Topalov shocks Anand

By Arvind Aaron

DORTMUND, JULY 15. The day belonged to Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria once again. Winning his second game in a row, and upsetting World chess champion Viswanathan Anand, the Bulgarian joined the leader board after three rounds of the 29th Sparkassen chess meeting here at the Stadt Theatre on an wet Saturday.

Topalov, 25, who lives in Salamanca in Spain shocked Anand with the white pieces in 45 moves to move to two points from three games where he shares the lead with Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Peter Leko of Hungary.

Seven rounds remain to be played in this category 21 tournament. Anand plays his former trainer Leko in fourth round on Sunday.

Anand played the French defence with the black pieces against Topalov's king pawn. He has played this opening since using it successfully against Kasparov at Reggio Emilia, Italy in 1991. Having played both sides of the same opening and the topic being heavily discussed during his match against Shirov at Teheran, Anand is considered an expert of this variation.

Anand went for this Rubinstein variation as black as he had followed the Topalov versus Shirov game from the Advanced chess tournament held at Leon last month. Topalov improved over his own play on the tenth turn with a less aggressive queen move.

Anand who had a bad day started his mistakes from as early as move 15. Accepting white's isolated queen pawn on move 16 brought him under pressure. After a forced sequence of moves he lost the castling right and had to part with the extra pawn.

By move 25, the pieces on the board were level but black's king looked vulnerable and his king rook was a cause for concern. Anand's hope for a draw was the presence of opposite coloured bishops. Topalov played a brilliant 28th move, sacrificing his rook for bishop. Anand could not accept that sacrifice but forcibly had to enter the inferior major pieces ending. With defence in sight, Anand's 31st move was a colossal blunder after which black's hope of a fightback were gone. As Anand grabbed this pawn, his wife Aruna Anand joked in the pressroom, ``Anand is hungry today.'' Accepting this pawn was fatal as Anand presumably overlooked the white combination on move 33. Topalov jockeyed his queen and three pawn advantage against Anand's two rooks and pawn to a smooth technical win in move 45.

Adams had turned into a Kramnik beater when he ended the latter's undefeated 82-game spell here last year. He also showed the exit to the big Russian in the FIDE World Chess Championship at Las Vegas in 1999. Saturday's game saw the Englishman open with the king pawn as white and Kramnik respond with the Sicilian defence.

The battle between the two youngest competitors, Leko and Morozevich also featured the French defence, making the opening the flavour of the day. It replaced the Petroff's defence from the earlier round. It was also a Rubinstein variation, where Leko tried a new ninth move, trying to improve over the Milos versus Morozevich game from the Istanbul Olympiad of last year. It looked good for a while for white but when Leko realised that he had obtained nothing, he took a draw on the 19 move. He could have played on.

The results (third round): V.Topalov (Bul) bt. V.Anand (Ind), M.Adams (Eng) drew V.Kramnik (Rus), P.Leko (Hun) drew A.Morozevich (Rus).

The placings after third round: 1-3 V.Kramnik, P.Leko, V.Topalov 2/3 each, 4-6 V.Anand, M.Adams, A.Morozevich 1 each.

The moves: GM V.Topalov-GM V.Anand, round three, French defence, C11: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Nbd7 6.Nf3 h6 7.Nxf6+ Nxf6 8.Bxf6 Qxf6 9.Bb5+ c6 10.Bd3 a6 11.c3 c5 12.Ne5 Bd6 13.Qe2 cxd4 14.cxd4 Bd7 15.0-0 Qf4 16.g3 Qxd4 17.Nxd7 Kxd7 18.Qf3 Ke7 19.Qxb7+ Kf6 20.Rad1 Qa7 21.Qf3+ Ke7 22.Qg4 g5 23.Bc4 Qb6 24.Rd3 Rad8 25.Rf3 Be5 26.Re1 f6 27.Qh5 Qb4 28.Rxe5 Qxc4 29.Re1 Qxa2 29...Rd3 30.Qg6 Rxf3 31.Qg7+ Kd6 32.Qxh8 e5 33.Qa8 Qd3 34.Kg2 g4 35.Qd8+ Ke6 36.Qc8+ wins for white.0 30.Qg6 Rhf8 31.Qxh6 Qxb2 32.Qg7+ Rf7 33.Rxe6+ Kxe6 34.Re3+ Qe5 35.Rxe5+ fxe5 36.Qxg5 Rdf8 37.Qg4+ Kd5 38.Qd1+ Kc5 39.Qc2+ Kb4 40.Qb2+ Kc5 41.Qxe5+ Kb6 42.h4 a5 43.h5 Rd7 44.Qe6+ Kc7 45.h6 1-0.

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