Our Mentor In Action

Andrei Istatrescu, the founder of ICS and the head trainer is playing in the prestigious Hastings tournament in the UK right now, and seems to be doing well, so far sharing equal first after six rounds even beating pre tournament favourite David Howell with black in a French Defence, although he deviated from the ICS recommended line on move 9!

It looks to be an interesting tournament with chessbase instructor Andrew Martin making a rare tournament appearance too.

Good post. Any links?

Here is the official site.

http://www.hastingschess.org.uk/

They have all of the games from every round in pgn form.

It's great to see Andrei doing well. I'd also like to see young David Howell up there at the end too. Hopefully one of them can snatch the win at the end although its very, very close at the top right now with 5 or 6 players equal first with two rounds to play.

I looked at the game on round 4 against D.Breder.



Till move 7 both players are in the book, then it is a bit unusual, we can notice that white is doing a weird knight manoeuver in order to create piece superiority on the kingside, while in the same time open the 'd' file for his rook.

This allows black to seize the initiative, and you can see that from move 9 till 23, black has a great initiative and make all the threats first, white is in defensive mode, and a bit behind since his king is still on the center.



I think the strategic move of the game is move 24. c5, O-O is still delayed because 'e4' pawn is hanging (attacked by 2N+Q), and again because of this pawn, Nxc3 doesn't bring much since white Q cannot take back 'c3' pawn safely (Ne4 strong knight, and if captured by the bishop, black Q recapture giving nasty check to the exposed king).

Anyway Nxc3 is possible, but the 'c3' cannot be recaptured right now, and black is a bit better. I think this is the reason why Istatrescu went for 'c5' trying to dynamize its play.

+1.23 Bd6xc5 00 Bg4xf3 g2xf3 Bc5d4 Nb1xc3 b4xc3 Qb2a3 Nf6h5 Qa3a5

According to chess engine, this pawn push is quite risky, because Bxc5 let the initiative to black, with good potential revealed by this line and the 'c3' passed and protected pawn, which at GM level is a very decisive advantage.

Nevertheless what's interesting in this game is that black captured with its queen, and the physionomy of the game completely changed.

Just autoplay the game from move 24 till 38, not analysing, just looking, it's obvious that initiative is now clearly in white's hands, and black has now a defensive role.



Even if engines are analysing the position as more or less equal after this serie of moves, i think the game is pretty much finished here. White king is now safe, 'c' file is terrific, pair of bishops, and Bd5 is very strong right in the middle of the board.

And if you look at the next moves till the end, you can see that black has no obvious plan, he tries to complicate the endgame by some tricks, but his pieces are doing pendulum, revealing he is not really at ease with the position, while in the same time white is able to push some pawns...

I'm interested in comments regarding 24.c5 Qxc5 consequences, because i do not fully understand how this single move completely changes the nature of the game. :-)

I just glanced through the game and I agree I'm suprised he recaptured with the queen.

I've not run it through an engine so don't know how computers assess the position but certainly taking with the queen seems wrong on principle at a glance, as the Queen is exposed to the rook after Nxc3 and then Rxc3.

Furthermore obviously a recapture with the bishop prevents White taking the pawn on c3 after Nxc3 bxc3 due to the rook being pinned to the king.

I wonder what Andrei's plan was had Black played Bxc5 instead?

I might try and have a look at the game when I get time later, looks interesting.

Great to see a nice victory from our God.

I should have gone and chatted to him - never had the chance as I was playing in the weekend section alongside, so 3 games on the Sat, 2 on the Sunday. He did have a lovely miniature against Bates' Kings Indian.

Very nice !

He finally finished the tournament in 1st position, ex-aequo with GM Hebden (performance of the later is good, since he was only 7 on the rating list 100 below the top), sharing a 1200 £ price.

Huzzahhh!!! Al hail Istatrescu!!!