Report of round 13 - CCT 2003

Anand Wins the 2003 Corus Chess Tournament

For the third time in his career, Viswanathan Anand from India (see picture, on the right with Topalov) has won the Corus Chess Tournament. In 1989 he had to share the title with Predrag Nikolic, Zoltan Ribli and Gyuala Sax, while in 1998 Vladimir Kramnik took a piece from the pie. This time, Anand didn't allow any other takers and right after the number two, Judit Polgar, had drawn her game against Teimour Radjabov, the Indian tiger offered a draw that could not be declined (see picture). After winning the tournament last year, Evgeny Bareev showed himself content with a third place this time.
Anand was quite pleased with his victory, especially since he hasn't lost any of his last fifty-nine (!) games in Wijk aan Zee. Ironically, it was Judit Polgar who last beat him in the Dutch sea resort, five years ago. The winner rated his victory over Ruslan Ponomariov as his best of the tournament.

After yesterday's short draw, Loek van Wely wanted to give everything one more time in his last-round game against Alexei Shirov (see picture). Although he was better out of the opening, Van Wely got irritated after he developed his rook from a1 to c1, instead of the better Ra1-d1. The Dutchman was unable to tone down his optimism and once the storm had cleared, Shirov was up plenty of material to clinch the win.

With places one through three set in gold, Van Wely and Shirov had to share fourth place with three other players. Vladimir Kramnik (against Anatoly Karpov) and Alexander Grischuk (versus Veselin Topalov) had to draw to do so, but Vasyl Ivanchuk needed a win over Ruslan Ponomariov to end the tournament with a plus score. After losing to Bareev yesterday, for the first time in the tournament Ivanchuk was eager to give his best. Without mercy he decided the Battle of Ukraine in his favor (see picture).
The 2003 Corus Chess Tournament was came to an end when Jan Timman, for the first time during the tournament, experienced some luck. At some point he was close to resigning to Michal Krasenkow, but somehow, someway, the Dutchman ended the ordeal with a hard-fought draw.

Winning Grandmaster Group B and qualifying for next year's top group was Zhang Zhong. He ended his tournament in style with a technical victory over John van der Wiel, improving his score to an astounding eleven points from thirteen games see picture). Tying for second place were teenagers Arkadij Naiditsch and Daniel Stellwagen. Daredevil Naiditsch did so by walking his king triumphantly from g1 to h8 in a direct confrontation with Friso Nijboer. With his last round loss, Nijboer had to settle for fourth place (see picture).
Winning the public's prize was Daniel Stellwagen. The Dutch prodigy put a nice end to his successful tournament by beating Jonny Hector in a fierce kingside attack (see diagram). It looks as if Black is during alright with so many pawns in the center. However, within a couple of moves Stellwagen is knocking in the door to the black king: 16.Nf5 Qd7 17.f4! White starts contesting the dark squares, where Black is most vulnerable. 17…exf4 18.Bxf4 dxe4 19.Be5! The point of the pawn sacrifice. 19…Ne8 20.Bxg7! Nxg7 21.Qg4 and suddenly it turns out the queen on d7 is in as much danger as the king on g8. White won easily after 21…Qxf5 22.Rxf5
With eight points, Stellwagen achieved a GM-norm over thirteen games and delivered the biggest upset of this year's edition of the Corus Chess Tournament.

Needing half a point to win the tournament and score a GM-norm, Ruud Janssen lived a nightmare in the last round of the Invitational Ten's. As Black he was unable to withhold Alexander Cherniaev. Not only missed Janssen out on a norm, his loss also allowed Eric Lobron to overtake him. The German grandmaster didn't let down and convincingly beat Erwin l'Ami. With his tournament victory, Lobron qualified for next year's Grandmaster Group B.
Qualified from Ten's Groups 1A and 1B for next year's Invitational's, are Maarten Etmans and Ted Barendse.