Saturday is the 11th and final round of the European Championship at Plovdiv, Bulgaria, from where the top games will be shown free online, starting 10am BST, as England's Gawain Jones battles to qualify for next year's $1.2m World Cup. With two rounds left, Jones was eighth, half a point behind the leaders and well inside the minimum 23 World Cup places.
Jones, 24, the England No4, was seeded No60 but made a brilliant start as the only player to win his first four games. His technical ace was the Dragon Sicilian, a dynamic counter-attacking system for Black used by England's first grandmaster Tony Miles and a UK speciality. Jones's fourth-round opponent, Boris Savchenko of Russia, took on the Dragon but was outplayed in a battle of queens and rooks which ended with this week's puzzle.
Though Jones then slowed up with draws, his 5.5/7 total with four rounds to go was only half a point behind the sole leader. His next pairing was Black against the top seed Fabiano Caruana, Italy's fast-rising and ambitious 19-year-old world No6 whose recent exploits were detailed here on 17 March. The Englishman was under pressure but he found resources and drew the ending in 41 moves.
In Thursday's ninth round Jones blundered early against Andrei Volokitin of Ukraine, recovered fully, went wrong again into a dead lost endgame, then escaped with half a point in 83 moves.
The championship is being staged under the International Chess Federation (Fide)'s draconian rule where a player not present at the board at the start of a round is penalised by an automatic zero. So last Saturday the organisers were careful to warn competitors that the clocks were about to go forward for summer time. Georgia does not have daylight saving and their contingent misunderstood the announcement, put their clocks back one hour and were defaulted en masse at the start of the next round.
This game between two of the world's best teenagers is significant because Ukraine's Illya Nyzhnyk, 15, is lower rated and younger than the Dutch champion Anish Giri, 17, but still won convincingly. Black chose a sharp line (9...Nd5 is solid), then underrated White's 19 h4 attack by 20...Nd3? (f5! 21 exf6 Nxf6 22 Qh4 h6). The shot 26 d5! plans exd5 27 Kg2! unpinning the f3 bishop and followed by Qc8+ winning. Black resigned due to Ke8 (or Qxg7 30 hxg7+ Kxg7 31 e7) 30 Be4 Qxe6 31 Qh8+ Kd7 32 Qxh7+ and wins.
I Nyzhnyk v A Giri
1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 d5 4 Nc3 c6 5 g3 dxc4 6 Bg2 b5 7 Ne5 a6 8 a4 Bb7 9 O-O Be7 10 axb5 axb5 11 Rxa8 Bxa8 12 Nxb5 cxb5 13 Bxa8 O-O 14 Bg2 Nd5 15 f4 Bd6 16 e3 Bxe5 17 fxe5 Nc6 18 Qg4 Qd7 19 h4 Ncb4 20 h5 Nd3 21 h6 f5 22 exf6 Rxf6 23 Bxd5 Rxf1+ 24 Kxf1 Qf7+ 25 Bf3 Nxc1 26 d5 Nd3 27 dxe6 Qe7 28 Bd5 Kf8 29 Qxg7+ 1-0
3247 1...Qf5+! 2 K moves Qe6+! 3 Qxe6 fxe6 and Black's e3 pawn queens.
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