Novy Bor: Topalov leads 2.5-1.5

The traditional Sachova Corrida Novoborska is taking place in Prague, Czcech Republic. The main attraction of the event features the match between Veselin Topalov against Viktor Laznicka. Laznicka has played this event both previous years, once losing to Navara and once beating Shirov. The players will play a six game match regardless of whether one side achieves a winning match score before the sixth round.

As a side event IM Thaddeus Kriebel is playing the legendary GM Oleg Romanishin in the same match format.

Topalov Simultaneous

Novy Bor, the city where the match is taking place, is a small town of a mere 12,000 inhabitants in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. It is world famous for its production of beautiful glass artifacts, and is even host to a Glass Museum.

On the day off Topalov gave a 20-board simultaneous exhibition against local players. All of them went for a scalp of one of the best grandmasters in the world, and although no one was able to beat him some players did manage a draw.

Inaugurating the simultaneous: IM Pavel Votruba, Petr Voleslav, Veselin Topalov and ECU Chairman Viktor Novotny

Everything is ready for the show

Eating some good food and playing against a top 10 player. Not a bad way of spending your Sunday.

Topalov putting some of the finishing touches on one of the last boards

Martina Fuskova was able to draw the grandmaster

Some players were able to have a brief post-mortem on what exactly went wrong.

The youngest participant of the exhibition: Kristyna Laurincova

With obvious disappointment at the result. Kristyna was only able to achieve a draw!

Topalov was held to a draw in five games and won all the others games.

First and second rounds

The third game was a nail biting affair. Topalov was extremely aggressive and repeated the line that gave him a victory on the first game. This time the ante was upped as he sacrificed an exchange and two pawns for an initiative against his opponent's king. His plan almost worked as he was very close to victory, and only a slight inaccuracy and clever play by the Czech player allowed Black to salvage half a point.

Laznicka held with the skin of his teeth on his second black

The second game didn't go so well for Laznicka. He obtained an extra pawn from the opening but Topalov kept throwing blow after blow against White's position. Laznicka defended resourcefully and kept pushing back Topalov's threats one after another until he was able to finish development. He might even have been able to claim an advantage with the superb move 21.h4! dislocating Black's queen from her beautiful position. The way that he played in the game was also good, and it seemed that White was simply a pawn up, though maybe converting it would be difficult with the opposite colored bishops on the board.

Disaster struck shortly before move 40, though. Laznicka was too aggressive with his rook and Topalov seized the moment to sacrifice his bishop in order to deactivate his opponent's rook while retaining a strong initiative with his remaining attacking force: a queen, a rook and a pawn. This proved to be perfectly executed as White's pawn on c5 blocked out not only the rook on c6, but also the bishop on b6, and White's king was left defenseless against the onslaught. Topalov scored an important victory with the black pieces.

The commentator team does not miss a beat of what has been a very interesting match

A brilliant place for lunch. The restaurant is packed during the matches.

Kriebel won his second game with the White pieces to tie the match. Currently the score is 2-2.

Veronika makes sure the commentators and the players don't have anything to complain about

Photos by Vladimir Jagr

Replay the games

Scores

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.