Corus Chess Tournament 2007, Round 9

 by John Lee Shaw









Round 9 saw two firsts for this tournament so far -- Sergey Karjakin lost his first game, Alexey Shirov won his first. The two not being connected, I shall deal with each in turn.

We begin with Ponomariov-Karjakin, which got in to a Najdorf Sicilian, and followed a game played by Veselin Topalov and Judit Polgar in their blindfold/rapid match of December 2006. Karjakin went a different way on his 11th move with ...Ne8 (Polgar had played 11...Nh5, with other choices being ...Nc6 or ...Nbd7, and perhaps more equalising). Ponomariov (pictured to the left at the start of the game) played aggressively in the opposite side castling position, 13.g4!? was already on its way to probing the white kingside. Karjakin was too slow in responding, his Bf6-e5 manouvre and 16...Qb6 was very costly.

In opposite sides castling positions, the key is being the first to make the other defend, the opening of lines, the attacking of pieces, and time is of the essence. Karjakin's response to Ponomariov's pawn thrusts was simply inadequate. Piece sorties in such situations are much like running on the spot with a steam train coming towards you. 13...a5 quickly followed by ...Rc8 would have been a bit more competitive for Sergey. By move 16 white was far better, and some exchanges did not improve matters for black, who was probably strategically lost by move 20. The white h and g-pawns were like sprinters out of the blocks, descending on the black king position like ravenous wolves, and threatening to rip it open. By the time Karjakin was pushing his own pawns it was of little consequence, and Ponomariov finished the game powerfully, sacrificing his rook to lure the enemy king into the open and the final position was mate in 5. A nice game for the former FIDE Champion.

I am sure that we need not re-cap the terrible start that Alexey Shirov (pictured left) has had to this year's Corus, and I am not going to, all that I will say is that whatever he has changed or done for the last couple of rounds has made a striking difference. Perhaps the appearance of his Wife Viktorija Čmilytė has put something of a spring in his step. Round 9 was the frst time I had seen her around the venue, (and I have only missed a couple of playing days), so is it such a coincidence that this sees his first win? Perhaps it is the romantic in me which says no, but one can only speculate. The only shame of the win, is that the victim was David Navara, of whom I must say I am a fan, both of his chess and personality. Not meaning to take anything away from GM Shirov, David seemed a little out of sorts to me in round 9, and I am wondering if he was possibly still feeling the effects of his loss in round 8 to Sergey Karjakin. Of course there has been a rest day since, but sometimes that can work against one instead of for.




Navara played rather unambitiously in the Reti opening that the game saw, and although the position at 9...Bh5 has been seen many times in top level chess, I just do not like the look of it for white. Navara's 11.a4?! certainly did him no favours, and looks totally out of context to me, though Shirov did not respond to it as well as he might. 11...Qe7 is a little more punishing than the 11...Ne8 of the game. 17.h4?! was another costly pawn move, and from here Shirov took the advantage which was magnified by a very uncharacteristic clanger of a move by Navara. In the diagram position to the right, with black having played 31...b6, David played 22.Rad1??, missing that black can pick off a pawn, via 22...Rxd1 23.Rxd1 Nxe4! with a winning advantage. From here, Alexey Shirov demonstrated why he is one of the top players in the world, precisely finishing the game in 34.




Anand-van Wely saw the Poisoned Pawn variation of the Najdorf, and repeated the same line that Anand had played in round 2 against Alexander Motylev, but as black. The players went in to this game 20 moves deep, seeing van Wely vary with 20...Nc6!? with the offer of the f8-rook in return for bishop and when taking in to account the couple of pawns black already has, things are very much balanced materially. As quickly as Loek had equalised though, he seemed to go wrong, 25...f6?! (...Qa7!) being too slow, and Anand began to take a grip on the centre. Even so, things would have been alright for black upon 29...Qb7, but the Dutchman was to err with 29...Qb6? which allowed white to trade queens and follow up with the strong 31.Rd6! which Loek had missed. The ending came quite quickly from this point on, with Anand totally running rings around the black camp, and notching up the point in 41.


Levon Aronian will probably be kicking himself for letting Veselin Topalov slip through his fingers. The Bulgarian (who did not seem very happy at the start of the round, shaking his head as it was announced that he had won the daily prize for his win over Vishy Anand in round 8...?) played very aggressively in their game, which was an English Opening. 12...b5?! was criticised by Aronian, who managed to obtain a dangerous passed pawn. As it was, a mistake later on (26.Qc4?! -- 26.d5! was far better) was to allow Topalov to make exchanges and salvage the draw. Tiviakov-Motylev saw black equalise very comfortably in Tiviakov's c3-Caro Kann. Action took place on the Queenside, but is was mostly in liquidation after which there was very little to go at. Draw in 40. Svidler-Kramnik saw a rather quick draw in the Petroff, which was about as predictable a happening as the opening was. Also rather uneventful was Carlsen-Radjabov, which saw a Kalashnikov Sicilian. Black equalised comfortably, and as a huge liquidation was imminent, the players divided the point.

All this leaves World #1 Topalov in the lead with 6.5 points over Teymour Radjabov who has probably crossed Levon Aronian off of his Christmas card list by now. Just one more round to play on Wednesday before the final rest day, after which we see the final 3 rounds being played over the weekend. And what a weekend, with Topalov playing Kramnik on Saturday, and Radjabov in the very last round.

1. V. Topalov -- 6½
2. T. Radjabov -- 6
3. L. Aronian, P. Svidler, V. Kramnik -- 5½
6. S. Karjakin, V. Anand -- 5
8. R. Ponomariov -- 4½
9. D. Navara -- 4
10. S. Tiviakov, A. Motylev -- 3½
12. L. van Wely, M. Carlsen -- 3
14. A. Shirov -- 2½



The B-Group saw things mainly un-changed due to 4 draws. Winners of the round were Bologan over Georgiev, and l'Ami over Eljanov. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (see left ... I think I had stunned (shocked?!) him with my French!) remains a point in the lead on 6.5/9 after drawing with Jan Smeets.

1. M. Vachier-Lagrave -- 6½
2. Bu Xiangzhi, V. Bologan, P. Eljanov -- 5½
5. D. Jakovenko -- 5
6. F. Nijboer, G. Sargissian, D. Stellwagen, E. L’Ami, J. Smeets -- 4½
11. T. Kosintseva -- 4
12. J. Werle -- 3½
13. V. Georgiev, S. Atalik -- 2½



Things were very bloody in group-C with 4 of the games being decisive, Emanuel Berg losing to Michal Krasenkow, Manuel Bosboom getting the better of Nadezhda Kosintseva, and Parimarjan Negi winning with black against Harmen Jonkman. Young Im Wouter Spoelman defeated Zhaoqin Peng, in a great result for him. There were draws in van der Wiel-Willemze and Nepomniachtchi-Yifan.

1. I. Nepomniachtchi -- 8
2. M. Krasenkow -- 6½
3. E. Berg -- 6
4. Hou Yifan -- 5½
5. P. Negi, M. Bosboom, W. Spoelman -- 5
8. E. van Haastert -- 4½
9. Z. Peng -- 4
10. N. Kosintseva -- 3½
11. J. van der Wiel -- 3
12. S. Brynell, H. Jonkman -- 2½
14. T. Willemze -- 2