Malcolm Pein writes for the Daily Telegraph (telegraph.co.uk)
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prizes in the Telegraph chess challenge on the Chess Club pages. 9th Round Monday, 3rd March 2003.
There were three draws in the ninth round at Linares and plenty of accurate and sensible play with few errors. Occasionally in top-flight tournaments the absence of a mistake or any risk taking makes the play a little dull. The draws left Vladimir Kramnik in the lead on 5/8 but Peter Leko has 4.5/7 with a game in hand. Garry Kasparov and Vishy Anand have 4.5/8.
The choice of openings often dictates the character of the round. Kasparov no longer plays the risky King's Indian Defence and against the prodigy Teimour Radjabov he opted for the solid Queen's Gambit Accepted. Simplification into a level endgame resulted and although the players fought on into a bishop and pawn endgame there was no inbalance in the position. Given that Radjabov had inflicted on Kasparov his first defeat with the white pieces for seven years in round two I would have expected him to go all out for revenge.
Francisco Vallejo-Pons played Kramnik's patent Berlin Defence and easily held world number three Vishy Anand to a draw, no wonder this variation is so popular. Anand defeated Ruslan Ponomariov's Berlin Defence in round one but he never got a sniff of an advantage against the Spaniard. Very much in the style of Kramnik's play against Kasparov in their title match in 2000, Vallejo developed just a bishop and a knight, and left his king, two rooks and other bishop on their original squares. It looks crazy but it works.
Kramnik played a few original ideas against Ponomariov and the game sparked into life briefly but the appearance of opposite coloured bishops signalled a peace treaty.
Round nine results:
Kramnik draw Ponomariov, Ruy Lopez, 33 moves
Radjabov draw Kasparov, QGA, 39;
Anand draw Vallejo-Pons, Ruy Lopez Berlin Defence, 28;
Leko Bye
Scores after 9 rounds: 1 Kramnik (Russia) 5/8; 2 Leko (Hungary) 4.5/7; 3-4 Anand (India), Kasparov (Russia) 4.5/8; 5-6 Radjabov (Azerbaijan) Ponomariov (Ukraine) 3/8; 7 Vallejo Pons (Spain), 2.5/7
Radjabov's French McCutcheon takes a beating although perhaps his position out of the opening was not as bad as it appeared. Leaving the pawn on c5 was wrong because it prevents the defensive idea of pawn b7-b6 and later the c5 moves forward and prises open the black king.
Leko,P (2736) - Radjabov,T (2624) [C12]
XX SuperGM Linares ESP (8), 02.03.2003
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Bb4 5.e5 h6 6.Bd2 Bxc3 7.bxc3 Ne4 8.Qg4 g6 9.Bd3 Nxd2 10.Kxd2 c5 11.h4 Bd7 12.h5 g5 13.f4 Nc6 14.fxg5 Qa5 [ 14...Qxg5+ 15.Qxg5 hxg5 16.Ke3 g4 17.Rf1 Rc8 ( 17...Ke7 18.Rh4 Rag8 19.Rb1 b6 20.Be2 cxd4+ 21.cxd4 f5 22.exf6+ Kxf6 23.Rf1+ Ke7 24.Rxg4 Rxg4 25.Bxg4 Nxd4 26.Kxd4 1/2-1/2 Leko,P-Short,N/Batumi GEO 1999 (26)) 18.Rf4 cxd4+ 19.cxd4 Nb4 20.Ne2 Nxd3 21.cxd3 Rc2 22.Rxg4 Rxa2 23.h6 b5 24.Rf1 Rxh6 25.Rg7 Rg6 26.Rgxf7 Kd8 27.g3 Rc2 28.Rh1 Rg8 29.Rhh7 Rc7 30.Nf4 Re8 31.Nh5 Kc8 32.Ng7 1-0 Sutovsky,E-Stellwagen,D/Amsterdam NED 2001/The Week in Chess 353 (32). ] 15.dxc5 d4 16.Nf3 0-0-0 17.Rab1 dxc3+ 18.Ke2 Rhg8 19.Qe4 Qc7 [ 19...Qxc5 20.Rb5 Qe7 21.Qc4 Rxg5!? was a possible improvement.] 20.g4 Ne7 21.Bb5 hxg5 22.Rb3 Nd5 23.Rhb1 Bc6?
Losing blunder. [ 23...f5 was necessary with an immediate counterattack.] 24.Bxc6 Qxc6 25.Nd4 Qa6+ 26.Ke1 Rd7? This is a bad position but this is losing straight away as it walks straight into 27.c6. 27.c6 Rc7 28.Rxb7 Rxb7 29.Rxb7 Nb6 30.Qh7 [ 30.Nf5 exf5 31.Qxf5+ Kd8 32.c7+ wins more quickly.] 30...Rf8 31.Qg7 [ 31.Nf5 again is very strong.] 31...Qa3 32.Qxf8+
[ 32.Qxf8+ Qxf8 33.Nb5 Qc5 34.Nd6+ Kd8 35.c7+ wins the queen with a crushing position.] 1-0