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R3: Anand grabs sole lead

17 March 2008 10:39 PM | Last modified: 21:41

Two draws against Topalov were enough for Anand to grab sole lead in the combined standings of Amber 2008, since Aronian and Ivanchuk lost their mini matches 1½-½ against Gelfand and Van Wely respectively.

Although Topalov tried it for a long time, it wasn’t too difficult for Anand to draw the blindfold game. With White it wasn’t so easy, because Topalov reached a better ending resulting from his new love, the Caro-Kann. But right when the Bulgarian could have really started pressing with 43…Bf6+ 44.Ka3 Rxe1, he decided to call it a day.

Newcomer Mamedyarov surprised everyone by beating Kramnik 1½-½, and it could have been 2-0 if he had found 18.Rxb7! Kxb7 19.Qa6+ Kb8 20. Ba3 in the blindfold game. In the rapid, he made the Budapest Gambit fans happy.

The minimatch between the two super talents Carlsen and Karjakin, who don’t diverge too much both in strength and age, ended in 1-1. In the blindgold game, Carlsen slowly outplayed his opponent from the same line that was seen in Radjabov-Shirov and Anand-Topalov in Linares. Karjakin countered by being the first to adequatly react to Magnus’ Alekhine Defence.

It was a disappointing day for the ambitious Morozevich, who went down 1½-½ against Leko after he totally messed up a winning position in his rapid game.

The blindfold game Aronian-Gelfand was a truly fantastic draw, which definitely needs to be replayed below. After that, Gelfand simply played a very strong White game and thus won his first mini match.

Van Wely had a great day: he managed to increase his score to four times as much as he had yesterday (”A miracle!” Geurt Gijssen said) by beating Ivanchuk 1½-½. The blindfold game wasn’t too exciting but in the rapid, except for the opening, Loek played a fine game.

Blindfold games: Rapid games:

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Written by peter | Filed under Coverstory, Blindfold chess, Rapid chess 

Comments

10 Responses to “R3: Anand grabs sole lead”

  1. manyoso on 17 March 2008 11:08 PM

    Man, I thought for sure Topalov was going to go for the fireworks with 43. … Bf6+, but I guess the king has his escape with Ka4. Anand was lucky Topalov didn’t have any time to drill him.

  2. ~~~~ on 17 March 2008 11:26 PM

    Het einde van Karjakin-Carlsen (rapid) klopt niet. In plaats van 38. … Dh6 (???) speelde Carlsen Dg6 en daarna volgde 39. Tg5 Dc7+ 40. Tg2 1-0

  3. ~~~~ on 17 March 2008 11:26 PM

    Dc2+ bedoel ik…

  4. Ron on 18 March 2008 10:08 AM

    Crazy Amber this year. Only Anand is playing reasonably but what is Kramnik doing? Normally he should be crushing everybody in the blindfold.

  5. alegs1 on 18 March 2008 10:47 AM

    Kramnik is holding on to his secret preparations to ‘crush’ Anand in championship showdown :)

  6. eiae on 18 March 2008 11:26 AM

    I suspect he does. Anand just looks stronger and stronger for every tournament he plays, though. I thought Kramnik would have an edge in their match, but seeing Anand’s play now, I begin to think Kramnik will have a hard time keeping pace.

  7. Mark on 18 March 2008 3:21 PM

    I think Kramnik is still very difficult to beat in match play. His record speaks for himself. Looking forward to the match!

  8. Luis on 18 March 2008 8:19 PM

    Has something happenedwith the website
    Did the 4th sequence of games on round 4 already started?

  9. manyoso on 18 March 2008 9:57 PM

    Yes, it is over. Check here: http://chessok.com/live/broadcast.html

    Leko beat Anand for instance!

  10. Slavmonster on 18 March 2008 10:34 PM

    Wow, I wasn’t aware Leko is able to play such ultra sharp double edged staff.

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