Monday, Nov 03, 2003
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Chess
By Arvind Aaron
Anand won with the black pieces to take a 1-0 lead and then played out a solid draw with the white pieces to end the tournament for Lautier. Strangely, Lautier, offered a draw with the black pieces after 29 moves while he was in a must-win situation. Perhaps, the advantage of a pawn and nearly five minutes on the clock for Anand made the Frenchman write off his own chances. In the opening game, Anand as black stopped white from playing a regular Catalan opening. The fixing of black's queen side pawns seemed to offer white a tangible advantage. White's 19th move, attempting to win a pawn threw the game open for tactics and four moves later, black had the winning advantage based on an extra pawn. Once he won a pawn, Anand quickly exchanged off queens, rooks and the last pair of rooks at an opportune moment to enter a won ending. The protected passed extra pawn of black helped the Indian in such a manner that white was in a zugzwang. Lautier resigned at move 46 when he could not deny black's king a decisive entry into the enemy camp. Needing only a draw with the white pieces to advance into the next round, Anand decided not to show more of his preparation against the Sveshnikov variation that Lautier might have played. He decided to play an offbeat variation against the Sicilian defence and draw with comfort. In the semifinals, Anand plays Grischuk with the black pieces in the opening game. "After 19.Bb6 d4, white is lost," Anand told The Hindu after the game. However, white could have controlled the d4 square on the same turn and played for a tiny initiative. "It was a very nice game," said Anand about the little tricks of white's pieces being inactive or snared if he takes the offered pawn sacrifice. For a bright sunny day the spectator count was too low. However, among the audience were grandmasters like Sasikiran, Radjabov, Aronian, Tiviakov to name a few. Gelfand missed his chances the outside passed pawn offered with the white pieces and paid for that lapse when he was defeated by Grischuk in the reverse game for a 0.5-1.5 defeat. Topalov was lucky in the first game against Gurevich to win but drew the reverse encounter with perpetual checks to for a 1.5-0.5 triumph. Veteran former world champion Anatoly Karpov overlooked a rook sacrifice in the second set of tie-break games to lose to Shirov in 29 moves with the white pieces. Karpov bounced back with a rapid win to level scores but in the blitz play off he opened his own king side and allowed a mate which Shirov spotted. Pairing for Sunday's semifinals: Anand vs Grischuk, Topalov vs Shirov. The results (quarterfinals): Joel Lautier (Fra) lost to Viswanathan Anand (Ind) 0.5-1.5, Boris Gelfand (Isr) lost to Alexander Grischuk (Rus) 0.5-1.5, Anatoly Karpov (Rus) lost to Alexei Shirov (Esp) 1-1, 1-1, 0.5-1.5, Veselin Topalov (Bul) bt Mikhail Gurevich (Bel) 1.5-0.5.
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