Wednesday, Oct 29, 2003
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Chess
By Arvind Aaron
Kramnik was close to a 2-0 sweep but made a generous gesture of awarding Judit Polgar of Hungary the draw in the second game. Anand too could have mustered a 2-0 margin had he converted the two-pawn advantage into a victory in the queen and rook ending of the first game. In the second encounter, he had to rework another winning plan and used the extra pawns this time to gobble up the full point. Anand outclassed Ponomariov and the difference between the players looked larger then what their Elos signified. The Ukrainian kept fighting longer than normal and it paid him rich dividends as Anand failed to convert a sizeable winning advantage at this high level of play. Anand regained composure in the second game to think afresh and win by exhibiting a top-notch performance. Ponomariov was liberal with his pawns, blundering them in the first game and sacrificing them in the second. Anand said, "I had no choice, I had to take them in the second game." White's counter-play took time and Anand was able to regroup and enter a winning rook and bishop ending. The finishing touch was simple: the Indian sacrificed his rook for bishop threatening to promote his queen bishop pawn. This time Ponomariov resigned on move 52 when there was nothing much to fight for. "In the first game, he played the Breyer variation of the Ruy Lopez which I think he had not played before. In the middle game he made several inaccuracies and lost these pawns. I went for the mate option. Then I did not find the incisive move and the last big mistake was 52.Rf8 and his reply was simply too strong and the ending was a draw." A simple win Anand missed was 50.e6 when Ponomariov would have had to resign soon and concede the lead. Anand offered a draw after move 60. Kramnik had an easier than expected passage to the semifinals when Polgar made a strategic mistake with the black pieces in the opener. Polgar played the queen's Indian defence with the black pieces and Kramnik went for the Petrosian variation. An opening mistake followed by loss of the castling right on the twelfth move gave black grave concerns of surviving the middlegame. Kramnik hunted the black king with his queen, rook and knight in 38 moves to take a lead. Polgar tried to hit back in her turn as white by opting for the closed variation against the Sicilian defence. Kramnik accepted the sacrificed pawns and in a rook ending with two extra pawns he was thought to have won the game but had for the record offered a draw on move 35. Polgar took the draw. In the last two quarterfinals, French hope Etienne Bacrot and the 19-year-old World No.7 Russian Alexander Grischuk would be taking stage followed by the in-form Svidler versus big fighter Topalov. The results: Quarterfinals: Vladimir Kramnik (Rus) bt Judit Polgar (Hun) 1.5-0.5, Viswanathan Anand (Ind) bt Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr) 1.5-0.5. The moves: GM Ruslan Ponomariov-GM Viswanathan Anand, quarter finals, game two, queen's Indian defence, E15: 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.d4 b6 4.g3 Ba6 5.Qb3 Nc6 6.Nbd2 d5 7.Bg2 Qd7 8.0-0 Bd6 9.Qc3 0-0 10.Ne5 Bxe5 11.dxe5 Ng4 12.b4 dxc4 13.Nf3 f6 14.a4 b5 15.Bf4 Rad8 16.Bh3 fxe5 17.Nxe5 Ngxe5 18.Bxe5 bxa4 19.Rad1 Qf7 20.Bf4 Bb5 21.Qe3 e5 22.Rxd8 Rxd8 23.Bxe5 Re8 24.f4 a6 25.Bg2 Nxe5 26.fxe5 Qe6 27.Qc5 c6 28.Rf3 Qe7 29.Qxe7 Rxe7 30.Re3 Kf8 31.Kf2 Ra7 32.Ra3 Ke7 33.Ke3 Rd7 34.Be4 h6 35.Bc2 Rd5 36.Bxa4 Rxe5+ 37.Kf2 Kd6 38.Bc2 c5 39.bxc5+ Kxc5 40.e4 Kb4 41.Ra2 c3 42.Ke3 Re7 43.Ra1 Rd7 44.Rb1+ Kc5 45.Rb3 Kc4 46.Rb1 Rd2 47.Bb3+ Kc5 48.Rc1 Rd3+ 49.Kf4 Kb4 50.Bc2 Rd2 51.h4 Rxc2 52.Rxc2 Kb3 0-1.
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