Anand, Aronian and Kramnik win in third round Tal Memorial
7 November 2009, 20.01 CET | Last modified: 23:08 | By Peter Doggers | Filed under: Reports | Tags:
The silence was broken in round 3 of the Tal Memorial. Anand was the first to win today when Svidler blundered in an already difficult position. Leko never got true compensation against Aronian in an Anti-Moscow and resigned on move 43. In the best game of the day Kramnik defeated Morozevich with Black in a Nimzo-Indian.
The Tal Memorial takes place November 4-18 in Moscow, Russia. The category 21 round-robin has Viswanathan Anand (India, 2788), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2786), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2801), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2772), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2752), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2758), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2739) Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2754) and Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2739).
The first four rounds of the round-robin are held in hotel “National” on November 5, 6, 7 and 8. Rounds 5-9 take place in the Main Department Store GUM on Red Square. The time control is the classic 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour and then 15 minutes plus 30 seconds increment to finish the game. The rounds begin daily at 15:00 Moscow time which is 13:00 CET.
Round 3
Blood on the boards today! Finally we saw wins and defeats, winners and losers, joy and sorrow. Anand, Aronian and Kramnik grabbed the lead with a win in a great round which was live commentated by IM Robert Ris, who also participated in the chat throughout the day. We start to get used to our new service ourselves, and it shows! 
We have to start this report with Morozevich-Kramnik, which was an absolutely splendid performance by the former World Champion. In yet another Nimzo-Indian he was quickly on top and made his opponent thinking at move 10, which gave the impression that something had gone wrong in Moro’s preparation. White’s Kf1 and h4 set-up was interesting, but not very dangerous and soon Kramnik showed the downside of it, using the remarkable knight manoeuvre Nc5-b3-c1. Though he fought well, Morozevich couldn’t survive Kramnik’s ongoing power shots.
By then Anand had already won as well, and even easier. His 5.Bd2 line was a good choice against Svidler’s Grünfeld and soon the Indian proved that with accurate play White can reach a slight advantage there. Marching with the f-pawn was suddenly decisive when Svidler blundered with 25…fxe4? – he must have underestimated the deadly 29.b4!.
Aronian-Leko was a heavy theoretical battle in an Anti-Moscow in which the Armenian came with the first new move, but the Hungarian kept on playing quickly for a while. Aronian ended up with an extra pawn and slowly but surely kept on improving his position, until the ending was a simple win.
Gelfand and Carlsen drew quickly in a Grünfeld while compatriots Ivanchuk and Ponomariov played the longest game of the day, mainly because of Ivanchuk’s fighting spirit – he kept on trying to convert a tiny edge in a knight ending, until there really wasn’t any play left at move 69.
Games round 3 [IM Robert Ris]
Game viewer by ChessTempo
Tal Memorial 2009 | Round 3 Standings
Tal Memorial 2009 | Schedule and results
Following an excellent idea of Georg in the comments, we try to write something about Mikhail Tal every day.
Mikhail Tal was World Champion between 1960 and 1961, but he always remained a very strong and dangerous player. One of his best performances in his later career was his shared first place with reigning World Champion Anatoly Karpov at the Montreal super-tournament of 1979, where the two finished on 12/18 (a 10-player, double round-robin, those were the days…), ahead of Portisch, Ljubojevic, Spassky, Timman, Hort, Hübner, Kavalek and Larsen.
In the tournament book Montreal 1979 – Tournament of Stars (Pergamon, 1980) the winners are interviewed (although it’s not clear who asks the questions, A. Roshal or V. Chepizhny). A bit from that book:
Many – and, I must admit, myself included – consider that something of an evolution has occurred with Tal’s style. Your play has become more positional, more universal. Is this so?
I’d be glad to get to heaven, but my sins won’t allow it! Today the squares d5, f5 and e6 (my visiting cards, so to speak) are so well covered! Have a poke in there – there are four defenders! Now, Rantanen, a young player, he didn’t know that I had become ‘positional’, and played ‘open’ chess against me in Tallinn. I succeeded in carrying out an interesting combination. To work it out was probably not very complicated but… He made a move, I replied, and he should have resigned, but preferred to be mated; in making his last move, he thought that he was winning!
No, it’s nothing to do with me – it’s my opponents!
You mean that your style is just what it used to be?
My style – yes. Perhaps I have become a little older, and see a little more for my opponents, and a little less for myself. I am convinced that, protected by all this armour, I would simply tear to pieces that Candidates of the sixties!
In this tournament you succeeded in winning several games in good old Tal style. I recall that in one of your recent interviews you said that today spectacular combinations are possible only against weak opponents. Is this exactly what you meant?
Very well, you can add – weak or forgetful. Spassky and I have been meeting now for a quarter of a century. And all these years in my games with him I have been setting my sights on the square h2 (h7). And in Montreal Boris simply provoked me into a combination. To open yourself up to such an extent you have to be in excellent form, and that is just what Spassky wasn’t in this tournament. For me it was both unexpected and simple to win this game.”
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topalov should be afraid of anands grunfeld and d4!
that is one strong tournament. Only Topalov is missing from the real elite players in my mind, which is a pity. Had Topa been there we could have said the winner is the strongest player in the world at the moment.
i hope Topalov beats Anand
Wow, 1.d4 leading 12-3 so far …
The cream is rising to the top. Carlsen will win soon.
Yes, it seems like the days of 1.e4 are over, too many drawing lines.
Hopefully this won’t happen to 1.d4 as well. Looking at Kramnik’s Nimzo from round one this does not seem entirely impossible…
All I want to say is that you guys at Chess Vibes are doing an AMAZING job!! Amazing coverage and I love the live commentary. Just AMAZING! Thanks a lot!!
Very VERY good technic from Kramnik!! Excelent.
Nothing to do, Moro, after going wrong…
But… Go Go Moro!!!
Chucky’s had a frustrating run recently- many middle games where he is the only one playing for the win and the full point continuously evaporating.
Still my dark horse bet for this tourney. Gotta get that first win under his belt
It is hard to decide, which game was the best from the three. Certainly not the Anand-Svidler one, which depended upon a single error. Personally I found Aronian’s game most instructive, it was a real gem! The only serious chance Leko had was to take on b2, still it might have been a pretty dubious decision.
Actually it is impossible to point out any serious blunder in Leko’s game (who is actually not a bad defender), still he did not have any cahnce against Aronian. Therefore I would say, that Aronian’s game made the day for me.
“Yes, it seems like the days of 1.e4 are over, too many drawing lines.”
d4 lines like the Slav and the Semi-Slav are more drawish than the most popular e4 defense the Sicilian.
“Actually it is impossible to point out any serious blunder in Leko’s game (who is actually not a bad defender), still he did not have any cahnce against Aronian. Therefore I would say, that Aronian’s game made the day for me”
Kramnik played really well but Morozevich had a lost position with white before the 20th move and then you haven’t played well. Both made a few mistakes after that and even if I thought it was the most fun game I think Aronian-Leko was better.
@Onischuk fan: What do you mean with “drawish”? The fact that the game is likely to end in a draw or – not quite the same – that a draw becomes rather obvious immediately after or during the opening phase?
The second is IMO not the case for Slav and/or Semi-Slav, at least white can deviate with more promising (but also more risky) lines. It is not as easy against several 1.e4 e5 lines:
- the Marshall, where anti-Marshall lines also lead to slow and relatively draw-prone play
- the Berlin, where the “anti-Berlin” (4.d3) is not really promising
- the Petroff. What would an anti-Petroff be? A four knights or deviating on move 2 already (2.Bc4, 2.f4!?/?!) ?