2015's Best Master Games

Having been forced to deploy work-related excuses for my lack of posting, it's unfortunate that I haven't made any headway so far in my two weeks' holiday. Christmas and another congress have seen to that, and I'm now 15 games down. Next season there will have to be some changes to my playing schedule, but until then I will try not to be completely overwhelmed.

My usual Christmas Eve post is a list of my favourite master games of the year. That didn't happen this year, so it's going to be a New Year's Eve special this time. There is something of an observational bias towards the front end of the year, since that's when I was watching top-level tournaments attentively, but thankfully there have been lots of good games this year...

Wei Yi 1-0 A. Haast, Wijk aan Zee - This was a breakthrough year for the young Chinese star, winning one sacrificial masterpiece after another. He started the year with a bang in Wijk aan Zee, crushing black with a series of tactical blows.

D. Khismatullin 1-0 P. Eljanov, European Individual Ch. - Save for one move, this game could easily be forgotten - that move is Khismatullin's incredible 44. Kg1!!, resolving a difficult QR ending by allowing his Rook to be taken with check... 

W. So 0-1 S. Sevian, US Championship - The sister game of Anand's famed Meran brilliancy against Aronian. This time white takes the h-pawn with check, but black wards off white's threats and launches a blistering counter-attack that not even trading Queens can defuse.

M. Adams 1-0 A. Giri, Gashimov Memorial - A lovely slow-burning 'corkscrew' attack: black wins a pawn on the Queenside, but can only watch as his King position is blown open by the inexorable march of white's pawns. The rest is a massacre.

V. Anand 1-0 M. Carlsen, Norway Chess - Spanish torture! This is a model game by Anand in the Breyer Ruy Lopez: after black weakens his Kingside and lets his dark-squared Bishop get traded off, white patiently builds a winning attack and then liquidates into a simple endgame.

Wei Yi 1-0 L. Bruzon, Dangzhou - A game that caused quite a stir when it was played. The sacrifice inaugrated by 21. Nd5! is remarkable enough, but it is capped by a string of quiet moves that leave the black King to be mated on h3.

D. Navara 1-0 R. Wojtaszek, Biel - An ironic counterpart to the previous game. Here white's King has to wander all the way to h8 - but survives...

W. So 0-1 L. Aronian, Sinquefield Cup - It's always satisfying to see the 4. f3 Nimzo-Indian get a good kicking, and that's just what happens here: white's play is just too optimistic, and black is able to sacrifice a piece and open lines on both sides of the board, leaving white terminally paralysed.

W. So 0-1 H. Nakamura, Sinquefield Cup - The Sinquefield Cup must have been a system shock for So, who was on the wrong end of this one too - a classic KID rout, where white's Queenside demonstration leads nowhere and black gets in first at the other end.

A. Greenfeld 0-1 N. Short, PokerStars Isle of Man - A violent little game: white sacrifices a piece for the attack, but black gives it straight back by a self-fork and wins in only 22 moves. 

M. Adams 1-0 M. Matlakov, European Club Cup - I always try to squeeze in a couple of positional games, and this time they come at the end. This was a very deep pawn sacrifice by Adams that demonstrates the power of opposite-coloured Bishops in the middlegame.

V. Anand 1-0 V. Topalov, London Chess Classic - And finally, a game that I saw in person - the Najdorf player's worst nightmare, a textbook example of good Knight vs bad Bishop where black's extra pawn is totally worthless.

 Despite the fact that I wasn't paying attention a lot of the time, in the end it was difficult to limit myself to only the usual 12 games: it seems that 2015 has been a good year. Not to mention an aggressive one, since plenty of Kings met a gruesome end in this list. I have to say that the real hero of my golden dozen isn't Wei Yi, Anand or Adams, all of whom had multiple wins, but poor Wesley So, who was on the receiving end all too often. (And there were others - this and this come to mind...) It's nothing personal, I assure you! I don't think it's a lack of strength - village amateurs don't get to within touching distance of 2800 - but simply that he always insists on being shown. This creates a lot of pretty games, but as I can attest, such an approach means you will usually be on the receiving end.

 Anyway, that's it from me for another year. Hopefully this will keep the reader occupied until I finally get round to annotating another game. I left one hanging half-way through, so hopefully it won't be long. But I promise nothing...