The Hindu : Leko makes finals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 08, 2002

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Sport - Chess

Leko makes finals

By Our Chess Correspondent

CHENNAI APRIL 7. Peter Leko of Hungary came from behind to defeat Kiril Georgiev of Bulgaria in the sudden death tie-break duel and make it to the finals of the UAE Grand Prix chess tournament being played at Dubai, on Sunday. The second semifinals is in progress with favourite Alexei Shirov of Spain being beaten by Alexander Grischuk of Russia in the second game after having taken the lead.

Strangely the players who have defeated each other only with white in their earlier career encounters won black games for a long Sunday. The 1-1 result has pushed this match also into the blitz tie-break session.

In the first semifinals, Leko dominated the games to defeat Georgiev after a full match in the sudden death game for a 3-2 victory and a place in the finals. The semifinals on Sunday was staggered to facilitate longer television coverage. While all the classification matches and the first semifinals took place at noon, the Shirov versus Grischuk match, which was supposed to be the more interesting one, was kept for the evening. Shirov did not disappoint and won the first rapid game with the black pieces. However, Shirov was on the defensive role and won in 30 moves by accepting an ambitious pawn sacrifice of Grischuk and later a rook blunder.

However, in the white game, he lost unable to get a draw that he needed. Earlier, Leko earned a place in the finals when he won the do-or-die sudden death game with the white pieces. The Hungarian won a favourable exchange by winning a queen and two pawns of black for his two rooks.

Georgiev who only needed a draw with the black pieces lost a rook and bowed out of the title race when he was checkmated on the 54th turn. In the main rapid games, Leko was dominating the first black game but when he re-toured his knight on the 43rd turn, he walked into a self-mate and Georgiev did not miss this chance. Leko resigned before white could humiliate him with a pawn move, mating on the spot.

Down a game largely due to his fault, Leko was at his smashing best in game two, beating the French defence of Georgiev in 54 moves to level the scores. In the blitz tie-break, both games were drawn with Georgiev sacrificing a pawn to earn a draw in the rook ending in game three and then by sacrificing his rook for bishop to draw the fourth one. Leko had a bishop and wrong colour rook pawn and had to wait for the sudden death control to make the finals.

Anand at brilliant best

In fighting for places 9-12, Anand was brilliant in both blitz tie-break games, winning with queen sacrifices after Radjabov held him to draws in both rapid games. The two blitz victories gave Anand a 3-1 triumph and he will clash with former world champion Alexander Khalifman of Russia for the 9-10th places on Monday.

In the first blitz game, Anand as white sacrificed two pawns to gain access to Radjabov's castled king. Then his queen and bishop battery played havoc for the black player who had chosen to play the French defence. Anand finished with a queen sacrifice to go a rook up on the net, forcing Radjabov to resign on 32 moves.

In the second tie-break game Anand playing black spotted a long tactical combination hard for most to see even in classical controls. On move 26 he sacrificed a queen sensing a back rank weakness of white and won probably the best game of the tournament eight moves later. Not having to play for the title, Anand is certainly enjoying his chess and was at his combinative

best on Sunday.

The results (round four): semifinals: Peter Leko (Hun) bt. Kiril Georgiev (Bul) 3-2, Alexander

Grischuk (Rus) playing Alexei Shirov (Esp) 1-1.Placings 5-8: Anatoly Karpov (Rus) bt. Veselin Topalov (Bul) 3-1, Etienne Bacrot (Fra) lost to Zurab Azmaiparashvili (Geo) 0.5-1.5.

Placings 9-12: Alexey Dreev (Rus) lost to Alexander Khalifman (Rus) 0.5-1.5, Teimour Radjabov (Aze) lost to Viswanathan Anand (Ind) 1-3. Placings 13-16: Zhu Chen (Chn) lost to Joel Lautier (Fra) 0-2, Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr) bt. Nigel Short (Eng) 1.5-0.5.

The moves: GM Teimour Radjabov-GM V. Anand, round four, blitz game, Queen's Indian

defence, E12: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.a3 Bb7 5.Nc3 d5 6.cxd5 Nxd5 7.Qc2

Nxc3 8.bxc3 Nd7 9.e4 Be7 10.Bd3 c5 11.0-0 0-0 12.Bb2 Rc8 13.Qe2 c4 14.Bxc4

Bxe4 15.Ba6 Bxf3 16.Qxf3 Rc7 17.Rad1 Bd6 18.Bd3 b5 19.Rfe1 a6 20.a4 bxa4

21.c4 Qb8 22.Ba1 Rd8 23.Re4 Nf6 24.Rh4 Be7 25.Rh3 h6 26.Rb1 Rxc4 27.Rxb8

Rc1+ 28.Bf1 Rxb8 29.Bc3 Rbb1 30.Qd3 a3 31.Qxa6 a2 32.g4 Rxf1+ 33.Qxf1 Ne4

34.Ba1 Nd2 0-1.

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