Anand no match for Kasparov

By Arvind Aaron

LINARES, MARCH 4. Two defeats in succession with the white pieces left Viswanathan Anand in poor shape in the 17th City of Linares chess tournament here at Hotel Anibal. In the most important game of the event, Anand was not recognisable once he was out of the opening and was outplayed by Garry Kasparov of Russia in the fourth round on Friday.

Kasparov also moved to lead with three points from four games and could be joined by countryman Vladimir Kramnik who is in a great position against Peter Leko of Hungary. Anand has one point from four games and is at the bottom. Six rounds remain to be played in this category-21 event.

The two players who have won the Linares tournament before met in this round over a Sicilian defence, Najdorf variation game. Anand with the white pieces played the quiet Boleslavsky variation. He had a slight space advantage. The players were following a game played between Anand's former Boston-based trainer Patrick Wolff and Morovic from Buenos Aires 1997. Kasparov's 16th move was new and in the pressroom GM Elizbar Ubilava said black had reached equality but he would prefer the white side to play.

After move 18, black's plan was easy to find and it was falling in place. Anand embarked on a dubious plan which started move 19 with his knight and little mistakes started to compound into bigger ones and after the ugly recapture on the 23rd move, Kasparov was in the driving seat. He was excited and pacing like a hungry tiger in the analysis room. Once white accepted his pawn sacrifice, he reacted as if a shark smelt blood. He enjoyed playing for the initiative and white's awkward position brought him a big advantage.

Whether Kasparov was happy after white's 19.Nc1 or not that was his moment to play for the advantage and he popped in his chocolates to pump energy for the seven hour session.

Just when Kasparov won a pawn on the 32nd move, Anand gave up and he could not foresee any counterplay with his two minor pieces poorly placed. It was one of his poorest games since game 13 of the World championship match against Kasparov at New York 1995. There he never had a plan, here his plan did not work.

``I think it was too early to resign,'' said GM Valery Salov. This game will send the wrong signal to those intending to sponsor a Anand-Kasparov match this year.

The players rushed out of the hall having a brief exchange of words at the table without a postmortem analysis or signing customary autographs. GM Ubilava, the former trainer of Karpov and present trainer of Anand finished saying his reaction with, ``... bad, bad, bad.''

On his third round game, Anand said last night, he would win with 30.Ra4 against Shirov, a case of another winning possibility.

Shirov and Khalifman played a 21-move draw from a French defence, advanced variation. Khalifman who played black had a big advantage after Shirov went for a dubious capture on the 14th move. ``Yes, it may not be good but it is absolutely new,'' GM Ian Rogers said. Thereafter, Khalifman's accepting the draw was perhaps a mistake but the FIDE champion thought white was making it anyway. Black had the advantage of double bishops and an extra pawn and Shirov should he clearly lucky to have got off with this position. They had met eight times before winning once each. It was their seventh draw and they would meet once more with Khalifman having the advantage of playing with the white pieces.

In the Kramnik-Leko encounter, Kramnik decided to give up his victory ambitions after move 41 and offered a draw which Leko accepted immediately. Kramnik is in second position on 2.5 points while Leko has drawn all his games to secure two points. Kasparov is now the clear leader by half a point.

The results (fourth round):

P. Leko (Hun) drew with V. Kramnik (Rus), V. Anand (Ind) lost to G. Kasparov (Rus) and A. Shirov (ESP) drew with A. Khalifman (Rus).

The standings after four rounds: 1 G. Kasparov 3/4, 2 V. Kramnik 2.5, 3-4 P. Leko, A. Shirov 2 each, 5 A. Khalifman 1.5 and 6 V. Anand 1.

The pairing for Saturday's fifth round: Kramnik-Shirov, Khalifman-Anand and Kasparov-Leko.

The moves:

GM V. Anand-GM G. Kasparov, round 4, Sicilian Najdorf, B92: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e5 7.Nb3 Be7 8.O- O Be6 9.f4 Qc7 10.Nd5 Bxd5 11.exd5 Nbd7 12.c4 O-O 13.Kh1 Rfe8 14.Be3 exf4 15.Bxf4 Bf8 16.Rc1 Qb6 17.Rc2 g6 18.Bf3 Rac8 19.Nc1 Ne5 20.b3 h5 21.h3 Bg7 22.Ne2 Nxf3 23.gxf3 Qc5 24.Rc1 b5 25.Qd2 bxc4 26.bxc4 h4 27.Bg5 Nh5 28.Bxh4 Rb8 29.Ng1 Rb2 30.Rc2 Qxc4 31.Rxc4 Rxd2 32.f4 Rxd5 0-1.

GM A. Shirov-GM A. Khalifman, round 4, French Advanced, C02: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Qb6 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.a3 Nh6 7.b4 cxd4 8.cxd4 Nf5 9.Bb2 Be7 10.Bd3 a5 11.Bxf5 exf5 12.Nc3 Be6 13.b5 a4 14.bxc6 Qxb2 15.O-O bxc6 16.Nxa4 Qb5 17.Nc3 Qc4 18.Ne2 O-O 19.Rc1 Qa6 20.Rc3 Rfc8 21.Rc1 Draw.

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