd6 33. Nf3 Rh6 34.
Re5 Nd7 35. Rf5 Nf6 36. Ng5 Qa7+ 37. Kg2 Nxg4 38. Rxe6 Qb8 39. Re7 Rhf6 40.
Nf7+ Kg8 41. Nxd6 Qxd6 42. Re2 Re6 0-1