Wesley So vs Boris Gelfand, B30 Old Sicilian
2014 Tata Steel Tournament, Round 5, Wijk aan Zee
Wesley So’s great positional victory over one of the strongest players in history, Boris Gelfand, who was at his peak strength at the time. Gelfand is one of the strongest Sicilian players ever, and Wesley decided to go for the closed Old Sicilian. They played a very theoretical variation in which black is conceding the d5 square and white is re maneuvering his knight from f3 to f1, in order to be able to play Ne3 and increase the pressure on d5.
A very instructive game for any e4 player, as well as anyone who wishes to improve their positional understanding of Sicilian structures and problems concerning the d5 break and square.
Final Standings at the Tata Steel Tournament 2014:
Levon Aronian 8/11
Anish Giri 6.5/11
Sergey Karjakin 6.5/11
Fabiano Caruana 6/11
Leinier Dominguez Perez 6/11
Wesley So 6/11
Pentala Harikrishna 5.5/11
Loek van Wely 5/11
Hikaru Nakamura 5/11
Boris Gelfand 4.5/11
Richard Rapport 3.5/11
Arkadij Naiditsch 3.5/11
Game moves:
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 e5 4. Bc4 Be7 5. d3 Nf6 6. Nd2 d6
7. Nf1 Bg4 8. Qd2 Nd7 9. Nd5 O-O 10. c3 Be6 11. Qc2 Nb6
12. Nxb6 axb6 13. a4 Kh8 14. Bd2 Qd7 15. Rd1 d5 16. exd5 Bxd5
17. Ne3 Be6 18. Qb3 Qxd3 19. Bxe6 fxe6 20. Qxb6 Qe4 21. b3
Rab8 22. O-O Qg6 23. a5 Rfc8 24. Nc4 Qc2 25. Rc1 Qd3 26. Be3
h6 27. Rfd1 Qf5 28. Rd7 Rf8 29. Rf1 1-0
