Report of round 11 - CCT 2007

Everything Still Up For Grabs!

Peter Svidler caused quite a commotion today not only because he beat the leader Topalov, but also how because of the way he did it. The game followed Peter’s game against Ponomariov from round 4, till for some reason the Russian decided on 9.0-0-0, forgetting that Topalov often plays the 10…h5 idea. At the press conference he went on to criticize his 11.Kb1?!, saying he should have played 11.h3 at once. Within a few moves he faced a major decision. After black’s 15…Nc4 white’s intended 16.Qc1 would have run into 16…b4 17.Nd5 Nxd5 17.exd5 Bxg5 and now 18.fxe6 would have been excellent for white, except that after 18…Bxf4 the white queen is trapped. So in the game the unpleasant 16.Bxc4 had to be played, and black was taking over the initiative. Peter felt he had to go for 20.Bxd6 to trade a few pieces off, but his follow-up plan of 25.Re7? and 26.Rc7? was terrible. Veselin’s queen landed on a5, combining the threats on Rd2 and the a3 square. If white now plays 28.Qd7 there follows Rd8 29.Qe7 Qxd2! 30.Qxd8+ Kh7 and wins. The game came to a boiling point on move 31, where the computers were going haywire over (see diagram 1) 31…Qb4 or 31…Qc5, evaluating the position as a win for black. Topalov’s 31…Bb1+ should have led to a queen ending a pawn up for black, but with great technical difficulties - a much better choice than his mistakes 33…Rc5?, and 35…f5?, which completed the turnaround. White now had a promising rook ending, where despite not going for the most rapid finish with 38.d6!, Peter won without problem.

On the advice of the trainer of the Armenian team, who suggested trying new openings to him, Aronian surprised Karjakin with the Catalan. The two followed Topalov-Anand from round 6, and once again white won the opening battle. Levon said he keen on 18.b4 because of 18…e5, and so he allowed 18…c5. Now white had control of the c-file, and black was consuming a lot of time. White’s general idea was to trade pieces, thus accentuating the weakness on a6. Black had to have tried 27…Raa8!? with a long fight to come, but he faltered with 27…Ne7? which started the real trouble for Sergey. The main differences between the white and black control of the open files, is that black has no entry points on the d-file, while black’s control of the c-file is absolute, and the white queen and knight are more efficient. Black final mistake came with (see diagram 2) 35…Rc8? where white provoked the fatal opening of the h-file. A few moves later, black’s cramped position fell apart, and with the unavoidable loss of his knight, he resigned.

Radjabov’s Kings Indian is still doing well. Today he had an exciting fight in it versus the world champion. Black played very energetically with 16…Kh8 intending 17…g4. White tried to move the action to the queenside with 17.c5 and the aforementioned (see diagram 3) 17…g4!? Black sacrificed a pawn, for which he got ample compensation. Kramnik decided to quell the fire and steer the game into a draw with his 24.Nc7. It was probably a wise choice as after the more critical 24.Nc3 black would have gone into massive piece mobilization with moves like …Bh6, …Rf6, …R8f8, forcing white to defend. The actual game saw white giving back his extra pawn, where a balanced position and a draw followed.

A theoretical battle between Anand and Shirov in the Petrov. Alexey said after the game that 3.d4 came unexpectedly, and so in his preparation today he didn’t look at any of the lines stemming from this sub-variation. Most elite players had previously chosen 16…Rfe8, although Shirov’s 16…Rfd8 had been played before also. Almost by force the players found themselves in an endgame where white had serious winning chances with his extra pawn, despite his ruptured kingside structure. The move that would have given Alexey some concerns would have been 25.d5!? since after the game’s 25.Bd2 he felt confident about holding the position. The Latvian even looked at another line that could have likely been sufficient to hold after 26.Rc6, namely Bb8!?. Now if: 27.Bc3 Rd7 28.Ra6 Rd6 black is fine. In any event, a draw was agreed upon on move 30.

Tiviakov once again employed his favorite Accelerated Dragon with the 9…d5 center gambit, this time against Ponomariov. White quickly returned the pawn, but then black was in no trouble whatsoever. He did have an isolated pawn on d5, with an impressive white knight on d4, but in return he got an agile bishop pair, and a compromised white structured (pawn on f3). Tivi was even nursing a small edge in the late middlegame, but perhaps he should have tried 25…Re5 instead of his 25…h5. In the final position black might have still been a tad better, but the point was split.

Navara - Motylev saw a typical Slav middlegame where white carelessly played 15.Ne2? simply overlooking the game’s sequence, which won black a center pawn after (see diagram 4) 17…Bxe4!. The Czech went for his best practical chance, transposing the game into a major piece and bishops of opposite color endgame. The Russian now should have avoided the rooks trade on f3 (27…Re8!? Instead of 27…Rf8), and unable to advance his pawn majority on the queenside, he had to concede the draw on move 42.

The last game to finish was a 109(!) move fight-to-the-end struggle between Carlsen and Van Wely. White emerged with a slight plus, but black managed to equalize, and on move 20 was already a tiny bit better after white’s 21.Bxe6?!. Black’s activity forced the white knight to the awkward d8 square, and had black tried 32…Bg5! with the idea of 33.e6 Bf6! and 34…Ke8 to follow, he would have posed insurmountable problems to the first player. Still, Loek managed to steer the game into a won, pawn up endgame. Unfortunately he lost his way and allowed Magnus to cleverly sac his knight to get a theoretically drawn rook and bishop versus rook endgame. The Norwegian managed to hold for 50 moves, after which the Dutchman decided to end the game with a stalemate.