Pursuits: Chess
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Your support makes all the difference.JUST OVER a week ago, I mooted the unfortunately utterly impracticable solution of a match tournament to solve the current impasse over the world championship(s).
My idea was to include Kasparov, Anand, Shirov and the winner of the next Fide knockout world championship: though I didn't add that if one of the latter two won the Fide event - Kasparov undoubtedly won't play - then you could chuck in Kramnik, for example, too.
Less than three weeks after the end of Wijk aan Zee, the heavy guns are in action again in the annual tournament in Linares in the south of Spain. This splendid event, which starts today and runs till 12 March, is an eight-player double rounder including all of the above apart from Alexei Shirov. There's a good reason for this though, since Senor Rentero, the perennial organiser, who was unfortunately involved in a bad car crash last year but is now said to be recovering, was one of the mainstays of Kasparov's now collapsed World Chess Council (WCC) : the organisation that has signally failed to deliver a Kasparov vs Shirov match.
Apart from Kasparov, Anand and Kramnik, there are Ivanchuk, Svidler, Michael Adams, Topalov, and Peter Leko. Basically, with a couple of other exceptions, this is the top of the rating list: and it's reported that Nigel Short is most unlucky in that in the first incorrect version which appeared Leko was rated 2,711; and by the time Leko's rating it had been corrected to 2,694, he'd already received an invitation and accepted it.
But, for all the accursed politics, Linares should be another wonderful event. Following his sparkling display in Wijk, Kasparov must start as slight favourite; but it'll be most interesting to see how much, both emotionally and in terms of his opening arsenal, Wijk has taken out of him. Presumably Anand is second, but you also shouldn't discount Kramnik if he gets going.
Here is a delightfully clean win from last year's event.
In the opening, Black normally plays 10 ...Nc6 en route to b4. The doubled pawns after 12 gxf4 aren't a weakness, since they help to control the centre. Svidler tried to equalise simply with 13 ...Bxf3?! but he could never free himself with ...c5 - eg if 15 ...c5? 16 dxc5 Bxc5 17 Bc6 wins - and Kramnik got total control.
Kramnik broke through with the highly energetic 18 e4 and 19 d5! and after the splendid pawn sacrifice 23 Nd4 the knight reached the ideal c6 square effectively ending matters- Svidler couldn't refuse the pawn with 23 ...c5 in view of 24 Nf5.
Svidler tried to bail out with 26 ...Rxc6 and 27 ...Qxe5 so that if 28 Rxh4?? Qg5+ but 28 Bd7! won a further piece.
White: Vladimir Kramnik
Black: Peter Svidler
Catalan Opening
1 Nf3 Nf6
2 c4 e6
3 g3 d5
4 d4 Be7
5 Bg2 0-0
6 0-0 dxc4
7 Qc2 a6
8 Qxc4 b5
9 Qc2 Bb7
10 Bf4 Nd5
11 Nc3 Nxf4
12 gxf4 Nd7
13 Rfd1 Bxf3?!
14 Bxf3 Rb8
15 e3 Nf6
16 Rac1 Qd6
17 Ne2
18 e4! Qd7
19 d5! exd5
20 e5 Ne8
21 Rxd5 Qh3
22 Bg2 Qh4
23 Nd4! Qxf4
24 Nc6 Bh4
25 Rcd1! Rb6
26 R5d4 Rxc6
27 Bxc6 Qxe5
28 Bd7 Rd8
29 Rxh4 1-0
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