XX
Magistral Ciudad de LeónThe two semi-finals were played on Friday and Saturday July 6 and 7, with the two winners playing the final on Sunday July 8th. The semi-finals and final consisted in four games each. All games were played at a rate of 20 minutes for the whole game, with an increment of ten seconds after each move.
The first game of the Final was a Closed Ruy Lopez in which Topalov, with white, launched a vicious-looking kingside attack, which was coolly rebuffed by Anand, who forced a draw in 49 moves.
In the second game, a Sicilian Najdorf, Anand slowly outplayed his opponent, queened a pawn on b8 and took the full point on move 37.
This left Anand a point ahead of Topalov, who launched another Closed Ruy with kingside aggressions in game three. But once again Anand allowed nothing really dangerous to happen and the game was drawn in 38 moves.
With the score at 2:1 Topalov desperately needed to win the next game, with the black pieces. He played a Sicilian Scheveningen with the sharpest possible lines.
Anand,V (2786) - Topalov,V (2772) [B90]
XX Ciudad de Leon Leon ESP (2.4), 08.07.2007
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.Be2 Nbd7
8.0-0 b5 9.a4 b4 10.Nc6 Qc7 11.Nxb4 d5 12.Nxa6 Bxa6 13.exd5 Bd6 14.h3 exd5 15.Nxd5
Nxd5 16.Qxd5 Bb7 17.Qc4 Bc6 18.b4 Qb7 19.Rad1 Be7
20.b5! Bxg2 21.Rxd7 Kxd7 22.Qg4+ Ke8 23.Qxg2 Qxg2+ 24.Kxg2 Rxa4 25.b6 Ra5 26.Rd1 Bg5 27.b7 Ke7 28.Bb6 Re5 29.Bd8+ 1-0.
Final position of the fourth game
The Deputy Mayor of León, Ibán García del Blanco, plays
the first move for Topalov, chief organiser Marcelino Sion looks on
The first game under way
Anand and Topalov in a press conference with GM Zenon Franco Ocampo after
the match
Veselin Topalov speaks to the press and visitors
Seven time winner Vishy Anand
So Anand won the 20th edition of the Cuidad de León tournament. This was the course of the 2007 tournament:
In the past the tournament was played in different modes – including a phase, from 1998 to 2002, when it was held as an "Advanced Chess" event with the players using computers during the games. According to our records Anand has won the event seven times. That's more than Borg or Federer were able to achieve in Wimbledon. Roger Federer beat Rafael Nadal in the final in London just as Anand was clinching his match against Topalov in León.
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