Gelfand keeps on rockin’

Gelfand is playing a great world championship tournament and many predicted that this had to end at some point. Last Tuesday one of the grandmasters present even predicted he would soon collapse. But today Boris proved them wrong by scoring the second win of the black pieces in Mexico so far, against Aronian. He thus decreased Anand’s lead to a point, after the Indian expectedly had drawn his game against Svidler. Kramnik this time satisfied his fans by scoring a fine White victory over Leko and the clash between the two Alexanders ended positively for Morozevich, who beat Grischuk in a reversed Sicilian.

This time no Mexican journalists had the guts to ask about the how and why of Anand and Svidler’s quick draw. A child understands what was going on in Anand’s mind and Svidler, well, just might be too friendly to his competitors to win a game here.

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A cunning Leko used (for the second time) one of the ideas Kramnik had tested himself earlier in the tournament. The world champion also had some ideas for the opposite colour and Leko soon got into trouble. He had “forgotten” about the move 28.Qf7 and after that he was already lost.

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Soon after that (actually, during the Kramnik-Leko press conference) Aronian went down. After the game he still thought the daring g2-g4-g5 was interesting, put he’ll probably won’t try it again in this exact same position. Actually only after he took on e5 (”a blunder” - Levon) it was lost for White. Take note of Gelfand’s touching plea for the classical time-control.

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It was one of the shortest rounds so far because Morozevich grabbed his full point immediately after the first time control. It comes down to Grischuk simply playing quite badly, as he said himself, and he said he lost deservedly.

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Although anything can happen, it’s safe to say that Anand will draw his last two games as well and will be crowned world champion on Sunday night. And besides that, it’s interesting to see how Gelfand’s “game by game” tactic works out so well.

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(Yesterday’s video by Macauley for ICC.)

Standings (click for bigger version):

Results/schedule:

Round 1: Thursday, Sept. 13th 2007, 14:00h Kramnik  ½-½  Svidler Morozevich  ½-½  Aronian Anand  ½-½  Gelfand Grischuk  ½-½  Leko	Round 2: Friday, Sept. 14th 2007, 14:00h Svidler  ½-½  Leko Gelfand  ½-½  Grischuk Aronian  0-1  Anand Kramnik  1-0  Morozevich
Round 3: Saturday, Sept. 15th 2007, 14:00h Morozevich  1-0  Svidler Anand  ½-½  Kramnik Grischuk  ½-½  Aronian Leko  ½-½  Gelfand	Round 4: Sunday, Sept 16th 2007, 14:00h Svidler  ½-½  Gelfand Aronian  1-0  Leko Kramnik  ½-½  Grischuk Morozevich  ½-½  Anand
Free day: Monday, Sept. 11th 2007	Round 5: Tuesday, Sept. 18th 2007, 14:00h Anand  1-0  Svidler Grischuk  1-0  Morozevich Leko  ½-½  Kramnik Gelfand  1-0  Aronian
Round 6: Wednesday, Sept. 19th 2007, 14:00h Aronian  ½-½  Kramnik Gelfand  1-0  Morozevich Grischuk  ½-½  Svidler Leko  ½-½  Anand	Round 7: Thursday, Sept. 20th 2007, 14:00h Anand  1-0  Grischuk Kramnik  ½-½  Gelfand Morozevich  ½-½  Leko Svidler  ½-½  Aronian

Second half

Round 8: Friday, Sept. 21st 2007, 14:00h Svidler  ½-½  Kramnik Aronian  ½-½  Morozevich Gelfand  ½-½  Anand Leko  1-0  Grischuk	Free day: Saturday, Sept. 22nd 2007
Round 9: Sunday, Sept. 23th 2007, 14:00h Anand  ½-½  Aronian Grischuk  1-0  Gelfand Leko  ½-½  Svidler Morozevich  1-0  Kramnik	Round 10: Monay, Sept. 24th 2007, 14:00h Aronian  1-0  Grischuk Gelfand  ½-½  Leko Kramnik  ½-½  Anand Svidler  ½-½  Morozevich
Round 11: Tuesday, Sept. 25th 2007, 14:00h Anand  1-0  Morozevich Gelfand  ½-½  Svidler Grischuk  ½-½  Kramnik Leko  ½-½  Aronian	Free day: Wednesday, Sept. 26th 2007
Round 12: Thursday, Sept 27th 2007, 14:00h Aronian  0-1  Gelfand Kramnik  1-0  Leko Morozevich  1-0  Grischuk Svidler  ½-½  Anand	Round 13: Friday, Sept. 28th 2007, 14:00h Aronian     Svidler Grischuk     Anand Leko     Morozevich Gelfand     Kramnik
Round 14: Saturday, Sept. 29th 2007, 14:00h Anand     Leko Kramnik     Aronian Morozevich     Gelfand Svidler     Grischuk	Sunday, Sept. 30th 2007 Possible tiebreaks, closing ceremony