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Chess
Crucial encounter for Anand
By Arvind Aaron
MOSCOW, DEC. 5. Acute time scrambles and poor fighting spirit by lower seeds when they play white have taken some interest out of the ongoing FIDE World chess championship being played at the State Kremlin Palace. This leaves a two-game match to be decided in the lone game where the favourite has the advantage of playing white and this is a tough call, for one slip and you are out of the event.
Tuesday was the first of three free days and the reverse game of round four will take place on Wednesday.
World chess champion Viswanathan Anand who is defending his title in this $ three million event has a big encounter when he plays the second and decisive game against Alexey Dreev with the white pieces. In case of a draw, they will go for tie-breaks and the loser of this game has to pack up. Dreev, 32, may have lost the Candidates match to Anand in 1991 but is good in rapid chess and has defeated the Indian in the PCA Grand Prix in Paris in 1995 by 1-1, 1-0. Whether the Russian will be able to make a draw or not will depend upon the opening idea he utilises and Anand's response. The choice of the popular Petroff's defence or the Ruy Lopez may be better than the Caro-Kann defence or other variations of the Sicilian. Anand will definitely go all out but would like to stay without the risk of a defeat in his attempt.
Anand had defeated Olivier Touzane of France 1-1, 1.5- 0.5, Peter Nielsen of Denmark 1.5-0.5, Vladislav Tkachiev of France 1-1, 1.5-0.5 and has drawn the first game of round four with the black pieces against Alexey Dreev. The winner of this match will clash with the winner of the Topalov versus Shirov match.
Michael Adams did not make a good impression with the white pieces and will have to defend the black game on Wednesday and then hope to enter the tie-break against Peter Svidler. Third seed Alexander Morozevich is in a must-win situation against Ruslan Ponomariov, the rising star from Ukraine. Ponomariov settled an old account by defeating his famed opponent to take a 1-0 lead.
The more famous Ukrainian, Vassily Ivanchuk might be entering the quarterfinals if he gets the draw in the reverse game with the black pieces against China's Ye Jiangchuan. Nikolic and Lautier who are level might be expected to battle the tie- breaks to find out who will emerge.
The Indians other than Anand have lost and left. Dibyendu Barua was beaten by a much stronger player and the impressive of them was Surya Sekhar Ganguly who entered the tie- breaks against Khalifman before packing his bags. Pentyala Harikrishna was a major disappointment, giving away a draw with the white pieces in a better position to Alexander Beliavsky and in the reverse game he made a series of positional mistakes to get out 0.5-1.5. The best of them was K. Sasikiran who lost a close battle to third seed Alexander Morozevich.
The players list for the 2002 Corus chess tournament to be held at Wijk aan Zee includes the best names in the game sans Viswanathan Anand. The Wijk aan Zee event runs in the last three weeks of January with G. Kasparov, V. Kramnik, M. Adams, V. Ivanchuk, P. Leko, B. Gelfand, R. Kasimdzhanov, Loel van Wely, R. Ponomariov, Joel Lautier, Alexander Grischuk, Mikhail Gurevich, Jeroen Piket and Jan Timman.
Chiburdanidze in trouble
Former world women's champion Maya Chiburdanidze of Georgia faces elimination if she is unable to make a comeback in her quarterfinal match where she is trailing underdog Zhaoqin Peng of the Netherlands in the World women's chess championship at Kremlin Palace.
Tuesday was a free day and it gave the players time to take rest after a busy schedule of playing since last Tuesday. The fate of Chiburdanidze, women's world champion from 1978 to 1991 who is the second seed will be decided on Wednesday in the reverse game where she has the advantage of making the first move. Zhaoqin Peng is leading the best of two by one game to nil.
Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia is one of the four outsiders to make the quarterfinals.
Kosteniuk is the giant killer of the competition having knocked out top seed and former world championship challenger Alisa Galliamova of Russia by a straight 2-0 margin in the pre-quarterfinals.
The moves: GM R.Ponomariov-GM A.Morozevich, round four, game one, French defence, C11: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Be7 6.Bxf6 gxf6 7.Nf3 a6 8.Qe2 b5 9.g3 Bb7 10.Bg2 Bd5 11.c3 Nd7 12.b3 0-0 13.0-0 f5 14.Ned2 c5 15.c4 Bc6 16.Rad1 Rc8 17.d5 exd5 18.Qd3 bxc4 19.bxc4 Ba4 20.Rb1 dxc4 21.Qxf5 Rc6 22.Nxc4 Rf6 23.Qh5 Rg6 24.Rfe1 Bf6 25.Ne3 Bc3 26.Rec1 Bd4
27.Nf5 Qf6 28.N5xd4 cxd4 29.Qd5 Bc6 30.Qxd4 Bxf3 31.Qxd7 Bxg2 32.Kxg2 h5 33.Rb3 Qf4 34.Re3 h4 35.Rc6 hxg3 36.hxg3 Qh6 37.Rec3 Qh7 38.Rxg6+ fxg6 39.Rc7 Qxd7 40.Rxd7 Rf6 41.a4 Kf8 42.Ra7 Ke8 43.f4 g5 44.fxg5 Rg6 45.Kf3 Rxg5 46.Rxa6 Kf7 47.Rc6 Rd5 48.Rc4 Rd1 49.g4 Kf6 50.Ke4 Ke6 51.Rc6+ Kd7 52.Rc5 Kd6 53.Rb5 Kc6 54.Rf5 Kd6 55.a5 Ra1 56.Kf4 Ke6 57.Kg5 Ra4 58.a6 Ke7 59.Rf6 Rxg4+ 60.Kxg4 1-0.
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