Corus R9: The leaders race on

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 nine

Grandmaster Group A

All games in PGN

Grandmaster Group B

All games in PGN

Grandmaster Group C

All games in PGN

Round Nine Report

Wizard to wizard. Veselin Topalov with Dutch Prime Minister
Jan Peter Balkenende (known to some countrymen as Harry Potter).

The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Vishy Anand and Veselin Topalov continued on their paths toward a showdown in round 12. They both won today to continue to share the lead, now on +4 with four rounds to go. Mickey Adams and Boris Gelfand stayed within shouting distance a full point back by notching the other two wins of the round in Group A.

The heat of battle, leading to...

The post-mortem. Karjakin was turned back by the FIDE world champ.

The most important game for the standings was Karjakin's white against Topalov. The Ukrainian youth was running a surprising third behind the favorites and this was a chance to jump into a share of the lead, as well as make a big statement by beating the world's top-ranked player. Instead it was Topalov making the statement, winning on the black side of an ultra-sharp theoretical Sveshnikov Sicilian.

Karjakin-Topalov after 35.Kh1

Topalov's pieces are swarming like sharks around the white king. They moved in for the kill with 35...Nxg2! The pressure from the Bb7 is tremendous. If 36.Nxc3 Qh4! and the threat of a discovered check and the pressure on h3 are overwhelming. So Karjakin tried 36.Qxg2 and now 36...Qh4 was crushing, but Topalov's 36...Rg3 also did the job. After 37.Nxf4 Bxg2+ 38.Nxg2 Rxh3+ 39.Kg1 Rg3 White has roughly equal material but very little chance of survival with his king wide open. White eventually got two rooks versus the black queen, but Topalov had too many extra pawns and too many checks.

The other leader also played a Sveshnikov, but on the white side. Anand got into a theoretical battle with van Wely with a known exchange sacrifice. White's passed b-pawn and powerful d5 knight provided plenty of compensation and Anand played for a win. It looked like Black was reaching a blockade but he decided to give back the exchange and try to get his central pawns rolling.

Anand - van Wely after 41...Ke5

But the white rook got loose before the black pawns could make any progress, and as usual Anand was well ahead on the clock. Black is threatening to get close to equality by checking on d1, d2, and picking off the b2 pawn, still covering the b7 pawn. 42.Bb3 works, but Anand found a flashier and more effective way to end the game with 42.Rd7! and van Wely resigned. After 42...Rb8 43.h6 it's easy.

Which Kamsky would show up today? Not the one that beat Anand.

Gata Kamsky's lack of openings showed itself again today. Despite having the white pieces he was close to lost with one bad move out of theory on move 10 against Mickey Adams, who didn't let him get away. It was, in short, rather ugly, although Adams finished nicely.

Former Soviet champ Beliavsky looks on in horror against Lahno.

In the B Group Carlsen's lead shrank to a half-point when he was held to a draw by Humpy and Motylev beat Vescovi to move into clear second. Katerina Lahno finally got her first win, against no less a legend than Alexander Beliavsky, who, to be fair, is having a rather less-than-legendary performance.

Yasser Seirawan interviews Bessel Kok, candidate for the FIDE presidency.

Soon to be a familiar sight? The Karjakin-Topalov scoresheet.

Koneru Humpy held the leader to a draw today.

Boris Gelfand picked up his third win against Sokolov.

Another slow day at the office for Peter Leko.

Magnus Carlsen looks set to join the A Group.

David Navara is keeping in striking distance in the B Group.

Yesterday's games look better than today's for Big Al.

Report by Mig Greengard, photos by Olena Boytsun

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 Seirawan, live from Wijk aan Zee. Don't miss it!

Here is where you can find and replay the video commentary from the Playchess archives. Click on "English" and then select the report in the Games window. Replaying archive files costs you a Ducat or two.

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