Corus R4: Topalov wins, joins Anand 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 four

Grandmaster Group A

All games in PGN

In GM Group A we see a that from the 28 games played so far exactly 14 were drawn (=50%, which is low for such an event), and seven each were won with the white and the black pieces (which is quite unusual). Veselin Topalov deserves honors for fighting spirit: the Bulgarian GM has yet to draw a game in Wijk aan Zee. The same applies to Gata Kamsky, who has lost three and won one. Peter Leko and Shakhiyar Mamedyarov have only draws so far. Anand and Topalov are in the lead, but Anand has faced stronger opposition and is showing a performance of 2898, as opposed to Topalov's 2880.

Grandmaster Group B

All games in PGN

In the B Group 12 out of 28 games (=43%) were drawn. White won 13 games, Black just three. Naiditsch's perfect score was stopped today when Giovanni Vescovi of Brazil held the German talent to a draw. Dutch GM Daniel Stellwagen took a second draw from red-hot Magnus Carlsen (2.5/3 so far). It was the first half-point Daniel, 19, has scored in this event. He remains at the bottom of the table, together with compatriot GM Jan Smeets and Ukrainian super-talent Kateryna Lahno. All three have managed just one draw in four games.

Grandmaster Group C

All games in PGN

In Group C the draw ratio is even smaller (a a glance at the table reveals). Only nine out of 28 games (=33%) ended without a result, with White taking 13 and Black six games. Turkish GM Suat Atalik drew his first game in this event, after a 3/3 start. His wife WGM Ekaterina Polovnikova-Atalik and Israeli chess trainer and problem specialist Yochanan Afek are at the tail end of the table, with just one draw out of four round for each.

Round four report

Fifty percent drawn games in Group A means that a fighting 50% of the games have been decisive so far. In the battle of old school versus new, the senior citizen set is clearly winning so far. The top four players (Anand, Topalov, Ivanchuk, Gelfand) have an average age of 35.

Van Wely-Topalov: Yet more remarkable opening preparation from Topalov, who now takes a share of the lead with Anand. Over the course of his amazing 2005 rise to the top he made a habit of finding new sacrificial ideas in the openings – and bringing back discarded ones. Here we saw a blast from the past, an exchange sacrifice by black that was first tried by legendary Spanish prodigy Pomar in 1969. The first new move came from van Wely, moving his king up instead of the 13.Nd2 that had been played all three times previously. A brave choice and clearly he gave it some thought, but Black is still in the driver's seat and the chance of a fatal mistake is much greater for White. In too many cases players try to bail out when surprised in the opening, but Loek took the best road despite it being a tough one. As usually is the case, a strong and dangerous opening also gains a lot of time on the clock and Topalov was soon up by an hour.

Van Wely,L (2647) - Topalov,V (2801) [D15]
Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (4), 17.01.2006
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 a6 5.a4 e6 6.Bg5 h6 7.Bh4 dxc4 8.e3 b5 9.axb5 cxb5 10.Bxf6 gxf6 11.Nxb5 axb5 12.Rxa8 Bb4+ 13.Ke2 Bb7 14.Ra1 f5 15.Ne5 Rg8 16.f4 Nc6 17.Nf3 Na5 18.Kf2 Nb3 19.Ra7 Be4 20.Ra2

Here comes the star move of the black attack: 20...e5! followed by 21.fxe5 f4! breaking through the formerly impressive white center. After this it would take almost perfect defense for White to survive. 22.Be2 fxe3+ 23.Kxe3 Qd5 24.g3 Nxd4 25.Nxd4 Bxh1

26.Bf3. The search for white improvements always seems to lead to more spectacular wins for Black. For example: 26.Nf3 Bc5+ 27.Kf4 Bd4! 28.Qxd4 Rg4+! 29.Kxg4 Bxf3+ 30.Bxf3 Qxd4. We have to go back to White's 20th move to find something to avoid 20...e5. Perhaps 20.g3, although the white rook on a7 has to worry about being caught behind enemy lines. 26...Qxe5+ 27.Kf2 Bc5 28.Bxh1 Bxd4+ 29.Kf1 Rg5 30.Bf3 Kf8 31.Kg2 Qe3 32.Kh3 Kg7 33.b3 cxb3 34.Ra3 b4 35.Rxb3 Bc3 36.Qe2 Qc5 37.Qd3 Qc8+ 38.Kg2 Ra5 39.Qc2 Qe6 40.Qb1 Ra1 41.Qc2 Bd4 42.Bd1 Qe1 43.Bf3 Qf1# 0-1. [Click to replay]

Sokolov-Anand: Anand was unfazed by Sokolov's aggressive opening play and danced through the tactics effortlessly to draw. Perhaps Sokolov can be content with the 15-move draw since it was the first time in this tournament that anyone had been able to hold Anand to a draw when he had black!

