The Hindu : Anand scores over Shirov

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 05, 2002

Sport

Sport - Chess

Anand scores over Shirov
By Arvind Aaron

LINARES, MARCH 4. Former world champion Viswanathan Anand got his winning engine started in the first round of the second round robin cycle by handing Alexei Shirov of Spain his first defeat of the tournament in round eight of the 19th City of Linares chess tournament here on a wet Sunday.

Anand scored his first victory to the relief of his team as Shirov played a dangerously risky game to sacrifice a rook and fall a prey himself in 31 moves.

Anand maintained the grip and defended position to take full advantage of Shirov' material deficit in three hours and ten minutes.

Anand moved to 3.5 points from seven games, with a win, five draws and a defeat. Garry Kasparov leads the 7-player tournament with 3.5 points from six games and has an ongoing favourable result to come. Six rounds remain to be played in this category 20 tournament.

Sunday's rainy start saw the three younger players take the black side. In the ongoing encounter, Kasparov is holding on to an advantage against Vallejo with the white pieces in a Sicilian Paulsen opening.

Anand opened with his king pawn and Shirov repeated the same idea which Ponomariov used on Saturday against Anand. Anand varied as early as the sixth move in the Sicilian defence, Kalashnikov variation, a sister variation of the Sveshnikov system. White's twelfth move was new and it hurt Shirov's clock as he took time analysing the system.

Shirov's major mistake came on move 19 when he started thinking over a simple recapture. Although black's position was bad, what he played made things worse and it was all over very soon with Anand winning a rook for knight advantage on move 22.

Shirov, in a style known only to him, sacrificed a bishop on move 25 to go a net rook down.

Although white's two rooks were not active, once Anand had his king tucked to safety, black resigned on move 31. Atleast these decisive games are increasing the ratio in proposition to drawn encounters.

lThe results (round eight): Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr) 3.5 drew Ruslan Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr) 3.5, Garry Kasparov (Rus) 3.5 playing Francisco Vallejo (Esp) 3, Viswanathan Anand (Ind) 3.5 bt. Alexei Shirov (Esp) 3, Michael Adams (Eng) 3 - bye.

Gelfand, Topalov joint winners

Belarus born Boris Gelfand of Israel and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria jointly won the 1st NAO Masters chess tournament in Cannes, France after the ninth and final round on Sunday afternoon.

lFinal placings: 1-2 B.Gelfand (Isr), V.Topalov (Bul) 6/9 each, 3-7 E.Bacrot (Fra), E.Bareev (Rus), L.Fressinet (Fra), A.Karpov (Rus), P.Leko (Hun) 4.5 each, 8-9 J.Lautier (Fra), Igor Nataf (Fra) 4 each, 10 A.Morozevich (Rus) 2.5.

The results (round nine): Igor Nataf (Fra) 4 drew E.Bareev (Rus) 4.5, L.Fressinet (Fra) 4.5 lost to B.Gelfand (Isr) 6, V.Topalov (Bul) 6 drew Peter Leko (Hun) 4.5, A.Morozevich (Rus) 2.5 drew J.Lautier (Fra) 4, E.Bacrot (Fra) 4.5 bt. A.Karpov (Rus) 4.5. Round eight: B.Gelfand (Isr) 5 drew E.Bacrot (Fra) 3.5, A.Karpov (Rus) 4.5 drew A.Morozevich (Rus) 2, E.Bareev (Rus) 4 lost to L.Fressinet (Fra) 4.5, Peter Leko (Hun) 4 drew Igor Nataf (Fra) 3.5, Joel Lautier (Fra) 3.5 lost to V.Topalov (Bul) 5.5.

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