Corus Wijk aan Zee 2004 – Round 8

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

Round 8 (Monday, January 19, 2004) Adams, Michael 1-0 Kramnik, Vladimir Anand, Viswanathan 1-0 Bareev, Evgeny Timman, Jan 0-1 Zhang Zhong Topalov, Veselin ½-½ Shirov, Alexei Sokolov, Ivan ½-½ Svidler, Peter Leko, Peter 1-0 Bologan, Viktor Akopian, Vladimir ½-½ Van Wely, Loek Annotated game replay/download

Adams shook up the standings.

Vishy Anand survived an exchange of mistakes with Bareev to notch his third win in a row and stay in the lead. He didn't extend his lead because Mickey Adams kept pace with a wild win over Vladimir Kramnik. That put the Englishman into clear second place. He is trailed by Leko, who passed by a nervous moment to beat Bologan. Zhang swapped places with Timman in the standings by beating the Dutchman for his first win of the event.

That left Sokolov as the only player in the field without a win, but he came very close. Svidler pulled out a miracle save that looked like magic. Akopian-van Wely and Topalov-Shirov were fairly tame draws. It looks like Kramnik will need a win with white over Anand in tomorrow's marquee match-up if he is to maintain any hopes of winning the event.

Before congratulating the winners we should take a moment to appreciate the play of one of today's losers. 14th world champion Vladimir Kramnik (an indisputable appellation used in place of the currently defunct "world champion") lost his second game of Wijk aan Zee today. It was the second Najdorf Sicilian of his life; the first resulted in his first loss to Akopian last week.

This doesn't sound like progress, but it may represent a sea-change for the no-longer-so-young Kramnik. (Although he is younger than all but three others in a relatively elderly WaZ field. No Moro, Grischuk, Polgar, or Ponomariov.) After an explosive debut as a teen Kramnik emerged from the tutelage of GM Sergei Dolmatov as an immovable object. The new style was ideal for beating Kasparov in the 2000 world championship match. In one of the most incredible feats in chess history he went 15 games with Kasparov without a loss.

But as Petrosian showed 40 years ago, being a caissic Rock of Gibraltar is less effective in tournament play. If you never lose you can't lose a match, but you can go undefeated in a tournament and finish sixth. Petrosian won a candidates match-tournament (undefeated of course), beat Botvinnik, fended off Spassky once, but couldn't win a tournament when competing against aggressive players like Larsen, Spassky, Fischer, and Korchnoi. In the last few years Kramnik has often found himself in the same situation when competing against Kasparov and Anand.

When the margins are tight and +2 can win, Kramnik's style is nearly ideal. This was the case in Linares last year but it doesn't always work. In Dortmund 2003 he won his first game and then reeled off nine (!) consecutive draws to finish behind Bologan. Kramnik simply hasn't played enough classical chess in the past few years to draw any real conclusions, but it will be inspiring if he makes an effort to give his remarkable talent more room to breathe.

Peter Leko did this several years ago after hitting a ceiling in his results. He retooled his repertoire and started playing sharper games. He lost more before he won more but eventually came back a more dangerous and successful tournament player. We saw this in his triumphs in Dortmund 2002 and Linares 2003. (We also discovered how Leko did it.)

There's no reason to believe Kramnik can't do the same thing, especially since, unlike Leko, he was more of a wild-man in his youth. (We used to say that Leko played like an old man by the time he was 14.) The growing pains of a few unfamiliar losses are a small price to pay. Even if it means experimenting with Kasparov's Najdorf and taking a few knocks, Kramnik, and chess, will be much the better for it.

So let's cheer Kramnik for these losses, at least for a while. That means we we can congratulate him and Mickey Adams, who inflicted today's loss in excellent fashion.

Mig Greengard

Standings after round eight

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