Corus R6: Shirov draws, Dominguez, Leko, Kramnik win
22 January 2010, 15.02 CET | Last modified: 20:27 | By Peter Doggers | Filed under: Reports | Tags:
Alexei Shirov was held to a draw easily by Nigel Short in round 6 of the Corus Chess Tournament. Besides a few quick draws, Leko beat Caruana, Dominguez beat Tiviakov and Kramnik beat Van Wely.
The Corus Chess Tournament takes place January 16-31 in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands. Next to hundreds of amateurs, three Grandmaster Groups (A, B and C) with 14 players each play a closed round-robin. The rate of play is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, and 30 seconds increment starting from move 1.
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Games round 6
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Round 6
15:10 CET Despite the “friendly request” from the organizers to avoid short draws, Ivanchuk and Nakamura repeated moves in a Slav after 14 moves and then shook hands. Nakamura’s explanation after the game: “The thing is that oddly enough I had prepared this variation, looked at everything except 13.a5. I looked at about four other lines and then I overlooked this 13.a5 line and after this 13.a5 I more or less have to force a draw I think, because otherwise I am significantly worse. If I had the choice between playing a worse position with Black againt Ivanchuk or taking a draw obviously I’m gonna take a draw in that situation.
Not long after that, Anand and Carlsen also split the point. Carlsen left the venue quickly but Anand was happy to give some explanation: “I wanted to try. He surprised me with this opening; I’ve been checking lots of other stuff but exactly this Dragon I didn’t expect from him. (…) It seems that I just have to force the draw with 19.Qh4. He goes 19…e5, takes, bishop takes, swap everything down, Qe7, Qe5 and it seems to be a draw. (…) My problem is that if I don’t force the draw where I did, on the 19th move, then it takes very little for me to be worse. Either his e-pawn comes to e5 and if I don’t force the draw I’m just worse because my bishop is really bad now. It’s only good if I can keep this pawn on e7. I must have missed something in the opening.”
The main other attraction, of course, is Shirov-Short. The Latvian seems to have real chances of improving his position slowly; might become a tough afternoon for Short! Leko-Caruano is a sharp, interesting fight in a theoretical Arkhangelsk Ruy Lopez. The current evaluation is anyone’s guess and the clocks also don’t give hints in this case. The same can be said of Kramnik-Van Wely (a difficult KID) and Karjakin-Smeets, It’s clear the two Dutchmen will have to work hard for their points but so far they seem to have avoided yesterday’s disasters. Their compatriot Tiviakov has a solid position against Dominguez. For not-so-mysterious reasons, we bet on a draw in this game.
in Group B, Anish Giri faces Tommy Nyback – we’ll come back to the game in a later stage – and in C, Ray Robson will surely try to increase his lead against Bok. Look out for the endgames Reinderman and L’ Ami are playing – potential instructiveness is in the air.
17:03 CET
As far as the A group is concerned, this 6th round is not too exciting so far. Short quite easily held Shirov to a draw, and received a “Congratulations!” whisper from Vladimir Kramnik on stage, to which the Englishman answered: “Thank you, it’s one of the best achievements in my career!” Soon afterwards Smeets and Karjakin also drew their game.
Much more fun are the B and C groups. Giri’s move 21…Kd6! was praised by the journos in the press room and one of them was reminded by the games of ex-World Champion Tigran Petrosian. Nyback might well become Giri’s next victim today.
Ni Hua-Muzychuk is a good one as well, where the Chinese GM gave a bishop, knight and rook to win the opponent’s queen and three pawns. As a result a highly rare material imbalance is left on the board. Howell and Sutovsky are in for a long game today and in C, Gupta-Vocaturo has gotten quite sharp. Bok seems to have more than enough compensation for the exchange he lost to tournament leader Robson.
17:20 CET
Just after that last update, Bok missed a trick by Robson, who is now leading C with an amazing 5.5/6. Giri also won again and will do the press conference also today. Who doesn’t want to hear Anish’ own thoughts about his 21st move?
19:56 CET
It turned out to be another bad day for the Dutchies in the A group. Tiviakov did win a pawn against Dominguez but his position remained very passive. The Cuban managed to keep his opponent’s queenside locked and in the ending his better pieces and passed pawn decided the game immediately. Kramnik played the – these days popular – Gligoric System against Van Wely’s KID, and had a good answer to Black’s g5-g4: a strong white-squared bishop and control over the b-file in the ending. The ex-World Champion kept on playing strongly and eventually forced resignation in a knight ending. Leko scored his first win of the tournament against Caruana after winning a piece for two pawns in a complicated Archangelsk middlegame.
