Corus R1: Shock-and-awe victories by Anand and Topalov

The Corus Chess Tournament 2006 is being held from 13-29 January 2006 in Wijk aan Zee, Holland. The venue is the De Moriaan Community Centre (Dorpsduinen 4, 1949 EG Wijk aan Zee) and the nearby bar de Zon. Commentary is available in the Corus Chess Pavilion, on the Village Green in Wijk aan Zee.

Round one

The first round of the eagerly anticipated Corus chess tournament stated with fireworks. With a large crowd watching in the De Moriaan Centre and tens of thousands following the games live on the Internet, the two top seeds Topalov and Anand unleashed a Shock and Awe start to this prestigeous event. On Playchess.com grandmaster Yasser Seirawan, who has taken residence for two weeks in a flat in Wijk aan Zee, did his live commentary, as he had done for the world championship in San Luis. Only this time it was in full video, and apart from Yasser's wonderfully didactic commentary we also got to see players immediately after the games. A unique experience in world-wide chess reporting.

One of the first games to generate excitement was Topalov-Kamsky, which saw the American come-back GM facing a very daunting task of taking on the FIDE world champion with the black pieces. Gata Kamsky decided to avoid Veselin Topalov's usual hunting grounds and played a Scandinavian with 2…Nf6, and the game looked like it would develop into a fairly quiet affair. But Kamsky grabbed a pawn on move 12, and after Topalov sacrificed a second pawn a move later the position was already very dangerous for White.

Topalov,V (2801) - Kamsky,G (2686) [B01]
Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (1), 14.01.2006
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nxd5 4.d4 Bf5 5.Bd3 Bxd3 6.Qxd3 e6 7.0-0 Nc6 8.c4 Nb6 9.Nc3 Be7 10.Bf4 g5 11.Bg3 g4 12.Ne5 Nxd4 13.c5 Bxc5 14.Rad1 0-0 15.Ne4 Be7 16.Nxg4 c5?

Garry Kasparov, who was following the games by phone, instantly said: "But that loses a piece to bishop e5!" When Topalov played 17.b4 Kasparov asked us to dictate the last few moves again to make sure he had the position right, and then reeled off the following forced line: 17.Be5! (threatening 18.Nh6#) f6 18.Ng5!! (threatening 19.Qxh7# and, if 18...fxg5 then 19.Nh6#) 18...Nf5 19.Qh3! This threatens 20.Qxh7 mate and at the same time uncovers an attack by the rook on d1 on the black queen. Black can instantly resign (later we found 19.Nh6, which is even faster).

After the game Yasser Seirawan spoke to Topalov and showed him the line that would have brought him the brilliancy prize (and which the Playchess community, heavily armed with Fritz and co., had found independently). Veselin confessed that he had been worried about 17.Be5 f6. When Yasser showed him 18.Ng5! Gata Kamsky, who was listening in, said he had seen this move but had thought that he was okay after 18...Nf5.

After Toplalov's move White is still winning, but the execution is harder. But with a little help from Kamsky he was able to chalk up a full point: 17...Nd5. 17...Nf5 would have put up more resistance. 18.bxc5. Once again White had 18.Be5! f6 19.Ng5 Nf5 20.Nh6++–. 18...Nf5 19.Qf3 Rc8 20.Bd6 Nxd6 21.cxd6 Bh4 22.d7 Rc6 23.Ne5 Rc7 24.Qg4+ Kh8 25.Nd6

and facing the threat of 26.Nxf7+ (any knight) Rxf7 27.Nxf7 mate Kamsky resigned. 1-0. [Click to replay]

Karjakin-Anand was no less filled with drama. Boy wonder Sergey Karjakin, who had won the Grandmaster B group last year, faced one of the world's strongest GMs in the first round. It turned out that he was no match for Anand in the sharp theoretical battle that ensued.

Does the lad sense what is in store for him?

Karjakin,Sergey (2660) - Anand,V (2792) [B90]
Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (1), 14.01.2006
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be6 8.f3 Be7 9.Qd2 0-0 10.0-0-0 Nbd7 11.g4 b5 12.g5 b4 13.Ne2 Ne8 14.f4 a5 15.f5 a4 16.Nbd4 exd4 17.Nxd4 b3 18.Kb1 bxc2+ 19.Nxc2 Bb3 20.axb3 axb3 21.Na3 Ne5 22.h4 Ra5 23.Qc3N. Karjakin deviates from Leko-Vallejo in Monte Carlo 2005, where 23.Qe2 was played and the game ended in a draw after 67 moves. But Anand is prepared: 23...Qa8 24.Bg2.

24...Nc7! An amazing move by Anand, played á tempo and obviously coming from home preparation. 25.Qxc7 Rc8 26.Qxe7. Black is two pieces down. 26...Nc4.

