Corus Chess Tournament 2007, Round 1

 by John Lee Shaw









It is not very often that the first round of a big event like Corus begins with fireworks, and today this year was no exception, in the A-Group anyway. Karjakin-Kramnik was the game, which was a Petroff's Defence. Nice patient play from the Ukranian saw him with a small edge towards the end, but Kramnik had solid defences as always and peace was declared.

Sergey Tiviakov and Magnus Carlsen got in to an Alapin Sicilian, exchanged like there was no tomorrow, and when the dist had settled there was nothing in the position for either to go at. They drew quickly, and it seemed to spark a knock-on effect. Shirov-Svidler was the next game, the Grunfeld defence (yes, you heard correctly, I know it is a shock) quite possibly had some play left in it, and had an interesting position. However, it was no surprise when the players repeated moves.

Ponomariov-Anand got in to an Open Catalan, which saw black obtain a super light-squared bishop, but his queen and rooks were quite passive. After a couple of exchanges, they shook hands. Navara-Aronian saw the young Czech sacrifice a pawn for activity, and then the Armenian upstage him by the surrender of a piece (thought temporarily). That rather makes the game appear a bit more eventful than it was, however, and it was drawn in 22. Topalov-Motylev saw white get very little out of the opening, and an early queen exchange. Black was better in the end position, and Motylev would no doubt have played on against lesser players.

Teymour Radjabov has obviously been doing some homework, his game against local hero Loek van Wely will not be one that the Dutchman looks back on fondly. By move 20 black had a firm grip on the game and white was fighting for recovery. Time pressure reared its ugly head, and though van wely survived it, the resulting situation was that black was winning. A disappointing start for the Dutchman.

Preparing to do battle with the World #1
the intensely focussed Alexander Motylev

David Navara -- a very pleasent GM indeed

carrying out what is technically known as a 'post-mortem'
Shirov (left) and Svidler (right) analyse their drawn game.

Group-B saw mostly decisive games, Eljanov defeating Georgiev with black, and Smeets doing the same with Sargissian. Jan Werle also had a hard time as White, losing to Bologan, and Erwin l'Ami came off worse with the black pieces against strong Chinese Player Bu Xiangzhi. The rest of the games were all draws.

There was also Chinese success in Group-C, which saw Hou Yifan defeat Nadezhda Kosintseva with black. The Frence defence of the game saw a mixture of patience, tactics, and killer instinct, I was hugely impressed. Other results saw Parimarjan Negi defeat Wouter Spoelman, and Ian Nepomaniachtchi get the better of Polish veteran Michal Krasenkow. Emanuel Berg was also victor, with the white pieces against Dutchman Edwin van Haastert. Other games were drawn.