A kiss for the champ

by ChessBase
11/29/2004 – The Paul Keres Memorial in Tallinn saw six GMs participating in a rapid chess round robin tournament. it was won in convincing style by Vishy Anand, who scored a dry 5/5 points. For this he got a kiss from the president of the Estonian Chess Federation. We bring you games, results and a memorial to Paul Keres.

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Paul Kerese mälestusfestival

Tallinn, 26 - 27 November 2004

The participants at the Paul Keres Memorial were Vishy Anand, who hails from India, Alexander Khalifman from Russia, Eric Lobron from Germany, Tomi Nybäck from Finland, while GM Kaido Külaots and IM Meelis Kanep are from the host nation Estonia.

The rate of play was 20 minutes for a game + 10 seconds for every move. The tournament was won by the Elo favourite Vishy Anand with what the Russians call a "dry score" – the Indian rapid chess king could not be bothered with a single draw.

As you can see, our ChessBase table generator went wild with the performance calculation: 3360 is the rating a player should have if you are going to expect the 5/5 score.

Anand,V (2781) - Khalifman,A (2669) [C10]
Keres Mem Rapid Tallinn EST (5), 27.11.2004
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.g3 Ngf6 6.Nxf6+ Qxf6 7.Nf3 Bd6 8.Bg5 Qf5 9.Bd3 Qa5+ 10.Bd2 Qb6 11.Qe2 c5 12.Bc3 cxd4 13.Bxd4 Qa5+ 14.c3 e5 15.0-0-0 0-0 16.Be3 Nf6 17.Bb1 Be7 18.Bg5 h6.

Here Anand played 19.h4! and Khalifman could not capture: 19...hxg5 20.hxg5 Nd7 21.Qe4 with mate to follow. The game continued 19...Be6 20.Qxe5 Qxe5 21.Nxe5 hxg5 22.hxg5 Rfd8 23.gxf6 Bxf6 and White was a pawn up and well on the route to success.

24.Rde1 Bd5 25.Bh7+ Kf8 26.Be4 g6 27.Bxd5 Rxd5 28.Ng4 Bg7 29.Rd1 Rad8 30.Ne3 R5d6 31.Nc4 Rd5 32.Na5 Rxd1+ 33.Rxd1 Rxd1+ 34.Kxd1 b6 35.Nc6 a5 36.Kc2 Ke8 37.Kd3 Kd7 38.Nd4 Kd6 39.Kc4 Bf6 40.Kb5 Bd8 41.Nc6 Bc7 42.c4 f5 43.f4 Ke6 44.b3 g5 45.Nd4+ Kf6 46.fxg5+ Kg6 47.Nf3 1-0.

In return for his remarkable performance Anand received an undisclosed prize sum and a kiss from super-model Carmen Kass.

Carmen is the President of the Estonian Chess Federation, and recently spearheaded her country's bid to stage the Chess Olympiad in 2008.

During her visit to the Mainz Chess Classic this summer she met Anand and even tried taking him on in a game of chess.


" Carmen can move wealthy men to change their views, but the chess pieces are not inclined to yield so easily to the charms of the super-model" says the caption under this SCANPIX picture.

Paul Keres, 1916 - 1975

Paul Keres was born in Narva on 7 January 1916. At the University of Tartu, he studied mathematics from 1938 to 1941. In 1935, he became the Estonian chess champion for the first time. In the years 1936 – 1940, Keres was the editor-in-chief of the journal "Estonian Chess". Paul Keres first appeared in the international chess arena in the mid-1930s, and remained a prominent figure there for years. By the end of the 1950s, he was the strongest chess player in the world.


Keres vs Botvinnik in 1947

In 1938, he shared the first place with Fine in the memorable AVRO tournament, but after additional calculations Paul Keres was announced the winner. However, the title match with Alekhine did not follow. After the war, he was eclipsed by Botvinnik, though still retaining his place among the world's top class players.


Paul Keres' funeral in 1975

In 1975, Paul Keres died suddenly at the age of 59. Since the year 1969, an annual chess tournament named after Keres has been held in Tallinn. Starting in 1976, it has been called the Paul Keres Memorial. There are also a number of chess clubs and festivals named after him.

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