27.g6. Kasparov was now following the games on the Playchess server, much to the delight of the visitors there. We analysed the position with him: 27.Bc5!? looked like a saving chance for White: 27...Nxa3+ 28.bxa3 (28.Bxa3 Rxa3 29.bxa3 Qxa3 30.Rd2 b2 wins for Black) 28...Rxa3 29.Qxd6 Ra1+ 30.Kb2 Ra2+ 31.Kb1 Rxg2 32.Ba7 Re8 33.Qd7 Ra2 34.g6 and the position is better for Black, but a draw may be in reach. After 27...Raxc5 28.Rxd6 Re8 29.e5 Qc8 30.Qxe8+ Qxe8 31.Nxc4 Rxc4 32.Rhd1 Rc8 33.Bc6 Black has good chances, but White can continue fighting. However Anand probably had 27...Rxa3! prepared: 28.bxa3 Rxc5 threatening 29...Nxa3+ and mate to follow. White can simply resign.

What followed in the game is a thing of beauty – replay it on our JavaScript board. 27...hxg6 28.fxg6 Nxa3+ 29.bxa3 Rxa3

30.gxf7+ Kh7 31.f8N+ Rxf8 32.Qxf8 Ra1+ 33.Kb2 Ra2+ 34.Kc3 (here Anand invested a few minutes to find the mate) 34...Qa5+ 35.Kd3 Qb5+ 36.Kd4 Ra4+ 37.Kc3 Qc4+, and with 38.Kd2 Ra2+ 39.Ke1 Qe2# to follow: 0-1. [Click to replay]

Aronian-Ivanchuk turned sour for the World Cup winner when Vassily Ivanchuk equalised and went on the offensive. On move 25 Levon Aronian sacrificed a piece for a very ominous-looking pawn advance to d7. But it was all nicely refuted by the Ukrainian perennial, who got off to an excellent start with this first-round black win.

After this game Kasparov, who gave a positive estimation of Aronian's chances in his upcoming New In Chess column, admitted that he may have underestimated the difference between the time control at Corus and at the World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk. The ability to come up with the goods in the opening is more important at classical chess. "You have time to follow up precise moves with more of them," said Kasparov, "and the best players have a chance to display their qualities."

In Group B we saw the remarkable score of six time 1-0 in seven games. The most interesting game was Carlsen-L'Ami, with the 15-year-old Norwegian Wonderboy blowing the latest addition to the Dutch GM squad effortlessly out of the water.

Carlsen,M (2625) - L'Ami,E (2550) [C91]
Corus B Wijk aan Zee NED (1), 14.01.2006
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.d4 Bg4 10.Be3 exd4 11.cxd4 Na5 12.Bc2 c5 13.h3 Bxf3 14.Qxf3 cxd4 15.Bxd4 Rc8 16.Qd1 Nc6 17.Nc3 b4 18.Ne2 Nxd4 19.Nxd4 g6 20.Qd2 Qb6 21.Rad1 Nd7 22.Bb3 Nc5 23.Bd5 Bf6 24.Nf3 Kg7 25.Nh2 h5 26.g4 Rh8 27.Kg2 hxg4 28.Nxg4 Nd7

White is clearly better, but now comes 29.Bxf7?! out of the clear blue sky. 29...Kxf7 30.Qf4 Ke6? 30...g5 is the toughest defense, although White still has enough attacking chances to compensate for the piece White can continue 31.Qf5! with great pressure, because of the ongoing threat of e5. 31...Qc6 32.Kh2! Ke7 33.e5. The main line has White getting the queen for the rooks. It is probably a draw, but with chances for Black to go wrong. We see that Carlsen's sacrifice was quite intuitive, not the calculated execution it appeared to be after Black's subsequent inaccuracies.

31.Nxf6 Nxf6 32.e5 Qb7+ 33.Kg1 dxe5 34.Rxe5+ Kf7 35.Rd6 Rxh3 36.Qxf6+ Kg8 37.Rd8+ 1-0. Another very impressive showing by Magnus Carlsen, whom we will be watching carefully in this tournament. [Click to replay]

Another impressive game and worthy of replay was Motylev-Cheparinov. The Russian GM, who worked as a second for Peter Svidler in San Luis, took Veselin Topalov's very talented second Ivan Cheparinov to the cleaners in this exciting encounter. Motylev, who has tremendous ups and downs, is another player to watch in Wijk.

Loek van Wely kibitzes in the game Motylev vs Cheparinov

More pictures

Schedule, results and reports

When and how to watch The games of the Corus Chess Tournament start at 13:30h Central European Time, which is GMT + 1h, or 7:30 a.m. New York and 15:30 Moscow (you can check for other locations here). There is live coverage on the official web site (links at the bottom of the page) and on Playchess.com, where audio and video commentary will be provided by GM Yasser Seiravan, live from Wijk aan Zee. Don't miss it!

Links

• Tournament web site
• Corus web site
• All ChessBase reports so far
• Where is Wijk aan Zee?
• Wijk aan Zee 2004 reports
• Wijk aan Zee 2005 reports