Alexei Shirov is absolutely destroying GM after GM in the 2010 edition of the prestigious Corus Super Tournament. His pace of 5 points in 5 rounds borders on ridiculous and has landed him an astronomical performance rating that can not be truly calcualted until he does not win a game. Once again I find myself wondering why the greatest attacking chess player of my generation was never in a World Championship Match. Oh yes… I recall now. In 1998 Shirov was invited to play a match against Kramnik to determine the challenger for then World Champion Kasparov. Shirov won the match. However a dishonorable Kasparov elected to play Kramnik instead and thus deprived Shirov of his rightfuly earned chance to play for the World Championship title. I strongly suggest that readers of this blog do some quick searches to read the comments from these players regarding this unfortunate incident. Below is my favorite game from Shirov at Corus 2010. Perhaps visitors can comment on the Tal styled sacrafice on move 26.
[Event “Corus”]
[Site “Wijk aan Zee NED”]
[Date “2010.01.19”]
[EventDate “2010.01.16”]
[Round “4”]
[Result “1-0”]
[White “A Shirov”]
[Black “J Smeets”]
[ECO “C42”]
[WhiteElo “2723”]
[BlackElo “2657”]
[PlyCount “74”]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Nc6 7. O-O Be7
8. c4 Nb4 9. Be2 O-O 10. Nc3 Bf5 11. a3 Nxc3 12. bxc3 Nc6 13. Re1 Re8 14.
cxd5 Qxd5 15. Bf4 Rac8 16. h3 h6 17. Nd2 Na5 18. Nf1 Qb3 19. Qd2 Nc4 20.
Bxc4 Qxc4 21. Ne3 Qb5 22. c4 Qd7 23. c5 Bg6 24. Rac1 c6 25. Nc4 f6 26. Bxh6
gxh6 27. Qxh6 Bh7 28. Re3 Bf8 29. Rg3+ Kh8 30. Qxf6+ Bg7 31. Qg5 Bxd4 32.
Rd1 Rf8 33. Kh2 Rcd8 34. Ne5 Qc7 35. Rxd4 Rxd4 36. Ng6+ Kg7 37. Nxf8+ 1-0