Corus Round 13: Anand Anand! Wins 2nd straight Wijk aan Zee

Corus Wijk aan Zee 2004 – Round 13

66th Wijk aan Zee Tournament – Jan. 10-25 Category 19 (avg. Elo 2702)

Round 13 (Sunday, January 25, 2004) Svidler, Peter ½-½ Adams, Michael Shirov, Alexei 0-1 Bologan, Viktor Zhang Zhong ½-½ Van Wely, Loek Bareev, Evgeny 1-0 Akopian, Vladimir Kramnik, Vladimir ½-½ Leko, Peter Anand, Viswanathan ½-½ Sokolov, Ivan Timman, Jan 0-1 Topalov, Veselin Annotated game replay/download

Bologan finished with a 4.5/5 run.

Click here to launch a video clip of Anand-Sokolov from Wijk aan Zee!
(Windows Media Format)

The winner speaks at the prize-giving ceremony.

India's Viswanathan Anand took clear first place in the 2004 Corus Wijk aan Zee Group A. Tour de France fans might have noted he wore his best yellow shirt for the final leg! He coasted to victory with a non-game draw against Sokolov with the white pieces. As expected this turned out to be enough when Mickey Adams and Peter Leko both drew with black to finish a half-point back.

Final-round wins were scored further down the crosstable. Bologan beat Shirov for his fourth win in his last five games! After a rocky start the man from Moldova confirmed that his win at Dortmund 2003 was not a fluke. He's a streaky player who can beat anyone on any given day. He fully earned his unofficial "best outsider" trophy. Bologan didn't get clear fourth place because Topalov beat a disintegrating Timman. Bareev beat Akopian to win three of his last four games to salvage a respectable even score.

Big Vlad Kramnik was a pro and made Leko work for his half point.

Anand took a 14-move draw against Sokolov; you can watch a video of the game if you like. Svidler didn't press Adams in a Ruy Lopez. A pity we didn't get to see one of the great Marshall Gambits these two have played before. Leko wasn't so lucky in scoring his half-point. Big Vlad came to play and squeezed into the third time control. It looked like Kramnik's tenacity and technique might pay off but Leko squirmed out. Zhang and van Wely played a long opposite-colored bishop endgame that never looked like it would be anything other than a draw.

This was Anand's fourth win in Wijk aan Zee after shared firsts in 1989 and 1998 and last year's clear first.It adds some classical chess lustre to his domination of rapid chess events in 2003. Although it looks as close as could be on the final table, Anand pulled away early and was never really in danger of giving up the lead. As an added bonus, his result paired with Kramnik's struggles give him a good shot of retaking the world #2 spot from the Russian.

Topalov and Bologan shared 4-5 at +2 despite losing five games between them. They are representative of the fighting chess shown at Corus this year. No player went without a win and only Leko went without a loss.

Peter Leko looked a little more like the drawing master of old, but plus three undefeated in this crowd is nothing to sneeze at. He took some chances and mostly played tough games. Being so close at the finish may have given him cause to regret his short draw with Anand in the first round.

This was Mickey Adams' best result in a supertournament in quite a while. An unnecessary loss to van Wely rained on his parade a little bit but his win over Kramnik was definitely a silver lining to that cloud.

14th world champion Vladimir Kramnik was never able to shake off the rust. He arrived with some aggressive new additions to his opening repertoire. There is little doubt these improvements will pay off soon enough, and they'll give his Linares opponents more to worry about next month. Is the world ready for Vlady 3.0?

Local hope Loek van Wely had mixed bag of a tournament. His even score was quite respectable but he'll be deservedly chagrined that it wasn't even better. From his positions he might have managed another point. Bareev will be more content with 50% than he would have admitted before the event. The Russian turned around a disastrous result in the final rounds.

Evgeny Bareev came back strong in the final four rounds.

Shirov might disagree, but the biggest disappointment of the event was Peter Svidler's shaky -1 score. Great hopes were held out for the Russian champion and new world #4 prior to the event. He only managed two wins and lost to two supposed outsiders toward the end. Shirov's low win total is also indicative of how tough this year's field was. He got his usual set of losses but not the four or five wins his talent and style typically bring.

Equal 2-3 Mickey Adams

Sokolov is much better than his result, as he has shown here before. His late win over Kramnik no doubt went a long way toward redeeming his tournament. Zhang Zhong started very well but when he couldn't break through he started to lose steam. Many have said that the difference between the super-elite and the rest is what Kasparov calls "resistance." Zhang pressed in superior positions but couldn't hold inferior ones.

Timman finished in last place again thanks to losses in the final three rounds to very motivated opponents. Playing short draws isn't the Dutchman's style and when you're giving up 20 years to most of your opponents that can come back to haunt you in the late rounds.

Timman's games had an average of 48 moves (!), the shortest was a 29-move loss. He also notched two fine wins. Getting the free-living Timman into a strict gym routine for the next year would likely add four points to his score. If it didn't kill him on the spot, that is!

We'll have more from Wijk and the B and C groups this week. Cuban Lazaro Bruzon will play in the A group next year. 13-year-old Magnus Carlsen of Norway won the C group and will join the B group next year. That is, if he hasn't gone on to other and greater things by then of course.

All in all a spectacular feast of fighting chess in Wijk aan Zee. Thanks must go out first and foremost to the Corus Group for their inspiring sponsorship and support. Let's hope next year we can see Anand come back to go for Kasparov's record of three consecutive Wijk aan Zee wins.

Final standings

All the games in PGN (no notes) GM group A • GM group B • GM group C