Anand capitalises on Adams' fumble

By Rakesh Rao

NEW DELHI, DEC. 13. A slight stumble by Michael Adams allowed Viswanathan Anand to surge ahead with a huge stride. At the halfway stage of their race for a place in the final of the World chess championship here, the favourite has surely set the pace. It is now up to the Briton to do all the catching up.

A little earlier on Wednesday, Alexander Grischuk caught up with the man he trailed until this afternoon. The 17- year-old Russian sensation, who lost on Tuesday, saw his task being made easier by Alexei Shirov. Like Adams, a blunder marred Shirov's chances. But unlike Adams, Shirov chose to give up almost immediately after overlooking a fairly simple check-mating plan by his rival. In the second game of their four-match semifinals, Anand punished Adams in a positional battle lasting 36 moves. Reasonably placed until the middle-game, Adams looked like matching Anand but the match turned on its head once the former erred on the 20th move.

The sudden turn of events could not be foreseen for the major part of this Ruy Lopez game. The first 12 moves were straight from Adams' match with Joel Benjamin played at Lucerne in the World team championship in 1997. In fact, on that occasion, Adams playing white had won on the 22nd move. This year, playing black, Adams had lost from a similar start against Peter Svidler in the Cup European Club final.

But today Adams pieces struggled to breath easy after the 15th move. The knight at `a7 and bishop on `g6 were crammed for squares and virtually out of play, while Anand's pieces began to make their presence felt. To make matter worse, Adams opted for `c5 on the 20th move. It did not take him long to realise that he was at the receiving end of a variety of complications.

The move allowed Anand to virtually monopolise the central `d5 square, from where his knight supported by two pawns could exercise control on the strategic squares. Though Adams managed to exchange one of the knights, Anand's other knight came into play and the position was no different.

``Basically, a positional blunder,'' was how Anand described Adams pawn-move that dictated the course of play. ``Once he played this inexplicable move, its lost.''

Once Anand doubled his rooks on the `b file on the 30th move and then planted one of them on the seventh rank, the Briton began to choke. Adams rooks and queen could do no better than occupy the back-rank. On the other hand, Anand's strategically-placed bishop on the queen's side began looking ominous. With Anand's queen threatening further damage from the kingside, Adams saw the inevitable.

``He could have played on for a few moves but its hopeless,'' Anand was to say later. In the final position Adams managed to get his queen out of the back-rank but there was really nothing for him to play for.

Though Anand still needed to do some more work when Adams resigned on the 36th move, Grischuk raced away to victory almost in a flash.

The only remaining representative of Russia in the fray, Grischuk was cruising along comfortably until the 16th move of this game which followed the Scheveningen Variation of Sicilian Defence. As per theory, the youngster castled on the queenside and began the pawn-roll on the other flank. In this variation, it is advised for black to keep his king in the centre but Shirov tried to be different by castling on the kingside.

The result was not hard to guess. But what was indeed difficult to imagine was Shirov's 28th move. He played his rook to `f4 square and immediately allowed Grischuk to move his queen to trigger off multiple threats. Shirov resigned at once.

``I had calculated it (Shirov's rook-move) but had not expected it,'' was the candid reply by Grischuk during the post- match media briefing. Despite scoring his biggest victory till date, Grischuk still has a long way to go against Shirov who is known to bounce back with vengeance.

The results (semifinals, game two): Viswanathan Anand (Ind, 2762) 1.5 bt Michael Adams (Eng, 2746) 0.5; Alexander Grischuk (Rus, 2606) 1 bt Alexei Shirov (Esp, 2746).

The moves: White, Viswanathan Anand (India) vs Black, Michael Adams (England): 1. e4 e5, 2. Nf3 Nc6, 3. Bb5 a6, 4. Ba4 Nf6, 5. 0-0 Bc5, 6. c3 b5, 7. Bc2 d6, 8. a4 Bg4, 9. h3 Bh5, 10. d3 0-0, 11. Nbd2 b4, 12. a5 Rb8, 13. g4 Bg6, 14. Nc4 bxc3, 15. bxc3 Qc8, 16. Ba4 Na7, 17. Be3 Bxe3, 18. Nxe3 c6, 19. Qd2 Qc7, 20. c4 c5, 21. Nh4 Kh8, 22. g5 Nh5, 23. Nd5 Qd8, 24. Rfb1 Nf4, 25. Nxf4 Qxg5+, 26. Nhg2 exf4, 27. Rb6 Rbd8, 28. Qxf4 Qe7, 29. Rab1 Nc8, 30. Rb7 Qe6, 31. Qg5 h6, 32. Qg3 Qf6, 33. Nf4 Ne7, 34. Kg2 Ng3, 35. Nd5 Qe6, 36. Bd1 1-0.

White, Alexander Grischuk (Russia) vs Black, Alexei Shirov (Spain): 1. e4 c5. 2. Nf3 d6, 3. d4 cxd4, 4. Nxd4 Nf6, 5. Nc3 a6, 6. f3 Qb6, 7. Nb3 Nc6, 8. Qe2 e6, 9. Be3 Qc7, 10. g4 b5, 11. 0-0- 0 Bb7, 12. h4 Rc8, 13. Kb1 Nd7, 14. Rg1 Nce5, 15. Qf2 b4, 16. Na4 Nxf3, 17. Qxf3 Qc6, 18. Nac5 Nxc5, 19. Bxc5 dxc5, 20. Na5 Qc7, 21. Nxb7 Qxb7, 22. Bc4 Be7, 23. Qe2 Qc6, 24. g5 0-0, 25. h5 Rcd8, 26. g6 Rxd1+, 27. Rxd1 fxg6, 28. Nxg6 Rf4, 29. Qh2 1-0.

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