Report of round 2 - CCT 2008

Lots of action today in Wijk aan Zee! The fighting level is very high, and even games without decisive result left a strong impression.

Levon Aronian seems to have caught fire, scoring his second win in as many games, this time beating Boris Gelfand in a modern Slav - his first ever victory against Boris! Levon’s home preparation was spot on, and gave him a significant time advantage all throughout the game. The Bd3 line that was chosen is actually named the Gelfand Variation, after the latter’s game against Sokolov. The game was very complicated with a lot of possibilities for both sides, although black’s position was easier to play, due to white’s awkwardly placed king. Boris went wrong with (see diagram 1) 22.Qe2?, where he might have tried 22.Bb1 Rd8 22.Qd3 g6 with a double edged position (Aronian). Boris’ next move, 23.Bxg6, was just making matters worse and white’s position was lost once the queens were exchanged: the passed d-pawn in combination with the menacing pair of bishops proved too much to defend against.

17-year-old Magnus Carlsen kept his eye on the ball and followed Aronian’s footsteps with a second victory. The Norwegian Wonderboy had a pleasant endgame advantage out of the opening and gradually improved the activity of his pieces (compare the positions after 19...Bxc3, 31.Rdd6 and finally 48.Kc6 (see diagram 2). The screws on Pavel Eljanov were slowly tightened and when Magnus collected pawns on move 51 and 52, the battle was over.

Unlike Aronian and Carlsen, Teimour Radjabov could not duplicate his first round result. However, the young Azeri can look back at a very successful round, keeping former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik ‘in check’ with the black pieces. Vladimir thought he got out of the opening with a pleasant advantage, but couldn’t find a convincing continuation. After 25...Nd5 he realized Teimour had dealt with most issues and although he lost a pawn later on, had no difficulty achieving a draw.

The game between Veselin Topalov and Vassily Ivanchuk started out promising with the Benoni, an opening variation few world class players adopt. Veselin created a passed d-pawn, but Vassily succesfully blocked the pawn and just before the first time control arrested the villain. White had no choice but to force a draw by move repetition.

At around the same time Viswanathan Anand and Shakhryar Mamedyarov had fought their way to a tie, too. Vishy had a better position all along, but with accurate defence Shaq kept his own. In the final position the advance of white’s passed pawns has been stopped short and they will soon be captured.

The only Dutch matador in Group A came very close to his first win, but an inaccuracy allowed his opponent, the only woman in Group A, to tie the game. Loek van Wely got a clear advantage in the opening when Judit Polgar played the dubious 13...Bxg2, forgoing the critical 13...f5. Loek’s first crucial decision was probably not the best one; instead of trading his strong bishop for black’s knight, he could have opted for (see diagram 3) 22.dxe5 dxe5 23.Bd5 Nd4 24.f4 Qg4 25.Kb1 with the idea a2-a3, Kb1-a2 when White has safeguarded his king’s position and can start putting his nicely placed bishop and rooks to work. Van Wely’s last chance to keep an advantage was 28.Qe4. After Judit’s 28...Rf8 29.Rxd6 Rxf4 the Dutchman suddenly realized the Chess Queen’s king was perfectly safe: 32.Qh8 Kb7 33.Rd7 Ka6 34.Qc8 Ka5 35.Rxa7 Kb4 36.Qa4 Kc3 and white (!) gets checkmated. Van Wely had no choice but to allow a perpetual check.

The longest game of the day ended as it begun, with a slight edge for White, but enough to win. Peter Leko tried hard to win a queen endgame with an extra pawn against Michael Adams. The Englishman didn’t blink for 98 moves, when all efforts came to an end.