Bacrot-Gelfand: Israeli GM Boris Gelfand played a maneuvering masterpiece against France's Etienne Bacrot, dominating the d-file until eventually Bacrot felt it necessary to give up the exchange and try to draw an endgame. He failed. Apart from his round two blackout against Gata Kamsky, Boris is showing fine form in Wijk aan Zee.

Kamsky-Aronian: Gata Kamsky is having trouble mixing his instincts with objectivity. He knows he should stick to solid stuff but keeps getting tempted by unbalanced continuations that get him into trouble. Against Aronian he simply dropped a pawn after an errant knight maneuver to f5. Kamsky's incredible tenacity almost earned him a draw after a long defense, but in the end his king fell into a pretty trap.

Start of round four with Levon Aronian vs Gata Kamsky

Kamsky,G (2686) - Aronian,L (2752) [C85]
Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (4), 17.01.2006
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.d3 Bd6 8.Nbd2 Be6 9.b3 Nd7 10.Bb2 c5 11.g3 0-0 12.Nh4 Re8 13.Nf5 Bxf5 14.exf5 Qg5 15.f6 Nxf6 16.Ne4 Qf5 17.Nxf6+ Qxf6 18.f4 Qh6 19.f5 e4 20.Re1 Rad8 21.Qg4 exd3 22.cxd3 Bf8 23.Rxe8 Rxe8 24.Rd1 Qe3+ 25.Kf1 g6 26.Bc1 Qe5 27.fxg6 hxg6 28.Qf3 Qa1 29.Qf2 Bg7 30.Kg2 Qe5 31.Rf1 Qe7 32.Bg5 Qd7 33.Qf3 Bd4 34.g4 c6 35.h4 Re6 36.Kh3 b5 37.Bd2 Rf6 38.Qg2 Rd6 39.Bf4 Rd5 40.Rf3 Qe6 41.Bg3 Bg7 42.Qf1 Rd8 43.Bf2 Qd5 44.Qe2 Bf8 45.Kg2 Rd6 46.Kg1 Re6 47.Re3 Rxe3 48.Bxe3 Qe5 49.Kf1 Qg3 50.h5 Qh3+ 51.Kg1 Bd6 52.hxg6 fxg6 53.Bf4 Bf8.

54.Qe6+ A miracle might have occurred had Kamsky found 54.Bd6! After 54...Bxd6 55.Qe6+ the black king has trouble escaping the checks because of the threat of g5+ discovering an attack on the black queen. Black has to block with ...Be7 at some point to draw the queen away from the c8-h3 diagonal. Even after that the game should be drawn. Now White's task is much tougher. 54...Kh7 55.Qd7+ Bg7 56.Kf2 Qh4+ 57.Ke2 Qf6 58.Ke3 Qa1 59.g5 Qe1+ 60.Kf3 Qf1+ 61.Ke3 c4 62.dxc4 bxc4 63.bxc4 Qc1+ 64.Kf3 Qxc4 65.Qh3+ Kg8 66.Qc8+ Bf8 67.Qe8 Qd3+ 68.Be3 c5 69.Qc6 Qf1+ 70.Kg3 Qe1+ 71.Kf4 Qh4+ 72.Ke5 Qh8+ 0-1. White loses his queen no matter where his king goes. So instead of the draw Kamsky dropped into the cellar with 1/4 points. [Click to replay]

Leko's offbeat 8.Qe2 got nowhere against Ivanchuk's French Defense. Karjakin got plenty of compensation for his opening pawn sac against Adams and they drew after rapid exchanges. Mamedyarov-Tiviakov was a fun battle: White lost a piece to a miscalculation but held on to draw. Tiviakov's technique is usually much surer than what he displayed in this one. The three Dutch representatives are still without a win.

Group B: Jobava won with a nice deflection shot on the final move. Yet again Beliavsky got a winning position with energetic play and failed to convert against a much younger opponent. The battle between two of the strongest players in the world on the Girls list was one-sided. Lahno never got beyond spectating as Koneru's rooks invaded to destroy the black position.

In Group C Visser-Adly saw a pretty demolition at the end. 28...Nxd4! kicks off the fireworks.

Magnus Carlsen being interviewed by Yasser Seirawan on Playchess TV

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