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FIDE
World Chess Cup, Hyderabad
He is going to go on a vacation and bill it to FIDE. For sure he should! But the tiring schedule (In an age where even the machines – remember Kramnik v/s Fritz - get their deserving rest days) in the World Chess Cup only brought out the best in Viswanathan Anand. Starting as the favourite, fumbling a bit and then finishing with a flourish, it was Anand all the way.
A world title is relished and cherished more so in front of a home crowd. And Anand experienced it first hand today at the Ramoji Film City that witnessed a huge turn out on the final day to watch their idol retain the title which he had first won at Shenyang, China, in 2000. Rustam Kasimdzhanov’s inexperience probably proved his undoing, as he was easily outclassed with White in a matter of moves and minutes. “It is almost a photocopy of Shenyang”, said Anand pointing to the fact that Xu Yuhua had also retained the Women’s title. Interestingly both drew with Blacks yesterday and posted victories today, ditto Shenyang where they won in similar fashion. Another coincidence was both the finalists in both sections emerged from the same groups.
Winners Anand and Xu Yuhua (this foto from FIDE
World Chess Club)
In fact nothing worked right for Kasimdzhanov in the final. To start with he had white in the first game that he could not make much use of as Anand used a clinical ‘cold water’ treatment and got the draw he was looking for in just 16 moves. Ironically, remember it was Kasimdzhanov who had a big hand in Anand entering the semi-final by defeating the leader Sasikiran in the fourth game of the preliminaries.
The Uzebek’s loss against Anand in the prelims where he played black and failed to come up with best defence against a novelty in the Sveshnikov prompted the Petroff on the final-day but did not held him in good stead. Anand outplayed Kasimdzhanov in all departments of the game and it was ‘get up’ in 29 moves.
“I am very happy for the way I could solve all the problems on the board. I personally felt that Kasim got a better position in the opening game itself. After12. .. h6 I thought for almost 20 minutes. Then 14. .. Ba5 was a shocker and I instinctively moved 15.Bf4," summed up Anand.
Looking back, Anand said that his draw against Hichem Hamdouchi of Morocco in his final round game in the preliminaries was a practical move.” After performing disastrously in the second round one cannot hope for miracles in the fifth round”. He also added “ I was aware of the threat of elimination. But you have to be ready to accept reality
He also pointed out that there is a lot of depth in terms of competition and this event showcased it. "It was not as if I had a piece of cake out there," he quipped
Earlier in the semis Anand had to use his ultimate weapon ‘speed’ to get past Dreev. The two played some great chess in the tiebreak games. In fact in first of the Blitz games Anand, starting off with 5 minutes (under a 5+10 seconds time control) ended up having more than 10 minutes on his clock.
European champion Stefanova could not get a double title this season and was far from impressive in the Ruy Lopez game against Xu Yuhua in the final. Totally routed on the kingside Stefanova was helpless to ward off checkmating threats. “I thank all the Indian supporters here and I was happy to play here” said Yuhua after the game.
Earlier Koneru Humpy ruined her chances with an unbelievable blunder against Xu Yuhua in the semi-finals while Stefanova gave no chances for Matveeva Svetlana.
Semifinals Anand vs Dreev
Semifinals Kasimdzhanov vs Beliavsky
Semifinals Stefanova vs Matveeva
Semifinals Humpy vs Yuhua Xu
The Americal has been the darling of the Indian media, more so than the established glam-girl of chess, Alexandra Kosteniuk. The other day, one of the newspapers quoted her as saying she wishes to be Anna Kournikova of Chess. And she was on right track! But then as luck would have had it, she bowed down to Svetlana in the quarters.
The onboard exploits of Bulgaria's top female player were been quick and severe. She bruised all through and eventually squeezed out the defensive resources of Matveeva who was at least confused if not at her wits end by the opening choice of her opponent.
