Report of round 13 - CCT 2008

Levon Aronian and Magnus Carlsen drew their games today, and are the joint winners of the 70th Corus Chess Tournament Grandmaster Group A. Vishy Anand could have joined them with a win over Vladimir Kramnik, but after a hard fought game, had to content himself with a draw.

Judit Polgar and Levon Aronian had a discussion in a long, well analyzed line of the Marshall attack. Both players were moving pretty quickly, and Levon only started thinking after white’s 27.f3. A that point the position was equal, but the Armenian outplayed his opponent and was better when the timke control was reached. Perhaps 39.f5?! was a bit hasty, but when black played 45...Ne7?!, white sprung 50.f6! on him, giving up a pawn, but weakening the black pawn structure just enough to hold. When a rook ending arose, a draw was agreed.

Magnus Carlsen deviated from the main lines of theory in favor of a lesser seen variation of a Torre attack style formation. As he admitted after the game, he got nothing from the opening, and the players embarked on a long manoeuvring game. After a while, white’s control of the light squares, was evenly matched by black’s strongholds on the dark squares. The game then entered a major piece with bishops of opposite color endgame, and once the queens and the rooks were traded, a draw was the logical outcome.

Vishy Anand tried his utmost against Vladimir Kramnik. It was yet another Nimzo-Petroff, but unlike in the other tries with this variation Corus, here white managed to get some serious initiative. His ambitious pawn sacrifice forced the black queen to blockade the h-file, but when Vishy managed to chase it to h8 and get in 36.h5, the position got critical. After 43...R8e6? 44.hxg6 white was much better, but the world champion missed his chances twice: 50.Re1?!, whereas 50.Qa8+ with 51.Qxa7+ to follow, would have left black hurting for moves, and 51.Kb1? (see diagram 1) where 51.Rd1! Qf5 51.Qxc6 looked strong). as the game went, Anand’s piece sacrifice gave him no real winning chances, and eventually, in an endgame where white had three pawns for the bishop, a draw was agreed.

A nice win for Peter Leko against Shakhryar Mamedyarov. Shak invited him to play the Steinitz Ruy, and Peter obliged. After the game the Hungarian said he was a bit surprised at his opponent’s opening choice, since he had already won against him in this very line. As it turned out, Leko’s curiosity to see what the Azeri had prepared paid off. White’s initiative developed rapidly after offering his central pawn - a gambit Shak was wise to decline. White still managed to slowly increase his edge, after black’s dubious plan with 15...Nd7 and 16...Bf8?!. The decisive moment came when black neglected to play 22...Ne5, (see diagram 2) the only try in the position. After his 22...Ba6? white forced the win of a pawn (25.Ne5!), while maintaining his positional advantage. A disgusted Mamedyarov preferred resigning to suffering any further.

Finally a win for Boris Gelfand, at the expense of Pavel Eljanov. After the game Boris said he already played this opening “before my opponent was born”. Black’s hanging pawn formation makes it hard for him to find an active plan, and when he tried anyway, his weaknesses started to tell. Gelfand managed to provoke 23...f6, with a softening of the kingside, and soon won a pawn. Black’s 33...d4? (see diagram 3) gave up a second pawn, hoping to get some counterplay, but the Israeli accurately defused it After 37.f3, massive material losses were inevitable for black, and so he had to resign shortly thereafter.

Michael Adams was a bit surprised today by Veselin Topalov’s choice of opening today. Most of the moves were known theory, including the temporary pawn sac by black, and the well-advised returning of it by white. In the post mortem, Adams said that maybe 22.f3 wasn’t necessary, but in any event black was doing well, and a draw was agreed one move later.

In Vassily Ivanchuk - Loek van Wely, the Dutchman confused his move order (10...Nbd7?! instead of 10...dxc4) and so had to allow his opponent to weaken his kingside pawn structure. Later, after black had sacrificed a pawn, the Ukrainian should have tried 20.f3! (see diagram 4) getting rid of the centralized knight and reactivating his passive bishop, instead of the game’s 20.Na5?. Once white had missed this, black managed to tactically hold his position, and after a few moves in the knight ending, a draw was registered.

Sergey Movsesian drew his game with Humpy Koneru to win clear first in Grandmaster group B with 9.5/13, a full point ahead of Nigel Short and Etienne Bacrot.

The Grandmaster group C was won by 15-year-old Fabiano Caruana who beat Parimajan Negi in the last round. His impressive 10/13 places him two full points ahead of Negi and Dimitri Reinderman.