Short crushes Hernandez

By Arvind Aaron

MERIDA (MEXICO), MAY 21. Improving on his own opening play from his previous classical chess tournament, the world chess champion Viswanathan Anand made a comfortable draw with the black pieces against former FIDE world champion Alexander Khalifman of Russia in the fourth round of the 2nd Torneo Magistral of chess here on Sunday.

The highlight of the fourth round was Nigel Short's crushing 35- move victory over the Mexican tailender Gilberto Hernandez. Short moved up to 2.5 points and second place, reducing Anand's lead in the tournament.

After the result, Anand is on three points from four games and still has Hernandez and Short to play in the last two rounds.

Sunday's draw was quick and comfortable. Anand played the Nimzo- Indian defence as black and Khalifman repeated the idea devised by Vladimir Kramnik in Wijk aan Zee this year.

``In our analysis at Wijk aan Zee, Kramnik told me about 18...Qb7 and after that it is a draw,'' said Anand. But he somehow forgot to put that in his analysis in Chess Informant.

Hoping to cash in on an existing idea, Khalifman came seeking blood but after his 20th move knew what he was up against and proposed a draw. In the final position black had compensation for the two bishops and was also well developed to strike on the backward c4 pawn of white if necessary. At Wijk aan Zee, Anand ran into trouble playing 18...Nb8, but inaccurate play from white even gave him winning chances but he drew that game. This improved novelty left Khalifman in a state of shock as he thought for a long moment and offered a draw making only two more moves.

Later at the dinner table, Anand said Khalifman was cursing himself for trying the ``Kramnik versus Kramnik line''. Had the game continued, it would have been a dead draw and the queen side pawns would have been vacuumed first, he noted.

Prior to his game, Short, told The Hindu, ``the hall is like a refrigerator and we are left like pieces of meat hanging there.'' He was complaining about the chillness. There were too few people in the hall and the chillness was maintained for full capacity. He came in a good mood to the board announcing the England cricket team's innings victory over Pakistan.

Opening with the king pawn, Short opted to play a Maroczy bind position with white against Hernandez. Black was slowly getting out-manoeuvred. Re-locating the light square bishop took several moves for black, and, white had pounced on the development advantage. Unable to defend long, black burst open with a few pawn thrusts which spelt early disaster on move 25. Short accepted this pawn and kept control of the centre. When he was poised to win his second pawn, Hernandez resigned inside the fourth hour of play.

In the post match analysis, Short said he had played this line once against Judit Polgar in New York 1995 and lost a speed chess game. He felt black gave white too much liberty to plan and execute without stemming the flow of white's aggressive ideas.

Short will play Khalifman with the black pieces and Anand will take on Hernandez with the white pieces in the fifth round on Monday.

The organisers said none of the players took the excursion they had arranged for them on Saturday which showed players interest and seriousness in the tournament.

Presentation, the key: Anand

In Saturday's press conference, Anand said he liked walking, running, cycling and lifting weights to keep fit. He liked to read up on the economy and listen to music, which he also downloads from the Internet. Currently he was following the developments in two other super category tournaments, the Bosna tournament in Sarajevo and the one at Astana in Kazakhstan.

Contrary to Khalifman's opinion, Anand said if things were well organised and presented it was always possible to find money for chess in Europe, or anywhere. About the time control, he said it would need more tests since none of his tournaments this year had been affected by the short schedule so far.

The results (fourth round): A. Khalifman drew with V. Anand; N. Short bt G. Hernandez.

The standings (after round four): 1 V. Anand (Ind) 3/4, 2 N. Short (Eng) 2.5, 3 A. Khalifman (Rus) 2, 4 G. Hernandez (Mex) 0.5.

The moves:

GM A. Khalifman-GM V. Anand, round four, Nimzo-Indian defence, E55: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 0-0 5.Bd3 d5 6.Nf3 c5 7.0-0 dxc4 8.Bxc4 Nbd7 9.a3 cxd4 10.axb4 dxc3 11.bxc3 Qc7 12.Qb3 Nb6 13.Be2 e5 14.Ra5 Be6 15.Qc2 Nbd7 16.c4 b6 17.Ra6 Rfc8 18.Nd2 Qb7 (18...Nb8 19.Ra3 a5 20.Bb2 Nc6 21.b5 Ne7 22.f4 Nd7 23.Nf3 Bf5 24.Qc3 Ng6 25.Ng5 Nc5 26. Bf3 Ra7 27.e4 Bd7 28.fxe5 Be6 29.Bh5 h6 30.Nxe6 Nxe6 31.Qg3 Qc5+ 32.Kh1 Qxc4 33.Raf3 Qxb5 34.Bxg6 fxg6 35.Qxg6 Qe8 was a draw in Kramnik- Anand, Wijk aan Zee 2001) 19.b5 Nc5 20.Ra3 Draw.

GM N. Short-GM G. Hernandez, round four, Sicilian defence, B40: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.c4 Nc6 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.Be2 d6 6.d4 cxd4 7.Nxd4 Be7 8.0-0 0-0 9.Be3 Bd7 10.Nb3 a6 11.f4 Rb8 12.a3 b6 13.Rc1 Bc8 14.Bf3 Bb7 15.Qe2 Nd7 16.Rfd1 Ba8 17.Rc2 Qc8 18.Nc1 Rb7 19.b4 Rc7 20.Nb3 Ncb8 21.Na4 b5 22.Nb2 e5 23.Rdc1 bxc4 24.Nxc4 Qd8 25.Nba5 f5 26.exf5 e4 27.Bg4 d5 28.Ne5 Rxc2 29.Rxc2 Bf6 30.Nac6 Nxc6 31.Nxc6 Bxc6 32.Rxc6 Nb8 33.Rc1 Qd7 34.Rd1 Kh8 35.Qd2 1-0.

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