Sport - Chess

Anand, Karpov escape with draws

By Our Chess Correspondent

Chennai May 2 . Both Viswanathan Anand and Anatoly Karpov who played with white pieces, drew their first games with shades of difficulty in their semifinals against Vassily Ivanchuk and Alexei Shirov, respectively, in the Eurotel World Chess Trophy at Prague on Thursday afternoon.

In the reverse encounters to be played later in the evening, both Anand and Karpov will have the disadvantage of playing with the black pieces in the best of two rapid chess match. If the scores are tied at 1-1, the match will go into two blitz tie-break games and if required the sudden death shootout.

White in game one, Anand's problems continued against Ivanchuk even five months after the December debacle in the World championship. The Indian played the Rossolimo variation against the Sicilian defence of black. Ivanchuk, clearly in form and playing naturally under no pressure to win, expanded his king side pawns and won a pawn. In the major pieces ending, Anand equalised material but his fractured pawn structure offered the Ukrainian an advantage.

When the queens were exchanged off, it was a rook and pawn ending with five passed pawns on the board, three for Ivanchuk and two for Anand.

Since Anand's pawns were advanced he was able to perpetually check the enemy king with his rook and make a draw in 50 moves. It was another excellent exhibition of defence by Anand but then he played white in this game.

At Linares this year, Anand tried the open variation against the Sicilian defence of Ivanchuk and finally drew the game with great difficulty. Ivanchuk will have the advantage of playing white in the second game.

Karpov had a great escape when Shirov sacrificed a rook and pawn for a knight to get a big advantage. The advantage was based on locking white's queen from play in a queen's gambit accepted opening. Shirov dominated with the black pieces from move 18. Karpov sacrificed a rook for bishop to win a pawn back.

In the rooks and knight ending, Karpov defended accurately and made sure that when the game slid into a knight ending, draw was certain. Shirov's two pawns were doubled and Karpov effected a draw in a knight versus knight by bringing up a blockade in 65 moves.

Ivanchuk upsets Kasparov

On Wednesday, the biggest upset of the event took place in the sudden death game when Ivanchuk defeated Kasparov for a 3-2 result. The Lvov Grandmaster from Ukraine, once tipped to be Karpov's successor to challenge Kasparov in the post 1990 World championship phase had a great day making almost error free moves at quick time. The tournament has had its silent share of upsets.

Peter Leko who won the biggest rapid chess event organised by FIDE in April at Dubai under the name FIDE Grand Prix was the round one victim. Then, the professional champion of the world Vladimir Kramnik bowed out in round two, and on Wednesday Kasparov packed his bags. Kasparov not being able to beat Ivanchuk reveals his heavy reliance on the openings to deliver his results. Ivanchuk, whose Sicilian defence choice that is unnerving his elite colleagues today is no worse in raw middlegame strength and calculation. Ivanchuk was more impressive of the two in their four drawn rapid and blitz tiebreak games. For the sudden death fifth game, Kasparov had five minutes and white pieces. Ivanchuk was given four minutes and black pieces. Kasparov was required to win to advance.

The results: semifinals, game one: Viswanathan Anand (Ind) drew with Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr), Anatoly Karpov (Rus) drew with Alexei Shirov (Esp).

Wednesday's results: quarterfinals: Garry Kasparov (Rus) lost to Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr) 2-3, Ivan Sokolov (Bih) lost to Viswanathan Anand (Ind) 0.5-1.5, Alexander Morozevich (Rus) lost to Anatoly Karpov (Rus) 0.5-1.5, Alexei Shirov (Esp) bt Veselin Topalov (Bul) 1.5-0.5.

The moves: GM Garry Kasparov-GM Vassily Ivanchuk, round three, sudden death blitz tie-break game, Ruy Lopez, C90: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.a4 Bg4 9.c3 0-0 10.h3 Bxf3 11.Qxf3 Na5 12.Bc2 b4 13.d4 c5 14.dxe5 dxe5 15.Nd2 Nd7 16.Bd3 Nb6 17.Bf1 c4 18.Qg3 Qc7 19.Nf3 Rfe8 20.Bh6 Bf8 21.cxb4 Nb3 22.Ra3 a5 23.bxa5 Rxa5 24.Ra2 Rxa4 25.Rxa4 Nxa4 26.Nh4 g6 27.Bxf8 Rxf8 28.Nf5 Nxb2 29.Rb1 Na4 30.Bxc4 Qxc4 31.Rxb3 Qxe4 32.Rf3 Nc5 33.Qg5 f6 34.Ne7+ Kg7 35.Qc1 Ne6 36.Ra3 Nf4 0-1.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

Chess

• Three share lead in girls' section
• Anand, Karpov escape with draws
• To play for pride or to stay away to salvage points?
• Ram in joint lead
  
  Cricket
  
• West Indies calls the shots
• Haq simply unstoppable; Kiwis struggle
  
  Football
  
• World Cup Countdown - Controversies: `Hand of God' goal
• Goa enters final
  
  Hockey
  
• Brojen performs hat-trick
  
  Racing : Motor
  
• Subaru Rally from today
  
  Sports : General
  
• Sport Digest
  
  Tennis
  
• AITA brings Rohan, Sania under one-year sponsorship
• India makes it to the knock-out stage
• Shwetha topples Tejaswini
• Ghouse stops Sandeep
  
  

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu