Corus R10: Topalov back in the lead

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 ten

Grandmaster Group A

All games in PGN

Grandmaster Group B

All games in PGN

Grandmaster Group C

All games in PGN

Round Ten Report

There's only one game really worth talking about today, and that's not an insult to the other players, just a tribute to Veselin Topalov. Yet again the FIDE world champion played a prepared sacrifice and followed it up spectacularly to win. This time the victim was Levon Aronian, the recent winner of the FIDE World Cup. Topalov made the young up-and-comer look like a down-and-outer. The Bulgarian is now in clear first with +5, a half-point ahead of Anand, who made a short draw with Mamedyarov.

Carlsen still leads the B Group by a half point. His draw with Almasi contained several entertaining flurries for tactical connoisseurs. Atalik won again in the C Group and now leads by a full two points with just three rounds to play.

The start of a very intense, exciting game

Dutch GM Loek van Wely about to win his second game, this one against Peter Leko

The other winners today were van Wely, who used the bishop pair against Leko to fine effect, and Bacrot, who took his turn taking a whack at the Kamsky piñata. Kamsky again had to try and hold on right out of the opening. Bacrot played a sharp gambit with 7.Nc3!? and even though he declined to take the offered g-pawn Kamsky was far behind in development and scrambling for the rest of the game.

Etienne Bacrot, looking for a chance against ...

Sokolov and his two bishops gambited a pawn against Adams and the draw was agreed as soon as he got it back. Tiviakov and Ivanchuk tried to make something out of a nothing symmetrical knight ending instead of agreeing to a draw in 20 moves, to their credit. To his discredit, Gelfand meekly accepted a repetition against Karjakin with 30 pieces still on the board. Afterwards young Sergey wryly called it "the most solid draw of my career."

Another friendly face in Wijk aan Zee: Sergey Karjakin, 16...

Mamedyarov and Anand swapped the pieces off first before agreeing to their 26-move draw. Didn't all these guys get a rest day just two days ago? They get another one tomorrow to prepare for the final three rounds.

Indian Super-GM Vishy Anand, who took a pragmatic draw against...

... world junior champion Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Azerbaijan

If we're lucky, we'll get to see more Topalov magic. As we pointed out in our coverage of San Luis, Topalov has been playing a different game lately. It looks a lot like chess, but the rules are slightly different. In this new variant, Topachess (tm), the rooks are worth slightly less than knights, which are worth slightly less than bishops. On the Lasker scale this would mean a rook is worth around two and three-quarter pawns. At least it would in normal chess, but in Topachess (tm) the pawns aren't worth much either and should be sacrificed early and often. That is, unless you can first give up a rook or two for your opponent's bishops and knights, in which case your remaining pawns can be very handy as connected passers. Clear on the rules yet?

Topalov,V (2801) - Aronian,L (2752) [E15]
Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (10), 25.01.2006
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Ba6 5.b3 Bb4+ 6.Bd2 Be7 7.Bg2 c6 8.Bc3 d5 9.Ne5 Nfd7 10.Nxd7 Nxd7 11.Nd2 0-0 12.0-0 Nf6 13.e4 b5 14.exd5 exd5 15.Re1 Rb8 16.c5 Bc8 17.Nf3 Ne4

18.Rxe4! This is a beautiful piece of preparation that – and it's hard to see this as anything other than fate – improves on Kramnik's play against Leko from their meeting in Dortmund, 2004. Kramnik played the innocuous 18.Ne5, a move that was later also played by Bologan. 18...dxe4 19.Ne5 Qd5 20.Qe1 Bf5 21.g4 Bg6 22.f3.

22...b4 Since it is later so hard to find any salvation for Black against the mighty wave of White pawns, perhaps Black, at least as a practical solution, should have given back the material with interest as soon as possible in order to eliminate them. 22...Bxc5 looks desperate and it is, but at least White won't have all those pawns! After 23.dxc5 Qxc5+ 24.Kh1 exf3 25.Bxf3 b4 (or 25..Rfe8 immediately) 25...Bb2 26.Rfe8 Black can hope to hold this simplified position. 23.fxe4 Qe6 24.Bb2 Bf6.

Aronian has been holding back the flood with his finger, but now a nice combination nets White a pair of connected passed pawns that mean an advantage in just about every possible endgame. 25.Nxc6! Qxc6 26.e5 Qa6 27.exf6 Rfe8 28.Qf1! (shows that White has no fear of swapping queens) 28...Qe2 29.Qf2. While Aronian avoids the queen swap Topalov gives up more material with 29.Qf2! instead of giving up some of his initiative with 29.Qxe2 Rxe2 30.Bc1.Aronian grabs the g-pawn and keeps the queens on, but at the cost of letting White's bishops coordinate beautifully. It is clear that at this point it would be almost impossible for Black to survive no matter how much material he gives back. 29...Qxg4 30.h3 Qg5 31.Bc1 Qh5 32.Bf4 Rbd8. Aronian should have tried to hold back the pawns with 32...Rbc8 instead of letting the c-pawn advance immediately. 33.c6 Be4 34.c7 Rc8 35.Re1.

35...Qg6. There were a few better tries that wouldn't have changed the result. 35...Qf5 prevents the sacrifice by covering d5 but the simple 36.Bg3 leaves Black without good moves. Or 35...Bxg2 36.Rxe8+ Rxe8 37.Qxg2 g6 38.Qg4! Qxg4+ 39.hxg4 Rc8 (or anything else) 40.Bd6! bottles up the black king for an easy win. And the bishop can't get out of the way because 35...Bf5 36.Bb7 and the h3-pawn is irrelevant.

After the text move Topalov finishes the game with a flourish, more than glad to get rid of another useless rook in exchange for a precious bishop: 36.Rxe4! Rxe4 37.d5 Rce8 38.d6 Re1+ 39.Kh2 Qf5 40.Qg3 g6. Topalov finishes mercilessly, without being distracted by Black's attempts at counterplay: 41.Qg5! This move forces the queens off the board and ends any dreams of a swindle. (41.Qg4 Qc5 and White has to worry about his own king a little). 41...Qxg5 42.Bxg5 Rd1 43.Bc6 Re2+ 44.Kg3 1-0. Truly spectacular chess and we have a very early frontrunner for game of the year. [Click to replay].

Press and photographers before the start of the round

Vassily Ivanchuk, on place 5-6

The B Group starts the games of round 10

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