Live reporting: round 5
18 January 2007 14:06 PM CET | Last modified: 18:09 | By Peter Doggers | Filed under: Reports | Tags:
Laste update: 18.12 CET
And we have started. The fifth round immediately sees some interesting opening positions. Especially Shirov-Van Wely: they follow a topical line of the Najdorf - let’s hope it’ll go better for KingLoek than against Topalov, but I remember this line being theoretically better for White… We’ll look it up and get back to this soon. Radja played another King’s Indian (which means more work for Golubev!) and Navara reacted surprisingly with some Bg5 line. Karjakin-Motylev is a Advance Caro-Kann (we haven’t seen that one for a while!), Tivi does something very quiet and very unknown against Topa’s Berlin Defence of the Ruy Lopez, Pono-Kramnik is a quiet Semi-Slav, Anand this time declines Svidler’s Marshall (although tutor Jan van Kalken has said that ‘you can always take the first pawn’) and Aronian immediately sac’ed a pawn against Carlsen (a Queen’s Indian).
Update 14.50 CET: by the way, Topalov and Danailov are wearing a band today in the colours of the Bulgarian flag and with the text ‘You are not alone’: they co-operate with the international campaign put up by the Bulgarian media for the five Bulgarian nurses who have been imprisoned for years and now face the death penalty. And about the theoretical status of Shirov-Van Wely: the latest news in this line was 21…d5!?, played in Harikrishna-Karjakin, Foros 2006. Loek plays the slightly older move 21…Ne5, which Anand used to beat Karjakin, last year in Wijk aan Zee, but Loek plays the improvement 22…Ra4! instead of Vishy’s 22…Ra5, when Karjakin could have gained the advantage with 23.Qb4!. After 22…Ra4 still known are the moves 23. Qg2 (from Al Modiahki-Ftacnik, Turin OL 2006) and 23. h5 (Shabalov-De Firmian, Ledyards 2006), but Shirov indeed seems not well prepared, just like in his game against Topalov, because he’s now used more than an hour on the clock already.
Update 15.56 CET: while there’s not only storm outside but thunder too, inside already two games are over. Only one was peaceful: again a quick draw by Kramnik, who we suddenly noticed next to us, with his coat on and using the internet. This way you don’t win tournaments, Mr. World Champion, or are you preparing a Topalovian final sprint? The journalists were shocked when Anand had suddenly won and quickly took their notebooks and cameras. Unfortunately he and his wife already had their coat on as well: no post-mortem this time. What happened?
Anand-Svidler
Corus 2007
Black played 18…Ne7? here; Anand explained that Svidler thought that after 19. Nxh6+ Qxh6 20. Qxd7 Red8 21. Qxc7 he could go 21…Rc8 ‘when 22.Qxe5 was forced and 22…Rxd2 gives good play’. Nopes, Bb7 is hanging. A surprising piece of chess blindness by Svidler.
Update 17.01 CET: again Karjakin isn’t really showing a will to fight. Against Topalov he offered a draw in a good position and today his approach of the Caro-Kann was too timid to give Motylev any trouble. Carlsen got another half point again, but him we cannot really blame and now he’s getting back into the tournament. And at this very moment, KingLoek has won. His second Chuchelov told me that the game that Merijn mentioned in the comments (Rohit-Karavade) was analysed thoroughly by him because the guy playing White in that game is one of his pupils! It clearly helped a lot and now Van Wely got his first victory.
Update 18.05 CET: RADJABOV WON AGAIN. Nothing was left of the solid Navara of round 4; at first sight it seems the Czech was outplayed completely by the leader of the tournament. Especially 28.Rb6 was bad; later tonight we will publish an analysis of this game. The only game left is Tiviakov-Topalov, a knight vs. bishop ending that doesn’t seem to lead anywhere else than a draw.
Update 18.12 CET: …and it did: Tivi-Topa also a draw. Probably the quickest round so far. Stay tuned for the press conference of Loek van Wely later tonight!