In B, Giri’s win meant that the Dutchman increased his lead because Howell is defending a most probably lost queen ending. Ni Hua keeps chances for promotion as well after winning that umbalanced middlegame against Muzychuk. In C, Li Chao is only half a point behind Robson thanks to a black victory against Lie.
Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A
Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B
Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C
Corus 2010 | Round 6 Standings Grandmaster Group A
Corus 2010 | Round 6 Standings Grandmaster Group B
Corus 2010 | Round 6 Standings Grandmaster Group C
Links
- Official website
- Games in PGN via TWIC: Group A | Group B | Group C
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Good thing I was there yesterday and not today. A shame all the top-players “plan” (??) these short draws on the same day. But I guess they know what they are doing…
I don’t think it was planned, but I am also glad that I skipped today (planning to go tomorrow). I am particularly puzzled about Anand’s comment on Carlsen’s “tame Dragon” – I would say a Dragon can become tame if white avoids the sharpest lines, that’s what happened in the game!? But it was Anand (himself) behind the white pieces!!?
I was there today, Thomas, and I understand your feelings. Still, it was all worth it hearing Short comment on Giri’s 21…Kd6!! “That’s one hell of a good move!”
Actually looking at the position @move 20 and seeing Nyback play 21 d4-d5 I got the idea he made a mistake and should have gone for 21 e4-e5! instead, since black cannot exchange pawns on d4 or he will lose the queen. After that white is free to keep his strong pawn center with d4-d4 or even go for the thrust e5-e6. No engine at hand though, so perhaps 21 e5 has some other drawback I haven’t noticed.
d4-d4 stands for d4-d5 of course
The dutch players’ performances make me sad. Thank goodness Giri is playing!
At the end of the day, the three remaining games in the A group would have been worth it after all – as well as all the action in the other groups (only one game drawn so far, and eight with a decisive result). That’s the nice thing about Corus – three short draws would be very hard to handle or accept in a six-player double round robin.
Short’s comment was probably made in the press room which is off limits for me – thanks for sharing!
Good point for van Wely today! After Shirov’s draw he is the only one without any draws
Could it be that Li Chao was damn lucky there not to lose (or at least draw) when Lie ran into a trap at the end or is it me patzer not seeing the deeper plan?
I am fascinated by the way that tournament organiser still don’t manage to get it right (or that chinese delegations don’t notice it to them)- “Li” is the family name “Chao” the first name- chinese names are normally written with the family name first (korean too btw). Granted, not big deal, but amusing to read “Chao”…
Nakamura: “I’m so disappointed but what can I do with black when this guy wants to split the point?”
Hmm, maybe avoid repeating moves would help. Was 15… Nc5 really the only move?
I’d love your opinions. Who is the best chess player in the Americas Dominguez (2714.6 in the live ratings) or Nakamura (2731.9 in the live ratings)?
Impressive game by L’Ami with play on both wings and in the centre. Huge!
Michel about the names, isn’t it the same for Anand?
Please give your opinions on the B players.
I guess Loek isn’t using The Force.
I’m pretty sure that the Corus stuff knows the correct names very well. The old problem with the names is due to the common databases, imho. If you search for “Li” you won’t get just the games of Chao Li. But search for “Li Chao” and you’ll get what you want.
But what is with Dominguez for example. Is his first name “Leinier” (FIDE & wiki version) or “Lenier” (ChessBase version)? And Harikrishna as well: “Pentala” (FIDE) or “Penteala” (ChessBase)?
It’s Leinier. And it has been corrected in newer Playbase’s.
@ Sergio
Yes, I think there is something similar with indian names too- only I don’t know enough about the way indian names are written so I keep my mouth shut.
@ Deep Mikey
Good point- I can’t imagine the organizers don’t know this anymore, so it could be a database-problem. On the other hand I also see big chess-websites (even chessvibes?) still not knowing how’s it’s written (I remember one once writing about the player “Xiangzhi”…), so who knows…
Hou Yifan also always gets called “Yifan” on tournament-sites. Ah well…
With chinese and korean names easiest it’s anyway the easiest and rather common to use the full name.
What is the winning continuation in Karjakin – Smeets that is mentioned in some reports?
Indians (at least Anand and Humpy) don’t have family names. They have their given name – Anand and Humpy – and their fathers name – Viswanathan and Koneru. So they can’t call Anand any other way than Anand. If they would write Viswanathan, then they would write about his father