Chess
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Your support makes all the difference.JUST DAYS after the colossal rapidplay clashes at Frankfurt, the troops are in action again, this time at a normal time limit, in the 27th annual Dortmund chess festival.
Traditionally murderously strong, the top Grandmaster tournament (there's a much weaker Grandmaster B and Open sections too) this time includes five of the top 10 in the revised July rating list and has breached the 2,700 barrier to average a forbidding 2,704.5 - category 19.
After a fairly gentle draw as White against Kramnik, Peter Leko (who will only be 20 in September and so still heads the junior list) won well against Topalov and Adams to lead the field after Monday's round with 2.5/3. In his wake came Karpov and Anand 2, Kramnik and Adams 1.5, Topalov and Ivan Sokolov 1 and Timman 0.5.
One of the most distinct features of really top-level events as compared to run-of-the-mill grandmaster tournaments is the intensity of the opening battles. Yesterday, I gave Alexei Shirov's splendid win in the first game of his six-game match against Judit Polgar in Prague. He won as Black in the second game too - more of that match later in the week. The battle in this "Kasparov variation" of the Sicilian Najdorf has also been raging in Dortmund, with two more games in the first two rounds.
The threat of repetition with 7 Bc1 when there's nothing better than 7 ...Nf6 and then 8 Be3 - of course White may vary - is one of the mind games they sometimes indulge in.
Shirov, if you recall, tried 13 Nf5 against Polgar - or rather, 11 Nf5, since he didn't "mess around" with 7 Bc1 but played 7 Bg5 at once - 11 ...Bxf5 12 exf5 h4 13 Bxh4!?.
In round one, Anand, this time as White had played (not 14 but) 12 Nd5 against Topalov. After 12 ...Nc6 13 Nf5 Bxf5 14 exf5 Bxb2 15 Rb1 Qa5+ 16 Qd2 Bd4 17 Qxa5 Nxa5 18 Nc7+ Kd7 19 Nxa8 Rxa8 Topalov had good play for the exchange and they drew in 51 moves.
18 Qf3 was Adams's improvement on (not 18 but) 16 Rab1, which Shirov played against Kasparov himself in Sarajevo in May. Kasparov captured Qxc3 and got a good game - they drew in 39 moves - so it made sense to defend the pawn which had turned out not to be too "hot" to take.
If 26 ...bxc4 27 Rb7 yields a dangerous initiative so Anand bailed out into the rook ending, which he drew easily.
White: Michael Adams
Black: Viswanathan Anand
Sicilian Najdorf
"Kasparov Variation"
1 e4 c5
2 Nf3 d6
3 d4 cxd4
4 Nxd4 Nf6
5 Nc3 a6
6 Be3 Ng4
7 Bc1 Nf6
8 Be3 Ng4
9 Bg5 h6
10 Bh4 g5
11 Bg3 Bg7
12 Be2 h5
13 Bxg4 hxg4
14 0-0 Nc6
15 Nf5 Bxc3
16 bxc3 Qa5
17 Qxg4 f6
18 Qf3 Ne5
19 Bxe5 Qxe5
20 h3 d5
21 Ng3 dxe4
22 Qxe4 Qxe4
23 Nxe4 Bf5
24 Rfe1 Kf7
25 Rab1 b5
26 c4 Rh4
27 f3 Bxe4
28 Rxe4 Rxe4
29 fxe4 Ke6
30 cxb5 axb5
31 Rxb5 Rxa2 32 Rc5 Ra4
33 c4 Kd6
1/2-1/2
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