MTel R7: Ivanchuk and Topalov draw, Bu loses to Radjabov

The tournament, which is being held in the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria, is a double round-robin (all play all, with white and black). The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves + 1 hour to the end of the game. Starting time: 15:00h local time (12:00h UTC), except the final round, which starts at 14:00h.

Round seven report

Ivanchuk,V (2740) - Topalov,V (2767) [D43]
4th M-Tel Masters Sofia BUL (7), 15.05.2008
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bxf6 Qxf6 7.e3 Nd7 8.Rc1 Bd6 9.Bd3 0-0 10.0-0 Qe7 11.Qc2 a6 12.c5 Bc7 13.e4 dxe4 14.Nxe4 Rd8 15.Rfe1 Nf8 16.Qc3 f6 17.Bb1 Kh8 18.a3 Bd7 19.Nfd2 f5 20.Ng3 Qf6 21.Nf3 Be8 22.Ba2 b6 23.Rc2 bxc5 24.Qxc5 Rab8 25.Rd2 a5 26.Qc3 Rd6 27.Rde2 Bb6 28.Re5 Bf7 29.Bb1 Qd8 30.Ba2 Rb7 31.Ne2 Ng6 32.Re3 a4 33.Qc2 Rc7 34.Qxa4 c5 35.dxc5 Rxc5 36.Rc3 Ne5 37.Ned4 Ng4 38.h3. 38.Qc2 was another option.

38...Nxf2. Ivanchuk is in terrible time trouble, with just seconds left for the last few moves. 39.Kxf2 Ra5 40.Qc2 Rxd4 41.Kf1 Qd7. Nothing overlooked, the position is equal. 42.Rc8+ Kh7 43.Qc6 Qd6 44.Qxd6 Rxd6 45.Rf8 Ra7 46.Ne5 Rd2 47.Re2 Rd1+ 48.Re1 Rd2 49.Re2 ½-½. [Click to replay]

Ivanchuk vs Topalov, with Bu vs Radjabov in the background

Radjabov,T (2751) - Bu Xiangzhi (2708) [D15]
4th M-Tel Masters Sofia BUL (7), 15.05.2008
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e3 a6 5.Nf3 b5 6.c5 g6 7.Ne5 Bg7 8.Be2 0-0 9.0-0 Nfd7 10.f4 a5 11.a3 f6 12.Nf3 f5 13.Bd2 Nf6 14.Be1 Kh8 15.Bh4 Be6 16.Ne5 Qc7 17.Qe1 Nbd7 18.Bg5 Nxe5 19.fxe5 Ne4 20.Nxe4 fxe4 21.Qh4 Rxf1+ 22.Rxf1 Re8 23.Bg4 Qd7 24.Rf7 Bxg4 25.Bf6 exf6 26.Rxd7 Bxd7 27.exf6 a4 28.fxg7+ Kxg7 29.Kf2 h6 30.Ke1 Re6 31.Qg3 Be8

White has a queen for rook and bishop. Now he needs a plan. Imagine, for a moment, you were playing the 2700+ Chinese GM. What would you do? Our Azeri friend comes up with an "iron king" plan: to march his most valuable piece right into enemy territory. 32.Kd2 g5 33.Kc3 Kf8 34.Kb4 Bf7 35.Ka5 Kg7 36.Kb6 Kf8 37.Kc7 Kg7 38.Kd7

The king is now part of the attack and Black has no real defence. Radjabov finishes it off with a few deft strokes. 38...Kf8 39.Qf2 Rg6 40.Qf5 h5 41.g3 1-0. [Click to replay]

What to do? Bu stares with subdued enthusiasm at the final position of this game

Incidentally according to our understanding the name plates in the above game should be either Radjabov and Bu or Teimour and Xiangzhi. He is Mr Bu – and Xiangzhi to his friends. So we say: poor Xiangzhi, he probably hasn't had such a lacklustre performance (2427) since back in 1999 when, at 13 years and ten months, he became the world's youngest grandmaster (at the time).

Current standings

Video reports by Europe Echecs

We are really enjoying these videos, produced by Robert Fontaine, the grandmaster with the very endearing French accent. Bob really gets the players talking candidly. Listen to Aronian in the report "Chess TV News (R7)":

Robert Fontaine: "For the moment your tournament is not so good. How do you explain this bad form?"

Levon Aronian: "Well, I am just blundering one-movers. I won't say that I am playing the worst chess in my career, but at the moment I am starting to produce moves I could not expect to produce. I think maybe I'm afraid of time trouble, maybe that pressures me. When you play fast you blunder..."

Fountaine: "What about this cage of glass? No problem, you like it?"

Aronian: "Well, I prefer sin, of course. I'm an old-fashioned guy."

Sin? Listen, we are old-fashioned too, and certainly partial to sin. But maybe we are misunderstanding something here? Go 3 min 20 sec into the video and check what Levon could mean.

In the report "Round 7 in Music" Robert speaks to Silvio Danailov, who is obviously very pleased with the course of the tournament – with the "aquarium", the live video stream, the Internet coverage. In this connection we have been informed by our readers that this is not the first time that such a setup has been used in chess, as we seemed to imply. "A similar aquarium was used in a tournament in Vitoria Gasteiz in 2007," writes Igor Donostia of Spain. It was won by Topalov.

Schedule and results

Links Official web site All games so far in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download ChessBase Light, which gives you immediate access. You can also use it to read, replay and analyse the PGN games. Download free PGN reader ChessBase Light