The Hindu : Anand takes 1-0 lead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 29, 2002

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Sport - Chess

Anand takes 1-0 lead

By Our Chess Correspondent

Chennai April 28. Former World chess champion Viswanathan Anand took a 1-0 lead with a victory with black pieces in the best of two opening round match against Jan Timman of the Netherlands in the Eurotel World Chess Trophy knock-out chess tournament that began at Prague on Sunday.

Showing crispness and a semblance of being in form, Anand, 32, won his first career game with the black pieces against the 50-year old Timman in the first of two games.

Anand needs a draw with the white pieces to advance into the second round of the 32-player tournament.

The Eurotel Trophy, organised by Online World Chess B.V. has a prize fund of half a million Euros (Rs. 2.15 crores) and has attracted the top three ranked players, Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand together for the first time in 15 months. The much-awaited event was inaugurated on Saturday during which time the colour toss was made. The world's 32 best players sans the new champion Ruslan Ponomariov are battling in the tournament that combines rapid chess (25 minutes plus five seconds per move) and classical chess. The finals will be classical chess, seven-hour control.If they keep winning, Anand and Kasparov would meet in the semifinals that will be rapid chess.

In his opening game, Anand played the Sicilian Najdorf with the black pieces against the king pawn start of Timman and excelled in the early middlegame phase by gradually improving his position to win in 45 moves. Playing resourcefully, Anand hit upon a nice idea to swap knights on the 20th turn. Thereafter, his play flowed to a natural looking plan. His 22nd move attacked two white pawns and Timman was in trouble in the game and never managed to recover. The veteran Dutchman sprang up a few surprising manoeuvres, that included the rook for knight sacrifice but Anand was secure in defence as he digested the extra pawn and exchange. Timman's firepower was going down along with the time in his clock. Anand managed to exchange material and down to a double rook against rook and bishop ending. Timman resigned when he noticed that smart play by the Indian was only trapping the attacking bishop.

The results: Round one, game one: Garry Kasparov (Rus) bt. Gilberto Milos (Brz), Judit Polgar (Hun) bt. Ye Jiangchuan (Chn), Boris Gelfand (Isr) drew Yasser Seirawan (USA), Loek Van Wely (Ned) drew Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr), Jan Timman (Ned) lost to Viswanathan Anand (Ind), Alexander Khalifman (Rus) bt. Viktor Bologan (Mda), Ivan Sokolov (Bih) drew Peter Leko (Hun), Michael Adams (Eng) drew Teimour Radjabov (Aze).

The moves: GM Jan Timman-GM Viswanathan Anand, round one, Sicilian Najdorf, B90: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 Ng4 7.Bg5 h6 8.Bc1 Nf6 9.Be2 e5 10.Nb3 Be7 11.0-0 Be6 12.f4 0-0 13.f5 Bd7 14.Be3 Bc6 15.Bf3 b5 16.a3 Nbd7 17.Qe2 Rc8 18.Rfd1 Qc7 19.Bf2 Nb6 20.Nc1 Na4 21.Nxa4 bxa4 22.Rd2 Qb7 23.Nd3 Nxe4 24.Nb4 Nxd2 25.Bxc6 Rxc6 26.Qxd2 Rc4 27.Be3 Rfc8 28.c3 Bf8 29.f6 Rg4 30.Rf1 Rg6 31.Nd5 Rb8 32.Rf2 gxf6 33.h4 f5 34.h5 Re6 35.Rxf5 Qxb2 36.Nf6+ Kh8 37.Nd7 Qxd2 38.Bxd2 Rb1+ 39.Kh2 Kg7 40.Rf3 Be7 41.Rg3+ Kh8 42.Be3 d5 43.Nc5 Bxc5 44.Bxc5 Rb5 45.Bf8 Rb8 0-1.

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