Anand makes quarterfinals in style

By Our Chess Correspondent

CHENNAI, OCT. 30. World chess champion Viswanathan Anand made a brilliant start to the knockout phase of the Corsica Masters rapid chess tournament trouncing French prodigy Etienne Bacrot 2- 0 in the pre-quarterfinals at Bastia, France on Monday night.

In the quarterfinals, Anand faces Hungarian star Peter Leko, while Sergey Rublevsky of Russia faces Joel Lautier of France, Sergey Tiviakov of the Netherlands plays Igor Glek of Germany and Vladislav Tkachiev of France takes on Alexander Chernin of Hungary in other quarterfinal matches.

Anand short-circuited the French player in the opening game with a stunning, rare, queen sacrifice on move 21. Having opted for the Nimzo- Indian defence with black, Anand excelled when the game moved into a tactical stage.

Once white completed all the regular opening moves, he ran short of time and ideas and also went for a dubious rook manoeuvre on the 17th turn which also involved a rook for knight offer. Anand rejected the offer, activated his rook and used the rook and knight combine to threaten checkmate using his queen as decoy.

Bacrot paid for having parked his rook and queen in a remote corner of the board. Although the result upset French fans in the Bastia theatre, several hundred fans from India and elsewhere followed the game live on one of the several Internet websites relaying the games live at 2 a.m. IST on Tuesday. The 117 Elo difference between the world champion and the teenaged French player told in many ways than one.

A game up and needing only a draw with the white pieces, Anand opened with his king pawn and later opted for the Rauser attack against the Sicilian defence. Castling queen side, Anand made his intentions clear by hurling his king side pawns forward in the style of the English attack. This stopped black from castling. On move 32, Anand tore through black's king side with a bishop sacrifice. Bacrot, who was down on the clock, was able to save his king from mate but could not avert white's king pawn from queening and the resignation came on move 40.

The comfortable 2-0 sweep comes after a toiling Sunday when he had to ensure a qualifying berth in the last 16. Anand is defending his title in this $16,350 first prize event which concludes on October 31.

The other quarterfinalists did not have such an easy passage. Peter Leko sacrificed his rook to engage his queen and knight on Predrag Nikolic's king to win the first game. In the reverse game, Leko repeated the position with black and walked off with a 1.5-0.5 triumph over the Dutch-based Bosnian player. Igor Glek, playing for Germany, won one game and drew the other to eliminate Rustenov 1.5-0.5. The other five matches were decided in the tie- breaker blitz games.

The results (pre- quarterfinals): S. Rublevsky (Rus) bt A. Kharlov (Rus) 2-1 (on tie-break); S. Tiviakov (Ned) bt M. Gurevich (Bel) 2-1; A. Chernin (Hun) bt L. van Wely (Ned) 2-1; I. Glek (Ger) bt A. Rustenov (Rus) 1.5-0.5; P. Leko (Hun) bt P. Nikolic (Bih) 1.5-0.5; V. Anand (Ind) bt E. Bacrot (Fra) 2-0; J. Lautier (Fra) bt A. Barsov (Uzb) 2-1; V. Tkachiev (Fra) bt A. Schneider (Ukr) 2-1.

The moves:

GM E. Bacrot-GM V. Anand, pre-quarterfinals, game one, 20 minutes plus five seconds, Nimzo-Indian defence, E20: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Nf3 c5 5.g3 cxd4 6.Nxd4 0-0 7.Bg2 d5 8.cxd5 Nxd5 9.Qb3 Nc6 10.Nxc6 bxc6 11.0-0 Qa5 12.Bd2 Bxc3 13.bxc3 Ba6 14.Rfd1 Qc5 15.e4 Nb6 16.Be3 Qh5 17.Rd6 Nc4 18.Rxc6 Nxe3 19.Rxa6 Rab8 20.Qa4 Rb2 21.Re1 Qe2 0- 1.

GM V. Anand-GM E. Bacrot, pre-quarterfinals, game two, 20 minutes plus five seconds, Sicilian defence, Richter-Rauser variation, B66: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Bg5 e6 7.Qd2 a6 8.0-0-0 h6 9.Be3 Qc7 10.f3 Rb8 11.Kb1 Be7 12.g4 Ne5 13.h4 Nfd7 14.Qg2 b5 15.f4 b4 16.Na4 Nc6 17.Nb3 Bb7 18.g5 hxg5 19.hxg5 Rxh1 20.Qxh1 g6 21.Bd3 Bf8 22.Qh7 Ne7 23.f5 e5 24.f6 Nc6 25.Nd2 Na5 26.b3 d5 27.exd5 Bxd5 28.Nb2 Bc5 29.Bxc5 Qxc5 30.Nbc4 Nxc4 31.bxc4 Bc6 32.Bxg6 fxg6 33.Ne4 Qf8 34.Rd6 Ba4 35.Rxa6 b3 36.axb3 Bxb3 37.cxb3 Qb4 38.Re6+ Kd8 39.Qe7+ Qxe7 40.fxe7+ 1-0.

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