Shirov misses opening novelty on YouTube

In his chess column of yesterday, in the Dutch quality newspaper NRC, Hans Ree writes about my site and about 'the effect of YouTube for chess players'. What is the case? On one of my videos that I made during the Essent Tournament a piece of the post-mortem of Polgar-Mamedyarov can be seen. Mamedyarov shows Polgar how she could (and should?) have drawn the game. In the first round of the Tal Memorial the game Shirov-Mamedyarov ended in a draw, exactly like Mamedyarov had shown to Polgar. If Shirov would have known about my video, he would certainly have played the game differently.

So Ree discovered that the opening novelty that Mamedyarov used to draw Shirov easily, was already known at Youtube. Ree in the NRC: ?¢‚Ǩ?ìShirov would have recognized what Mamedyarov was showing, if he would have had the ridiculous idea of searching on YouTube. Polgar and Mamedyarov knew they were being filmed, but Mamedyarov probably didn't realize that, as a result, his opening preparation would end up in the shop window.?¢‚Ǩ?

This was of course because I didn't tell the players I was planning to put the images on the internet. Stricktly speaking, I didn't need to ask for permission, because the tournament organisation allowed me to film in the press room. But maybe I should have asked the players anyway.

Ree continues to write: ?¢‚Ǩ?ìIt's a strange thought: in the future players who are preparing for a game, will have to enter the name of their opponent at YouTube to look for an instructive video.?¢‚Ǩ? I don't think it will end up like this. However, if more and more people will have cell phones that can make videos, and YouTube's success will keep on growing in 2007 like it did this year?¢‚Ǩ¬¶

Here the moves we were talking about and the video again.

Closed Ruy Lopez, Breyer Variation

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3 O-O 9. h3 Nb8 10. d4 Nbd7 11. Nbd2 Bb7 12. Bc2 Re8 13. Nf1 Bf8 14. Ng3 g6 15. b3 d5 16. Bg5 h6 17. Bh4 g5 18. Nxg5 hxg5 19. Bxg5 exd4 20. e5 Rxe5 21. Rxe5 Nxe5 22. cxd4 Nc6



23. Ph5

This move leads to a draw, as Mamedyarov showed Polgar in my video. Judit Polgar played 23. Nf5 and lost.

What Mamedyarov is showing in the video are the moves 23. Nh5 Be7 24. Bxf6 Bxf6 25. Qd3 Kf8 26. Qh7 Bxd4 27. Qh6+ Ke8 28. Te1+ Ne5 which leads to the following position.



After Mamedyarov moved this knight to e5 in the video, he holds the knight a bit longer, like he's saying to Polgar: 'after this crucial move White has nothing more than a draw.' And this is precisely what happened in Shirov-Mamedyarov, Tal Memorial (1) 2006: 29. Bf5 Qd6 30. Qg5 c5 31. Nf6+ Kd8 32. Nxd5+ Ke8 33. Nf6+ Kd8 34. Nd5+ draw.

Here the video again; the post-mortem starts after 1 minute and 57 seconds.



The theoretical discussion of this opening variation continued today because Grischuk came up with the move 23. Qd3 and he got quite far against Mamedyarov (see the analysis with some comments by IM Deviatkin, Chess Today).