Corus Chess Tournament 2007, Round 2

 by John Lee Shaw









If you were hugely disappointed with the drawfest of round 1 on Saturday, then yesterday's 2nd round will hopefully have gone some way to make up for it. In Grandmaster Group-A, every game but 1 was decisive, and even the exception saw a fight.

I think I will start with the strange occurence of the round, which was namely Alexey Shirov's deep think in his game against World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik. To be honest, standing in the hall watching the games, I thought there was a possibility that Alexey had fallen asleep! He was hunched over the board with his head in his hands, and the only sign of conciousness (side-on you understand) was his fingers moving every now and then. By the time he had played his 7th move, he was a full hour down on the clock, and in a theoretical position. This is rather inexplicable, and I am not going to attempt to reason it, but it of course gave Valdimir Kramnik a huge time advantage, and Shirov himself a mountain to climb. It will not serve him any comfort to have achieved equality (at worst) by move 12 , and then already in huge time pressure to hand white a plus with the faulty 16...b4? This was an edge that Kramnik steadily built on, and the final blunder came with Shirov's 34...Rb7?? which gave white a birthday of Rxe6. An unpleasent game, then for Shirov, but a very happy Kramnik.

Topalov-van Wely was a bit of a grudge match, as the Dutchman had signed a GM letter in support of Kramnik during the World Championship. Topalov has asked for an apology for this, and van Wely does not look to be getting around to it any time soon. The game was a mainline Najdorf, and by move 20 white had obtained a clear edge. van Wely worsened matters by allowing 22.Be6+ but Topalov missed the optimum move for his 23rd which was Qd3! putting the black Kingside in all sorts of trouble. van Wely replied optimumly with ...Ndc5 and the position became about level. Move 25 was the beginning of the end, however, as the Dutchman erred badly with ...Kg8 (...h6 would have been more challenging). From here there were no more mistakes from the Bulgarian, and he sealed the game in 35.

In Svidler-Tiviakov, black obtained a nice game very quickly, and at move 11 had the best of it, it seems. At move 12, Tiviakov could possibly have safely picked off White's b2 pawn, but in playing the reserved ...Qc4 instead, helped white back in to the game. It was a long affair, with white in a comfortable position by move 50, though in Peter's own words, he 'screwed up' a few times. Tiviakov is a fighter however, and fight he did. It was to no avail, though, and Svidler had the point in 65 moves. Ponomariov had the bit between his teeth for his game v Aronian, but his 11...d5!? was possibly one step too far. With the simple knight hop 12.Na4 the Armenian took an edge, and the exchanges (including queens) that followed only helped him increase it. When later on White was able to penetrate the black position with 31.Rd7, the former FIDE Champion was in big trouble, and Aronian was able to pick off 2 pawns, and decide the game.

Alexander Motylev gave Vishy Anand a bit of a wake up call in their game. Playing the white side of the Najdorf Poisoned Pawn, he gave Anand a total of 3 for some nice activity which Anand thought ended with his 21...Qf5, the young Russian had other plans. He Vishy saw attack after attack coming at him, queen under fire, then a rook, but it was not quite enough to stick and the brave Motylev was falling on his sword at move 31. The other great tussle was Carlsen-Navara,  a game I had personally looked forward to as both of these young players impress me greatly. Carlsen gave the exchange of a rook in returm for 2 passed pawns, which in all honesty did not look very convincing to me, and when black won one of the pawns later on I smelled trouble for the Norwegian. However, Navara played what he called a 'stupid move' which should have lost him the game. 31...g5?? allows 32.c6, with a winning position for white. Carlsen played a5, however, and then when c6 did come a few moves later, Navara was playing for a win. "I was not playing for a win until you played c6,' he told Magnus during analysis.

Radjabov-Karjakin was a lengthy affair, which saw the prodigy's take each other on in the Queens Indian. Black wasted some time and white punished with 25.d5. This saw black surrender his queen for rook and minor piece and batten down the hatches -- not easy against Teymour Radjabov, who clearly wished to build on his decisive game in round 1! Frustratingly for the Azerbaijan GM, Karjakin was able to sacrifice his bishop for a pawn in the endgame, and use his rook to control the 3rd rank. White could make no progress, and had to grit his teeth and shake hands. Game drawn.

Group-A Standings after Round 2:

David Navara, preparing for battle against Magnus Carlsen

No change in the standings of the B-Group, which saw all draws, but mostly fair enough, there were no quickies. Group C saw an interesting game between 12-year-old Hou Yifan and hugely experienced GM Michal Krasenkow of Poland. The youngster did exceptionally well in my opinion, more than holding her own, but let things slip in the endgame and lost. However, I am seeing great things in store if she keeps up the way she is going right now. Other winners of the group were local favourites Harmen Jonkman, and Manuel Bosboom, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Wouter Spoelman getting the better of N. Kosintseva. Peng-Berg and Brynell-Negi were drawn.