Report of round 2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday

It isn't everyday when a world champion loses in 20 moves with the White pieces but today Vladimir Kramnik simply could not come up with a decent plan against Veselin Topalov's move 11 improvement over previous theory. 11...Ne5! immediately threatens 12...Bd7 with unpleasant consequences. Vlady chose the most critical attempt with 12.Qxb4 but his 13.Nb3? was a bad mistake. Evidently, he missed that after his intended (see diagram 1) 13...Rb8 14.Nb6? would have been strongly answered by 14...Nc6! So he tried 14.Qa3 but things got terribly wrong fast. After 17...Qc7! Black was a good pawn up with a nice position to boot, and White's sad Queen position brought a swift end after 19...d5 20.Nbc5 (20.Nac5 Rxb3! is also curtains) Qa7 (21.b4 Nxc3 and Nxb4 was senseless to continue) and White resigned.

In the battle of generations, Grischuk didn't get anything against Short - as a matter of fact had Nigel chosen 26...dxc4! in place of 26...bxc4 (which was somewhat better for White but ended in a draw) as suggested by Seirawan, he would have had a promising endgame: 27.Qd1 Qh5! 28.d5 Qxd1 29.Rxd1 exd5 30.Rxd5 Rc6)

Svidler - Sokolov was an Open Ruy that was discussed heavily in the 1978 Karpov - Kortchnoi world championship match. Peter introduced a new idea of 15.Qa4 instead of 15.Qb3 . Both Timman at the commentary room and Sokolov himself felt that Black was suffering in the endgame, but once again Ivan showed his resourcefulness and succeeded in steering the game into a draw.

After drawing his game with Bruzon, Loek van Wely smilingly said that with the way White players were doing, a draw doesn't look so bad. He might have had some advantage but his first rank weakness played a part as the final perpetual proved.

Adams looked quite pleased after his win against Morozevich. He can be praised about the way he managed to restrain the precautious Russian into a passive, defensive position which Black quite obviously didn't enjoy. His impatience soon surfaced with a blunder in a worse position: (see diagram 4) 28....g5? just lost a pawn. Mickey had no problem bringing the point home after some futile resistance.

As if one surprise wasn't enough, the defending champion of Corus A, Vishy Anand who hasn't lost here with White in ages fell victim to a self inflicted terrible howler. (see diagram 2) 25. Ra7? (25. Rxf8+ looked quite pleasant for white actually) was very strongly met with 25...d4! 26. Ba6 (see diagram 3) Bxg2! where White is really hurting. The point is that after 27.Rxe7 Qg6! is 'game over' or if 27.Qb3+ Bd5! 28.Nxd5 Rxa7 and Black is winning. He tried to make the most of it, but the weakness of his King was simply too much. After a long losing endgame 0-1 was on the TV screens.

Judit, in her game versus Ponomariov, tried a very interesting pawn sac starting with 13...a5!? and got plenty of play for it. Unfortunately for her, she got into big time trouble and lost her way in the complications. 39...Qxh4 was bad and Ruslan could have expedited his victory had he chosen 45.Rd7, the point is: 45...Rf8 46.Qxf8+ and mate; alas in the ensuing Q and P ending Black had only dreams of a perpetual that never came through. The winner got the daily € 250 public prize.