Winning starts with what you know
The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
Super GM
Tournament
clash in the M-Tel Masters |
 |
The Mtel Masters Super Tournament is under way. It is a category 20 event with an Elo average of 2744. The time controls are classic (up to seven hours per game) and the tournament is a double round robin (every player plays every other player twice). There is a special rule in place at this Super Tournament: draw offers are not allowed, i.e. draws by mutual agreement between the players are forbidden, only technical draws may be given by the arbiter.
Let us start by counting the moves played so far: Judit Polgar leads with 152 moves in two games, followed by Ponomariov with 148, Adams with 100, Anand and Kramnik with 92 each, and Veselin Topalov trailing at 86. That was the balance after one explosive, fighting round, and then one that reminded us of the days before the Mtel anti-draw rule. What the players basically proved is that they – or the current status of chess expertise – can circumvent any attempts to force exciting, crowd-pleasing chess.
Vladimir Kramnik
Kramnik vs Anand is a paradigm for this situation. In a super-solid Petroff neither of the players gave the other a chance to get anywhere near a window of success. After 32 moves they had hoovered the board of all pieces, leaving only opposite coloured bishops and symmetrical pawns and a position that no reasonable arbiter could require them to play on in. The result was a draw.
Veselin Topalov
Topalov vs Adams took a different course. Britain's top GM sacrificed a pawn on move 14 and used his ample compensation to force a draw by repetition on move 26.
Ponomariov vs Polgar under the giant Mtel logo (Photos by Olena Boytsun)
Ponomariov vs Judit Polgar, finally, was actually hard-fought, but mainly because the former world champion, who had lost his first round game, desperately wanted the point against the toughest lady in chess. In a rook ending with four vs three pawns on the kingside young Ruslan played on for 43 manoeuvring moves before accepting that his opponent knew exactly how to hold such positions. Draw in 78.
Attacking and defensive rook manoeuvres in Ponomariov-Polgar
| Round 2 (Friday, May 13, 2005) |
||
Ruslan Ponomariov |
|
Judit Polgar |
Veselin Topalov |
Michael Adams | |
Vladimir Kramnik |
Viswanathan Anand | |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