It looks like Gert Ligterink was right that Shirov’s preparation is really lacking something in this tournament. Just look at the difference in time already…
De link naar Golubev is niet goed: de underscore moet een minteken zijn.
Nee hoor, hij doet het gewoon.
Oh, bij mij niet. Ze klagen hier over de underscore, en met een minteken doet hij het ook. Zal wel aan onze proxy of zo liggen. Sorry.
Bosboom is trouwens weer lekker met zijn h-pion aan het scheuren geslagen…
The new Rybka book by Jeroen Noomen specializes in the 6.Be3 Najdorf, actually the line played in Shirov-Van Wely is the main line of the whole book and 23.Bd4! is recommended. As the game went, instead of 26…Kxg7 the move 26…Re8 is recommended. Well, this is just for record of course, the last word about this line still has to be said
could someone please explain to me what on earth just happened to shirov??
SVIDLER i mean sorry the shirov game is very entertaining
Just noticed that 23.Bd4 simply transposes (which makes me wonder why it is recommended over 23.Qg2), so the critical position really is the one after 26.fxg7. So 26…Re8 is suggested by the book and 26…Kxg7 27.Bc4 was the course of the only human game left (Rohit-Karavade, India 22/12/2006), which makes Shirov’s 27.h5 the first new move. He took quite a while for it though…
hi Stef read the update
wow. incredible. not quite as pretty as kramnik’s mate in one against fritz but still pretty patzerish! : ) gives hope to the rest of us.
A truly fascinating piece sac by Shirov! Computers have trouble evaluating passed pawns (and the defended passed pawn on g7 is not that common), but since the white king is not very happy either, I tend to agree with it’s evaluation that black is winning. Funny idea: 34…Kg5!? sticking (”kleven” would Bosboom say in Dutch) with his king at the h6 pawn.
[...] PS: Chessvibes teilt gerade mit, dass Svidler 19…Tac8 20.Dxe5 Txd2 spielen wollte und dabei übersehen hatte, dass der Läufer auf b7 hängt. [...]
[...] Wir müssen eigenlich nicht extra darauf aufmerksam machen, schließlich hat es sich herumgesprochen, dass das neues chessvibes (früher doggers schaak) eine exzellente Live-Berichterstattung aus Wijk liefert. Für mich sehr angenehm - es spart doppelte Arbeit, und ich kann mir ohne Zeitdruck ein paar Analysen herauspicken und spare die zeitkritischen Sachen. Eben hat er z.B. bestätigt, dass Anands schneller Sieg gegen Swidler - wie man fast erwartet, aber doch nicht geglaubt hat - daran lag, dass Peter übersehen hat, dass der Lb7 hängt. [...]
Was Tivi really forced to play g4 and Kf5. It seems as if he is destroying his own position…..
And does anyone know what happened to Jan Werle. Was Ka4 really necessary or a blunder. I thought maybe he was counting on 25. Ra1…..
i love Teimur Radjabov,he’s very good and nice boy,i love him
Excellent coverage by your site. Hopefully your chess coverage will expand to include other important tournaments across the globe…
Eindelijk nog eens een schaker met kasparoviaanse allures! Go Radja Go!!!
Bravo Radjabov!!! you gotta show off a little bit:) so far you are the best..let those TOPs fear of you!!
Great preparation by Van Wely this round. 21… d5? ia aimply bad, see the new RybkaII book for the refutation. So 21… Ne5 and 22… Ra4! is clearly best. Loek mentions 27.Bc4 as an improvement over Shirov’s 27.h5?, but then 27… Rxc4!! 28.Nxc4 Qa2+ 29.Kc1 Ne6! 30.Bc3 Kg8! is good for black.
Anyway, I can anyone recommend the new RybkaII book, as it contains around 23.000 games on the Najdorf 6.Be3 and lots of stuff in the line Van Wely played!
gefeliciteerd. t is je gegund.
Fuerza y suerte para tu Shirov …lo necisitas.
After last game I believe in Radjabov. It seems that he gathered all his energy for this Tournament.