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Your support makes all the difference.EXTRACT your digits at once, I say! If Messrs Kasparov and Anand are - as I am reliably informed is their habit of a Sunday morn - reading this column, then let them sit up, brush the caviare off their scrambled eggs and pay attention. For their play in the opening days of the PCA world championship has been a grave disappointment to me. Gentlemen, it is time to pull your fingers out. Take the opening game, for example:
White: Viswanathan Anand
Black: Garry Kasparov
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2
It is understandable that the young Indian should wish to avoid a full- blooded contest in the first game, but this is pure pusillanimity. If reluctant to play the manly 6.Bg5, either 6.Be3 or 6.Bc4 may be adopted without total loss of face.
6...e6 7.a4 Nc6 8.0-0 Be7 9.Be3 0-0 10.f4 Qc7 11.Kh1 Re8 12.Qd2 Bd7 13.Rad1 Rad8 14.Nb3 Bc8
A perfectly normal position is reached but with the White queen slightly unusually placed on d2 instead of the habitual e1, and Black's rook on d8 instead of its usual b8. So why has Anand - reputedly the fastest Pawn in the East - used 50 minutes on his clock? There can be but one answer: pure nerves.
15.Bf3 b6 16.Qf2 Nd7 17.Nd4 Bb7 18.Bh5
Here we append a diagram to mark the sole moment in the game when a player moved into his opponent's half of the board other than to effect a capture.
18...Rf8 19.Qg3 Nxd4 20.Bxd4 Bf6 21.Be2 e5 22.fxe5 Bxe5 23.Qf2 Nc5 24.Bf3
He should have played 24.Bxe5 dxe5 25.Rxd8 to fight for the initiative after 25...Qxd8 26.a5 or 25...Rxd8 26.Bc4!
24...Rfe8 25.h3 a5!
A fine move, cutting out any nonsense with b4 by White. Yet it would have been still better on the previous move.
26.Rfe1 Bc6 27.b3 h6 draw agreed!?
But Black is better! With his d-pawn less vulnerable that White's e-pawn, and chances to exploit the weak black squares on the K-side, Kasparov should have played on to test his young rival.
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