Sunday, Oct 13, 2002
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Chess
By V.V. Subrahmanyam
In queen-pawn opening to which the Russian girl replied with Slav Defence, the Indian girl played solid game. And, Kostenuik erred very early playing Nf6 instead of Rd8. Soon, Humpy castled on queenside and the position looked minus. But, Kostenuik's Nf6 allowed white to get advantage on kingside. Then Kostenuik made a desperate sacrifice playing b5 to create counter-play. But, Humpy's two bishops dominated the whole board. And to the delight of the connoisseurs, Humpy cleverly rolled her pawns h4, g4 and h5, g5 on kingside. After g5, she was in a winning position. Though the Russian sacrificed an exchange to create some threats, but it was not to be as Humpy wrapped up the issue in style. The major upset of the day came from the 12-year-old Dronavalli Harika, who shocked former World champion Maya Chiburdanidze, in a third round game featuring Kind's Indian Defence to notch up her first win in three rounds.Harika capitalised on a blunder on the 33rd move - e5 - from the seasoned campaigner. This saw Harika gain an exchange that saw the opponent's rook trapped. Soon, the two exchanged the queens also. But, after that there was little Chiburdnidze could do except to resign on 53rd move giving a creditable victory to Harika, a last minute entry in this World Cup, who had a few days ago won the Junior national championship in Delhi. Anand beats Kasimdzhanov In men's section, defending champion Viswanathan Anand demonstrated his now-familiar trait of fighting back with vengeance after an early setback to send a message to the concerned that he is very much in contention for a knockout berth with a brilliant win over Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan. In Sicilian Opening, Kasimdzhanov was expected to play a solid game but preferred the Sicilian Pelikan Variation and the game went on theoretical lines for quite some time. Just when the opponent might just be hoping to pull off a draw, Anand came with a masterly move - d7, which was not only a novelty but also exposed the chinks in the rival territory. Kasimdzhanov, rated the second best in Asia, weakened his back rank by playing Rc6. This saw Anand offer an exchange that obviously the rival couldn't accept. When the Uzbekistan star tried to attack Anand's queen on f5, the Indian genius replied with d8. At that moment, Anand's queen, bishop and new queen were all under attack. But Anand's brilliance in wriggling out of a crisis of sorts was to the fore. Though Kasimdzhanov captured the new queen, he had to surrender an exchange but could not gain any compensation. Then he played f3 and after that the rest was a formality for Anand to record his first win in three games after a draw and a loss. European champion Macieja Bartilomiej of Poland scored a surprise win over the highly rated Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine in another third round game. Perhaps, the advantage of playing with the illustrious rival for the same club in Europea n circuit did help the Polish star. In a two-knights defence game, the Ukraine star seemed to be out of sorts from the beginning. For, he surprised his rival by offering a draw on the very 10th move that was predictably declined by Macieja. Inexplicably, Ivanchuk allowed the opponent to open up the `h' file` through which the Polish star brought his queen and two rooks into play. Then he piled on the misery of Ivanchuk by playing `g4' which gave little space for Ivanchuk's pieces. Unable to defend his king, Ivanchuk resigned after 45 moves. "It is extremely difficult to find one single bad move from Ivanchuk. But he seemed to be more keen on draw anc quite surprisingly," were Macieja's remarks. And today's was good revenge for him after losing to Ivanchuk in the tie-breaker in the Moscow World championship last December. The results: men: group A: Macieja Bartilomiej (Pol, 2) beat Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr,1); Vladimir Malakhov (Rus,2) bt YeJiangchuan (Chn,1); Giovanni Vescovi (Bra,2.5) bt Iuldachev Saidali( Uzb, .5). Group B: Sergei Rublevsky (Rus,2) drew with Teimour Radjabov (Aze,2); Alex Yermolinsky (USA, 1) drew with ZurabAzmaiparashvilli (Geo,1); Watu Kobese (SA,1) lost to Alexey Dreev (Rus,2). Group C: Hichem Hamdouchi (Mar,1) drew with KrishnanSasikiran (Ind,2.5); Xu Jun (China,0.5) lost to Al Modiahki Mohammed (Qat,2); Viswanathan Anand (Ind,1.5) bt Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Uzb,1.5 ). Group D: Alexander Morozevich (Rus,1) drew with Alexander Beliavsky (Slo,2.5); Pentyala Harikrishna (Ind,0) lost to Nigel Short (Eng,2); Jaan Ehlvest (Est,2) drew with SuryaShekhar Ganguly (Ind,1.5). Women: group A: Ekaterina Kovalevskaya (Rus,2) drew with ViktorijaCmilyte (Ltu,1); Svetlana Matveeva (Rus,2) drew with Li Ruofan (Chn,2); Maia Chiburdanidze (Geo,1) lost to Harika Dronavalli (Ind,1). Group B: S. Vijayalakshmi (Ind, 0.5) lost to Xu Yuhua (Chn,1 .5); Swati Ghate (Ind,1.5) drew with Antoneta Stefanova (Bul,2.5); Nino Khurtsidze (Geo, 1.5) bt Pia Cramling (Swe,1.5). Group C: Koneru Humpy (Ind,3) bt Alexandra Kosteniuk (Rus,1); Bhagyashree Thipsay (Ind,0) lost to Stepovaia Dianchenko (Rus, 1.5); Irina Krush (USA,2) drew with NanaIosliani (Geo,1.5). Group D: Zhu Chen (Chn, 1.5) bt Peng Zhaoqin (Ned,1); Dworakowska Joanna (Pol, 1.5) drew with S. Meenakshi (Ind , 2); Aarthie Ramaswamy (Ind,1) drew with Wang Pin (Chn,2).
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