Round 1 Results (February 23, 2001) Comments by Malcolm Pein
Grischuk, Alexander 1/2 Polgar, Judit
The Linares debutante Alexander Grischuk was worse for most of the game
on the white side of the Sicilian Defence against Judit Polgar because he had
weak queenside pawns and no attack to compensate. It started as a Taimanov but
ended up looking like a bad Scheveningen. Judit never managed to take on c3 or
a4 but created another weak white pawn on e5 and concentrated fire on it. 32.
...Qa5 may have intended to finish the job with Rcc5 but 32. ...Qc7 intending
Rdc5 seems to mop up c3 instead and does not allow the marvellous Nxe6 idea
that got Grischuk out of trouble and nearly won the game. I think John
Henderson (below) analysis ( 38.Kh2!) may not be the end of the story. White
reaches a position with four pawns for the bishop and a safer king and might be
able to play on. Readers might like to comment.
John Henderson suggests
38 Kh2! with the big threat of Rf7. Black now has to play some very accurate
moves to survive. 38..Qb7 39 Qxe6+ Kh8 (39 ..Kh7 40 Rf7 Rxe5 41 Qf6!) 40 Qe8+
Kh7 41 Qxh5+ Kg842 Qe8+ Kh7 43 Rf7 Rd8! 44 Qe6 Qe4! 45 Qf6 Rg8 (45 ..Qg6? 46
Qh4+ Kg8 47Rxg7+) 46 Qg5 (46 e6 Kh8!) 46 ..Qg6 47 Qh4+ Qh6=
Leko,
Peter 1/2 Kasparov, Gary
Garry Kasparov was slightly better and
then slightly worse against Peter Leko but a draw always looked likely. Leko
continued to play 6.Bg5 against the Najdorf and avoid the Poisoned Pawn. Leko
played 8.a3 Nc6 9.Nb3 against Shirov at Wijk aan Zee. Old games show White gets
an edge after 8.Nb3 Qe3+ 9.Qe2 because of his space and extra development. The
downside is of course that in the event of an attacking race the lose of tempo
is more serious that Qb6-c7. Black was fine from the opening and 16.Qh3 was
necessary because Black was ready for the old . ...h6 Bh4 Nxe4 trick. 17.Na2?
Nxd3 18.Qxd3 Rxe4 was avoided. Kasparov sacrificed the exchange, 21. ...Rb8
22.Ba4+ is annoying but Leko returned it straight away and at first sight
seemed much better but Kasparov understood that the control of the 'd' file
(27. ...Rd8!) was what mattered, your summariser certainly did not appreciate
it at the time but was focussed on the weak black king. The point of 26.
...Kc6! was that pawn grabbing with 27.Qxg7 Rb8 28.Qxf7 (28.Rc1 Qd3+ 29.Rc2
Qf1+ =) 28.Qxf7 Qb3 was fatal. Leko had the draw in hand but played for the win
but the extra pawn was worthless in the rook and pawn endgame, the black rook
was too active.
Shirov, Alexei 1/2 Karpov, Anatoly
This
game epitomised the clash of playing styles. Karpov played what looks like a
big novelty with 11. ...Qf6, 11. ...Kf8 12.0-0 e5! has been played and soon had
a clear positional advantage with Shirov's pawn structure damaged and his queen
out of play. After 21. ...Qxf4 Black intends . ...h4 and . ...Nf6 and the
isolated d4 pawn is going into the box. Planet Shirov decided to veer out of
orbit with a piece sacrifice, which although insufficient, did produce huge
complications. We then saw a vintage Karpov king walk in the Caro Kann, he
really has shown how to play this line with the king in the middle although it
does not always reach e5. In the time scramble Shirov found 39.e4 which made a
huge difference to the position because the white rooks had checking squares.
With hindsight, both silicon and carbon, 37. ...Nxe3 just seems to win because
there is no threat. When the smoke had cleared Shirov had a pawn on e7 but his three other
pawns were bad and Karpov had two passers on the kingside and an extra
knight but the win was hard to find. 44. ...h4+ 45.Kxg4 h3 46.Rf8 h2 47.Rxe8
h1(Q) 48.Rg8+ wins for white although my little German friend suggests
that in this line the insertion of 46. ...Ne5+ 47.Kf4 would have brought
Karpov his reward after 47. ...h2 48.Rxe8 h1(Q) 49.Rg8+ Kf6! threatening Qf3
mate. After that the black knight was actually a bit stranded on f3.
Karpov could do no better than rook and knight v rook.
Standings:1. Grischuk, Alexander g RUS 2663 0.5; 2. Polgar,
Judit g HUN 2676 0.5; 3. Kasparov, Gary g RUS 2849 0.5; 4. Leko, Peter g HUN
2745 0.5; 5. Karpov, Anatoly g RUS 2679 0.5; 6. Shirov, Alexei g ESP 2718 0.5;
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(1) Grischuk,A (2663) - Polgar,J (2676) [B47]
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(2) Leko,P (2745) - Kasparov,G (2849) [B97]
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