Saturday, May 03, 2003
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Chess
Chess in Spain continues to produce innovative methods to retain spectator interest. By inviting living legend Anatoly Karpov, the 52-year old former world champion, Judit Polgar the evergreen ruling queen of the chess world since 1989 and Viswanathan Anand, the reigning world cup champion, the festival organisers put up players from their Bilbao region for a three day rapid chess, advanced chess and blindfold chess combined event. It is a Scheveningen system where the three visitors only face the local Spanish players. This new event is part of the Chess Festival of Santurtzi and the three visitors were invited as early as January 28 this year after the last round of the Corus tournament at Wijk aan Zee. At the end of the first day's play, the visitors have taken a big 5-1 lead largely due to the winning prowess of Anand and Judit Polgar. Anand humbled Mario Gomez 2-0 in rapid chess while Judit Polgar did the same to Feliz Izeta in blindfold chess. Success came in the form of two draws for the Spaniards when Txelu Fernandez held Karpov to two draws in the advanced chess part. In `advanced chess', players are allowed to consult a computer for a superior error free hitherto unknown strength. In the second round on Friday, Anand will play two blindfold games against Fernandez while Gomez will face Judit Polgar in advanced chess and Karpov will play rapid chess against Izeta. In the final round on Saturday, Anand will play advanced chess against Izeta, Karpov will play blindfold against Gomez and Judit Polgar will play rapid chess against Fernandez. Anand, the king of rapid chess could not have had a better start to the event. Anand scored his two points first with a defensive 50-move win with the black pieces against Mario Gomez and then took the second point with a crisp attacking 30-move win with the white pieces using the English opening. The next best player after Anand so far this year has been Judit Polgar with two creditable second places in top-flight competitions. She benefited from Linares commentator and grandmaster Feliz Izeta's queen blunder to win in 25 moves with black. Then she sliced through the defences of Izeta with white, tossing the black side into a mating net after just 19 moves. It may have been four years since Judit Polgar last played blindfold chess but she has not forgotten the art with which she once excelled in the early years of the Amber tournament at Monte Carlo. The scars of a humiliating 1-5 defeat in `advanced chess' to Anand in 1999 seemed to reflect on Karpov's play as he conceded two draws in 35 and 31 moves against Txelu Fernandez in their two game advanced chess match. However, Karpov will be more at home playing rapid chess and blindfold variety in the next two days as the visitors are expected to make a big sweep against the players from the Spanish local region. — Our Chess Correspondent.
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