The Hindu : Leko holds Kasparov

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 07, 2003

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Sport - Chess

Leko holds Kasparov

By Our Chess Correspondent

Chennai March 6. Peter Leko of Hungary held World No.1 Garry Kasparov in 33 moves in their tenth round game of the 20th City of Linares chess tournament in progress at Hotel Anibal in Linares, Spain on Wednesday.

World Cup champion Viswanathan Anand had a bye in round ten and is in fourth place with 4.5 points from eight games. Anand still has four games to play and can still pull back and win the tournament if he succeeds in atleast two of the final four games.

World classical chess champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia had a quiet 13-move draw with the black pieces in his game against local entrant Francisco Vallejo.

Kramnik moved up to 5.5 points from nine games to retain the sole lead. Leko, the 23-year old challenger to Kramnik's world title, is in second place with five points from eight games.

Kasparov is third with five points but from nine games.

Kasparov too avoided the Sicilian Sveshnikov variation and went for the Rossolimo attack with the white pieces and was in for an early seventh move surprise from Leko. Kasparov stormed the black position with a rook for bishop sacrifice on the 25th turn. A move later, Leko reciprocated with his own sacrifice of an identical material to obtain an extra passed queen pawn. After white sacrificed his queen pawn on the 29th turn it was clear that the No.1 ranked player of the world was fighting for half a point from the game. Black's 30th move did not threaten white and Kasparov survived with perpetual checks to make a draw in 33 moves.

After 33 moves the players split points on black's proposal when a draw by perpetual checks looked imminent. Both players were rushing the moves and were under three minutes and in deep time trouble.

The longest game to conclude was a see-saw affair between Ponomariov and Radjabov.

In an irregular closed Sicilian opening, Ponomariov lost the advantage of making the first move very early. Then, Radjabov had the advantage until move 26 when he made a mistake. Finally, Ponomariov had the advantage in a queen ending.

His passed queen bishop pawn guaranteed some advantage. On the 36th turn the young Ukrainian world champion rushed with a pawn advance when a deft queen move was necessary to plug the black position. Radjabov took a draw by perpetual checks in 41 moves with the black pieces for a satisfying result.

The former World under-18 champion Francisco Vallejo successfully stopped Kramnik from castling in an English opening but followed that up with a draw offer on the 13th move.

Kramnik accepted the draw and it became the second shortest draw of the tournament.

Anand plays Kramnik with the black pieces on Thursday.

The results (round ten): Francisco Vallejo (Esp) drew with Vladimir Kramnik (Rus), Garry Kasparov (Rus) drew with Peter Leko (Hun), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr) drew with Teimour Radjabov (Aze), Viswanathan Anand (Ind) - bye.

The standings after round ten: 1. Vladimir Kramnik 5.5/9, 2. Peter Leko 5/8, 3. Garry Kasparov 5/9, 4. Viswanathan Anand 4.5/8, 5-6. Ruslan Ponomariov, Teimour Radjabov 3.5/9 each, 7. Francisco Vallejo 3/8.

The pairings for Thursday's round eleven: Kramnik v Anand, Leko v Ponomariov, Radjabov v Vallejo, Kasparov - bye.

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