We studied the first three encounters between Van Wely and Radjabov in last week's KID Bayonet attack article. Let us continue to discuss the remaining games of these players. In their constant battle for "The Pursuit of Satisfaction" by which we mean the perfect opening preparation, they have taken this opening into great depth. The following games will show how each of the players comes up with fresh and fascinating ideas to outdo their opponent in Opening play.
As we can see so far, the score has been heavily in favor of the young Azeri GM: he is leading 3 to 1. It is time for Van Wely to show some of his own magic now! The next game Van Wely choses to vary a little early from their previous encounters.
So with that we come to the last encounter between these two champs. With the score now 3-2 still in favor of Radjabov, Van Wely comes up with the perfect equaliser and this time again, he decides to vary first, not giving his opponent a chance to show his improvement over the previous game.
Van Wely made it look pretty easy in the last one, thanks to his strong novelty on move number 20. There are several other fascinating games played by these two experts in this opening against other strong Grand Masters, however we believe that this unofficial match (3-3 so far) between these two to conquer the KID Bayonet would be of interest to the readers. We are definitely looking forward to more such dramatical encounters between them and would update our readers when we get our next chance in the Bayonet.
Also this brings up an interesting point regarding modern opening theory. It is evident that computer engines play a huge role in helping players work on razor sharp positions. Not that these amazing players need the computers for finding the moves, but if you run the computer engine while watching these games, you will find that most of their moves are the best choices available and suggested by the computers themselves! The main thing is it saves time for us in preparing openings. We have to deal with many openings, with many being broken down to move 20 and still going on much further.
With ourselves being a combination of styles in opening study, Magesh being more of an old school (less use of engines) and me being more of the computer generation, we suggest to our readers to maintain a fine balance. Computers can be very handy in strongly tactical and complex positions; at the same time, if we start depending on them too much, it can make you lazy enough not to calculate them yourself.