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Chess by Malcolm Pein of the Daily Telegraph
 Malcolm Pein writes for the Daily Telegraph (telegraph.co.uk)
you can read his chess columns along with those of Nigel Short and David
Norwood at their new
Chess
Club (to read the columns you need to register which is free). Win
prizes in the Telegraph chess challenge on the Chess Club pages. 7th Round Saturday, 1st March 2003. The seventh round at Linares proved to be quite momentous as Garry Kasparov squeezed out a win from what appeared to be a drawn endgame against Vishy Anand and moved onto a plus score for the first time at the halfway stage. The back marker Ruslan Ponomariov who defends his Fide title against Kasparov later this year awoke from his nightmare and scored his first win with a very well played endgame against Francisco Vallejo-Pons. Linares is the first tournament for two years that has pitted the world's top three players against each other and decisive games between the trio are rare; something special is usually required. It needed subtle and imaginative play from the world number one to extract a significant edge from a kingside space advantage in a rook and bishop endgame. He then produced an accurate sequence of moves in the rook ending that culminated in a deadly zugzwang and Anand, the world number three could resist no longer. Peter Leko, white, and Vladimir Kramnik had a sharp twenty five move game typical of the Sicilian Sveshnikov in which Black's pawn weaknesses were balanced by his piece activity Round seven results: Kasparov 1-0 Anand, Caro Kann Classical 4…Bf5, 62; Leko draw Kramnik, Sicilian Sveshnikov, 25; Ponomariov 1-0 Vallejo Pons, Semi Slav, 7.g4, 68; Scores after 7 rounds: 1 Kramnik (Russia) 4/6; Anand (India), Leko (Hungary) Kasparov (Russia) 3.5/6; 5 Radjabov (Azerbaijan) 2.5/6; 6 Vallejo Pons (Spain), Ponomariov (Ukraine) 2/6; Kasparov,G (2847) - Anand,V (2753) [B19] XX SuperGM Linares ESP (7), 01.03.2003 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6 7.Nf3 Nd7 8.h5 Bh7 9.Bd3 Bxd3 10.Qxd3 Ngf6 11.Bf4 e6 12.0-0-0 Be7 13.Kb1 0-0 14.Ne4 Nxe4 15.Qxe4 Nf6 16.Qe2 Qd5 17.Ne5 Qe4 18.Qxe4 Nxe4 19.Rhe1 Nf6 20.g4 Rfd8 21.Be3 Bd6 22.f3 Rac8 23.c4 a5 24.a4 Nd7 25.Bd2 Bc7 26.Bc3 Nxe5 27.dxe5 c5 A difficult but controversial decision, it fixes a pawn on dark squares which renders it vulnerable in a bishop ending but at some point Kasparov might have played pawn c4-c5 increasing his space advantage, fixing the b7 pawn and perhaps allowing his king to advance to c4. 28.Kc2 Rxd1 29.Kxd1! The automatic 29.Rxd1 would allow 29. ..Rd8 with perhaps further simplification. The space advantage can only be exploited with a pair of rooks left on the board. Black can take the 'd' file now but there are no entry squares. 29...Rd8+ 30.Ke2 Rd7 31.f4 Bd8 32.f5 Bg5 33.f6 [ 33.Bxa5 Rd4] 33...b6 34.Ra1!! Wonderful play, the threat is Ra1-a3-b3 attacking b6. Black would like to defend with Bd8 but 33.f6 prevented that. When the rook reaches b3 . ..Rb8 to cover b6 will allow Bxa5. 34...Rd8 35.Ra3 gxf6 36.Rb3! If: [ 36.exf6 then Bf4-c7.] 36...Bf4 37.Rxb6 Bxe5 38.Bxe5 fxe5 39.Rb5 Rd4 40.Rxc5 Rxg4 41.b3 Rg3 42.Rxe5 Rxb3 43.Rxa5 f5  43. ..Kf8 was better to cover the white 'c' pawn's advance, the black rook cuts off the white king and this should draw. 44.Ra8+ Kg7 45.c5 Rc3 46.Rc8 Ra3 47.c6 Rxa4 48.Re8 Rc4 only move, else c6-c7 49.Rxe6 f4 50.Rg6+ Kh7 51.Kd3 Rc5 52.Kd4 Rc1 53.Ke4 Rc4+ 54.Kd5 Rc3 55.Kd4 Rc1 56.Ke4 Rc4+ 57.Kf3! 
Zugszwang, black has to give way but he does so incorrectly. 57...Kh8? This loses but Anand can still draw here. [ 57...Rc5! 58.Kg4 f3 59.Kxf3 Rxh5 60.Re6 ( 60.Rd6 Rc5=) 60...Kg7! 61.Ke4 Kf7 62.Rd6 Rc5! 63.Kd4 Rc1 64.Kd5 Ke8 draws.; 57...Rd4 58.Re6 followed by Re7+ and pawn c6-c7] 58.Rxh6+ Kg7 59.Rd6 Kh7 60.Kg4 Kg7 61.Rd7+ Kf6 62.c7 [ 62.c7 Ke6 63.Rg7 and pawn h5-h6 wins.] 1-0 |
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| All material © Mark Crowther |
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