Corus Chess Tournament 2007, Round 6

 by John Lee Shaw

Due to other commitments, I was unable to attend the tournament for round 6, and so no photographs in this report I'm afraid. I will try to make up for this in round 7.


Round 6 saw Alexey Shirov's bad tournament continue, with him losing to Sergey Karjakin. The two were in book for quite a long time, until 18...Kh8 infact. 18...Be6, 19.Bc6 Rb8 had been played before, (Volokitin-Timofeev, Spanish Team Championships 2006) and here Karjakin had intended the strong 20.b4. His chance was denied him, but as the game went, Shirov was to soon err. His 22...Bd3, (shown in the diagram, left), was an inaccuracy which allowed Karjakin to obtain an outside passed pawn after 23.Bb5 Bxb5 24.Qxb5. Shirov resisted fiercely, but Karjakin's technique shone through and earned him the point -- and the daily expert prize.






"We hardly ever beat each other" said Vladimir Kramnik about his opponent Vishy Anand, but in round 6 the norm was to be left in favour of the Russian. In the Catalan that developed, the World Champion both out-prepped, and out-played his opponent. This began with his 16.a3, "it's all about black trying to get c5 in and white trying to stop it," said Kramnik after the game. 18.Qf1! (see diagram, left) was a move that he was especially happy with, which backed up the Bg2 in light of Black's queen and bishop battery along the diagonal. By move 20, white was in command of the position, getting all the spoils out of the opening. Vishy battled on, but Kramnik very steadily improved his stance, and by the time Anand erred with 33...Rd7 he was already in a very tough situation. Employing tenacious defence as always, Anand found himself with no other option but to resign. White will either win Black's knight thanks to a promoting b-pawn, or simply pick of the h7-pawn. A nice 1-0 for Kramnik.


David Navara played a very nice Nimzo-Indian as black against Veselin Topalov. 16...Qc7 was probably a bit too slow (...Qb6 or ...Qa5 being a bit more active and equal) but Topalov's 17...f4!? was not the best responce (Ba3 or Bf4 being better). At move 20 black actually stood slightly better, as shown in the diagram to the left, following White's 20.Bb2. Here, Navara probably hopped the wrong knight to e4, his choice of the c-knight seemingly inferior to that of the f-knight. After 21.Qe3 Qxc4 22.Bxf6 gxf6 23.Bxe4 fxe4 24.Rxd6 Qxb5 the position was about equal. Things became a little tricky for Navara when queens and a pair of rooks were exchanged, after which white won a pawn and seized the initiative. However, Navara held to his task and defended solidly to secure the draw.




Alexander Motylev will be kicking himself for letting Magnus Carlsen slip through his fingers. In their game, a four knights defence, Motylev played very confidently and creatively. From the diagram position to left, 17.Nc5 was an original idea to free his position of the awkward knight he had given himself on d3. The idea is that in the case of ...Bxc5 (played in the game, 17...Nxe6 may have been even better) d4 follows hitting the black Qh6. Black seemed fine upon 18...Qh3. Carlsen's 23...h5 was not helpful to his cause, however, and White seized some advantage with 24.Bd4. Then came 24...Bf5? which was met by the strong and punishing 25.c4! and black was struggling soon after. However, 28.g5!? should have yeilded to 28.Re1 where White would have a very powerful (possibly decisive) battery of rooks and queen along the e-file. Motylev's 30.cxd5? was faulty, and upon 30...Bxe2, 31.dxc6+ (Rxh3 was slightly better) Kh8, it was Black with the edge. In the endgame that followed, white managed to liquidate enough to gain equality, and the game was drawn.


Peter Svidler is still suffering from his bad foot, (which occured during his game against Ponomariov), though "learning to live with it". On strong medication, he is having to fight adversity from more than one angle at the moment. I am glad to say that this has not seemed to have affected his mood or personality, still happy to chat and joke, and show his pleasent smile. In his Anti-Marshall against Levon Aronian, he held the best of things until his clanger of 25.Be3? The diagram to the left shows the situation after black's 24...Rd7. Here, white was probably best exchanging on d7, and following with d3-d4, with a very nice stance. Peter's move allowed ...Bb7! from Aronian, boxing in the rook, with ...Nc6 forcing a loss of exchange with Rxb7. However, such was Svidler's position, he was able to consolidate and was never in any real danger. The draw was offered by Aronian, and readily accepted by Svidler. "If we had started at the end position I might have played on," he said afterwards, "but considering how we got to it, I thought it was a good time to call it a day."


A bit of a limp lettuce was van Wely against Tiviakov. They repeated their English of the Dutch Championships last June, black deviating with 11...Nd4 (the previous game had gone 11...a5). White was left with very little to go at, and the players went through the motions up to the draw being agreed on move 22. Also quite a speedy affair was leader Radjabov against former FIDE Champion Ruslan Ponomariov. This ended in a rather tame 17 move draw. This resulted in the Azerbaijan GM retaining his 1 point lead at the end of the round.


1. T. Radjabov -- 5
2. V. Topalov, V. Kramnik -- 4
4. S. Karjakin, V. Anand, L. Aronian -- 3½
7. D. Navara, R. Ponomariov, P. Svidler -- 3
10. L. van Wely, A. Motylev -- 2½
12. S. Tiviakov, M. Carlsen -- 2
14. A. Shirov -- ½


In group-B, Erwin l'Ami had a nice win over Dmitry Jakovenko, and Tatiana Kosintseva got the full point against Suat Atalik of Turkey, who seems a bit out of sorts during this tournament and is doing surprisingly badly. This takes nothing away from Kosintseva, however, who already defeated Gabriel Sargissian in notching up her 3.5 points. The group is led by Pavel Eljanov, who defeated Dutchman Jan Werle, the rest of the games were drawn.

1. P. Eljanov -- 4½
2. J. Smeets, M. Vachier-Lagrave -- 4
4. T. Kosintseva, Bu Xiangzhi. V. Bologan, D. Jakovenko -- 3½
8. F. Nijboer, D. Stellwagen -- 3
10. G. Sargissian, E. L’Ami -- 2½
12. V. Georgiev -- 2
13. J. Werle -- 1½
14. S. Atalik -- 1


Group-C sees the two youngest players of the tournament having a great run, and in joint 2nd-5th places. Hou Yifan of China (12 years old) took the point from Holland's Harmen Jonkman, and Parimarjan Negi (13) got the better of John van der Wiel. Other winners were Wouter Spoelman over Manuel Bosboom, Michal Krasenkow over Nadezhde Kosintseva, and Group leader Ian Nepomniachtchi got the better of Edwin van Haastert.

1. I. Nepomniachtchi -- 5½
2. P. Negi, M. Krasenkow, E. Berg, Hou Yifan -- 4
6. Z. Peng -- 3½
7. M. Bosboom -- 3
8. S. Brynell, E. van Haastert, W. Spoelman -- 2½
11. N. Kosintseva -- 2
12. J. van der Wiel, H. Jonkman, T. Willemze -- 1½