Anand ends win drought; Kasparov on top

By Arvind Aaron

WIJK AAN ZEE, JAN. 27. World No. 1 Garry Kasparov of Russia moved into sole lead bettering Jan Timman of the Netherlands in an ``uneven game'' in the 11th round of the Corus chess tournament here on Friday.

``It was a hard fought game, I was lucky. But I am not the only lucky player in the tournament,'' said Kasparov after prevailing in the match between the two oldest contestants of the tournament.

Kasparov, 37, leads the 14-player Grandmaster Group A by a full point with eight points. Alexei Shirov of Spain, who was in the lead, was defeated, for the second time in the tournament, by Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine. Shirov and Alexander Morozevich of Russia are in joint second place with seven points.

The two Indians in the tournament had a wonderful day. Viswanathan Anand came up with a theoretical victory, his first in eight rounds and eleven days. Harikrishna made a GM norm for a perfect Republic Day celebration. Anand is unbeaten on 6.5 points with two victories and nine draws. He is tied for the fourth to sixth places.

Kasparov won a see-saw 47-move game from an English opening, white side. Preferring an opening surprise, Kasparov said he wanted to go for the reversed dragon. Mistakes on moves 16 and 17 left Timman with chances to equalise. Black started to make his mistakes from move 30 and Kasparov, although in time pressure, did very well to exploit them. Kasparov turned down a draw offer on move 41 and won the double bishop versus bishop and knight ending using black's weak pawns.

About the game, Anand said, ``Piket had some misgivings about the line but still came for it.'' The theoretical idea after white's 14.c5 and the king side attack was a brainchild of Ubilava, Anand's 50-year-old trainer.

``After 15.Nh4 black can resign,'' Piket was heard saying. Anand said he believed that and white's attack was very strong. It was a nasty defeat for Piket on the eve of his 32nd birthday.

``Gentlemen champions are rare,'' Peter Leko's manager Mr Carsten Hensel said at a press conference explaining the delayed start of the Kramnik-Leko encounter. Leko who is sick and had an appointment with the doctor said he would not be making it to the game at 1-30 p.m. local time. Kramnik agreed to the delayed start at 2.30 p.m. which is not a practice in this tournament. As a gesture of sportsmanship, Kramnik offered a draw with white in 15 moves unwilling to defeat a sick opponent. Kramnik is playing for the tournament title and has fallen behind in the scoring. He has 6.5 points and with two rounds left may not be able bridge the gap with the leaders.

Kramnik had beaten Leko 7-5 in a rapid match at Budapest before coming to Holland. Mr Carsten said Leko was suffering from the Mexican disease ``Montezuma's Revenge.''

He suffered from it for the first time in New Delhi and has been consistently losing weight since having problems with the stomach.

The number of undefeated players is decreasing after each round. The unexpected defeat of Adams to Fedorov from a very sharp Sicilian dragon was the upset of the round. The Englishman lost his first game in the tournament with the white pieces after overlooking a tactical shot by black on move 27. Fedorov is resurrecting the dragon and is also scoring with the black pieces. He was awarded the public's prize for the best game of the round.

In one of the heavyweight encounters, Veselin Topalov had the better of the exchanges but could not upset Morozevich. It was a Sicilian dragon, and they drew in 26 moves after Morozevich had compensation in the rook and opposite colour bishop ending for Topalov's extra pawn. There was a piece sacrifice but Morozevich did not accept it.

The results (round 11): M. Adams (Eng) 6 lost to A. Fedorov (Blr) 4.5; S. Tiviakov (Ned) 3.5 drew with L. van Wely (Ned) 4.5; G. Kasparov (Rus) 8 bt J. Timman (Ned) 4; V. Anand (Ind) 6.5 bt J. Piket (Ned) 3.5; V. Ivanchuk (Ukr) 6.5 bt A. Shirov (Esp) 7; V. Kramnik (Rus) 6.5 drew with P. Leko (Hun) 5; A. Morozevich (Rus) 7 drew with V. Topalov (Bul) 4.5.

The standings after 11 rounds: 1 G. Kasparov 8/11, 2-3 A. Morozevich, A. Shirov 7 each, 4-6 V. Anand, V. Ivanchuk, V. Kramnik 6.5, 7 M. Adams 6, 8 P. Leko 5, 9-11 A. Fedorov, V. Topalov, van Wely 4.5 each, 12 J. Timman, 13-14 J. Piket, S. Tiviakov 3.5 each.

The moves:

GM V. Anand-GM J. Piket, round 11, Petroff's defence, C42: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Bd6 7.0-0 0-0 8.c4 c6 9.Re1 Re8 10.Nc3 Nxc3 11.bxc3 Bg4 12.Bg5 Rxe1+ 13.Qxe1 Qd7 14.c5 Bc7 15.Nh4 h6 16.Bd2 Qd8 17.f4 Bc8 18.Qg3 b6 19.Re1 bxc5 20.dxc5 Qf8 21.Be3 Na6 22.Bd4 g5 23.Qf2 1-0.

Harikrishna completes second GM norm

International Master Pentyala Harikrishna moved closer to achieving his Grandmaster title when he completed his second Grandmaster norm result with a quick 10-move draw in the ninth round of the Grandmaster Group B section.

The 10-move pre-agreed encounter was fixed on Thursday night when the father of 13-year-old Teimor Radjabov proposed a draw to Varughese Koshy, trainer of Harikrishna. After checking the norm charts himself, Koshy gave the choice to Harikrishna who was interested in the draw.

It is a nine-game Grandmaster norm. He has a 10- game norm from the Istanbul Olympiad already and requires another norm covering 11 games to become India's youngest Grandmaster and the second youngest Asian. Harikrishna needs a victory and a draw in the last two rounds from here to extend his GM norm to 11 games and count as a closed GM norm.

``I am very happy now,'' Harikrishna said. ``When I was in Guntur I was even unsure if I would get the Schengen Visa and the ticket to get here. When I left Chennai on January 14 for Wijk aan Zee I was sure of giving my best, he said.''

The results (round nine): E. Hoeksema (Ned) 1 lost to van der Weide (Ned) 5; N. Vink (Ned) 1.5 drew with Visser (Ned) 2; T. Luther (Ger) 6 drew with De Vreugt (Ned) 4.5; P. Harikrishna (Ind) 6 drew with T. Radjabov (Aze) 6; F. Nijboer (Ned) 5.5 bt M. Bosboom (Ned) 4.5; B. Gulko (US) 4.5 drew with M. Gurevich (Bel) 6.5.

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