Just So

Last week in a perceptive piece for the Times, Will Pavia animadverted upon the fact that the USA appears to be actively recruiting top chess grandmasters. Pavia focused on attempts to persuade world-ranked no. 2 Fabiano Caruana to defect from representing Italy, and switch allegiance to the USA.

Even more indicative has been the effort made to entice the former Philippine grandmaster Wesley So to adopt the stars and stripes. As far as I can see, this enterprise has been successful, and it is not hard to detect the hand of the eminence grise of American chess Rex Sinquefield, behind a prima facie attempt to reconquer the Olympiad gold medal (which they have won five times overall) and the individual world title (last held for American chess by Bobby Fischer).

In the outstanding Bunratty tournament, where I was invited last month, So dominated the field (which included Gawain Jones, Nigel Short and Peter Wells), in particular winning a game against the Irish grandmaster Alexander Baburin. In terms of a dramatic race between Black’s rampant queenside pawns, and White’s direct attack against the black king, that game called to mind the classic win by Pillsbury against Tarrasch which forms the topic of this week’s puzzle.
 
So-Baburin: Bunratty Masters 2015; Queen’s Gambit Declined
 
1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Nf3 Nbd7 5 e3 Be7 6 b3 0-0 7 Bb2 b6 8 Bd3 Bb7 9 Qc2 It is important to prevent Black from occupying the centre with … Ne4. 9 … c5 10 cxd5 exd5 11 0-0 Rc8 12 Rac1 Re8 13 Qe2 Bf8 14 Ba6 Qc7 15 Rfd1 Qb8 16 Qb5 c4 (see diagram 1) This advance sets the tone for the rest of the game.