ANNOTATED GAME: Laylo vs Navara

BY: BOBBY ANG

(Abridged version, as published in Chess Piece, BusinessWorld, December 14, 2009)

The Philippines had three representatives to the FIDE World Cup: Wesley So defeated GMs Guseinov, Ivanchuk and Kamsky to enter the round-of-16 where he succumbed to Russia’s GM Vladimir Malakhov in the rapid tie-breaks. The other two Pinoys, GM Joey Antonio and GM Darwin Laylo, were both eliminated in the first round. However, with everybody concentrated on Wesley’s brilliant showing, no one has noticed that Darwin Laylo also put up a very good fight in the first round and should actually have won it if it were not for some bad breaks.

His opponent is the Czech GM David Navara (born March 27, 1985), rated 2707, which is more than 150 points better than Laylo’s 2552 -- in other words Navara is the heavy favorite to win. Let’s do a quick scan of the Czech’s credentials:

1. Navara has won several world championships in youth competitions and came to international attention when in 2001, at the age of 16, he got 7 of 9 in the European Team Championships.

2. His next accomplishment was 6th place in the 2004 Fifth European Individual Chess Championship in Antalya with 7.5 points (+5"2=5). Navara was leading for most of the tournament and only exhaustion pulled him back at the end.

3. To show you how tough he is, David Navara has performed very well in one-on-one matches against top-notch opposition. In Prague he drew with former world champion Anatoly Karpov (+0"0=2) in 2005 and Boris Gelfand (+1"1=2) in 2006 and won against Nigel Short (+3-0=3) in 2007.

In the first game Laylo, playing Black, essayed his favorite Scandinavian Defense but misplayed the attack to lose.

Navara, David (2707) vs Laylo, Darwin (2552) [B01]
World Cup Khanty-Mansiysk RUS (1.1), 21.11.2009
ANNOTATED. REQUIRES JAVA




The second game is where Darwin shone, as he played very aggressively, kept up the pressure on his foe, and crashed through with a series of well thought-out maneuvers.

Laylo, Darwin (2552) vs Navara, David (2707) [D85]
World Cup Khanty-Mansiysk RUS (1.2), 22.11.2009
ANNOTATED. REQUIRES JAVA




The regular match being tied, a series of 4 tie-break rapid games (25 minutes with 10 seconds increment per player) were contested. Laylo seemed on his way to a great upset when he got an overwhelming position in the 2nd game (or 4th if you count the first two standard games)

This disappointing turn of events broke Darwin’s back and he lost the next two games and was eliminated. Still, this showing against such a strong opponent marks Darwin out as another potential world-beater. Let us hope he continues to develop.