Topalov Starts with a Win

Impressions from the match
Topalov,V (2805) - Anand,V [D87]
Sofia BUL, WCC2010 Sofia BUL (1.22), 24.04.2010
1.d4 The most difficult move in the game as it was produced by the Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. This time, unlike the last year's Mtel Masters tournament he did not block the live-transmission of the game... 1...Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7 7.Bc4 c5 8.Ne2 Nc6 9.Be3 0–0 10.0–0 Na5 11.Bd3 b6 12.Qd2 e5 13.Bh6 cxd4 14.Bxg7 Kxg7 15.cxd4 exd4 16.Rac1


Topalov is the first one to surprise. His game against Kamsky in Sofia continued with: [16.f4 and was eventually drawn later. This time the Bulgarian uses: "an old analyses, that we prepared some time ago".] 16...Qd6 The only predecessing game in my Megabase saw: [16...Bb7 17.f4 Rc8 18.Rxc8 Qxc8 19.f5 Nc6 20.Rf3 Ne5 21.Rh3 Rh8 22.f6+ Kg8 23.Qh6 Qf8 24.Qxf8+ Kxf8 25.Nxd4 Ke8 26.Bb5+ Kd8 27.Rc3 a6 28.Ba4 b5 29.Bb3 Re8 30.Nf3 1/2 Karjakin,S (2732)-Carlsen,M (2765)/Foros 2008/CBM 125] 17.f4 f6 18.f5 Qe5 19.Nf4 g5 20.Nh5+ Kg8 21.h4 h6 22.hxg5 hxg5 23.Rf3


This was the moment when I arrived in the venue, avoiding the usual fuss of the starting round. Both players had 1.41 at their clocks, which meant that they have spend mere nineteen moves on their 22 starting moves. Anand thought for about twenty minutes, but produced a fatal mistake: 23...Kf7? Topalov did not hesitate too long: [23...Bd7 is probably the best move, and most probably the game should end a draw after some knight sacrifice on f6, followed by a perpetual check. But who knows, probably Topalov had something deeper on his mind...] 24.Nxf6!! And it seems that White is already winning. At the short press-conference Peter Doggers from chessvibes.com asked him if this was still part of his home preparation since he thought for some 5-6 minutes and continued to practically blitz after that. Topalov hesitated for a while, and then replied that "This is quite a typical sacrifice". However, later on he confessed for the Bulgarian National Television that the game was very easy since Anand felt into an opening preparation. I am pretty sure that 24.Nf6 is home made. Zurab Azmaiparashvili who is annotating for the audience in Sofia live was also fully convinced that the game is practically over. The attack that followed was a piece of cake for Veselin: 24...Kxf6 [24...Qxf6 looks somewhat more stubborn, but White wins as well after: 25.Rc7+ the best, though there are two more very interesting moves that might also win- (25.e5; 25.Rh3) 25...Ke8 (25...Kg8 26.e5 Qh6 27.Rh3+- loses control over the vital g5 point) 26.Bb5+ Kd8 27.Rfc3 a6 28.Ba4+- the situation is quite similar to the one that appeared in the game. Black's pieces are completely discoordinated, and helpless. The game may conclude: 28...b5 29.R3c5 Nc4 30.Rxc4 bxc4 31.Qa5


and mate in three follows.] 25.Rh3 Rg8 Or: [25...Rf7 26.Rh6+ Ke7 27.Qxg5+ Ke8 28.Bb5+ Bd7 29.Re6+ Black lacks the time to include more pieces into the defense:; 25...Bd7 26.Rh6+ Ke7 27.Qxg5+ Ke8 28.Be2+-


] 26.Rh6+ Kf7 27.Rh7+ Ke8 [27...Rg7 28.Rxg7+ Kxg7 (28...Qxg7 29.Rc7+) 29.Qxg5+ Kf8 30.Qd8+ Qe8 31.Qxd4 Bd7 32.Rc7 and White is completely winning; 27...Kf6 28.Rcc7 forces Black to sacrifice his queen in order to prevent immediate mate on f7.] 28.Rcc7 Kd8 Even an average GM like me was already clearly seeing what is about to happen: 29.Bb5! Including the last pieces in the assault. 29...Qxe4 [29...Qxb5 30.Qxd4+ is mate; 29...a6 would have givven White a chance for one more nice shot: 30.Rce7! Qd6


31.Qxg5!! Rxg5 32.Re8#] 30.Rxc8+ [30.Rce7 was winning similarly like the line above, but Topalov sees a more prosaic win:; 30.Rxc8+ Kxc8 31.Qc1+ Nc6 32.Bxc6 Qe3+ 33.Qxe3 dxe3 34.Bxa8 with a sure extra piece rather than mate.] 1–0
The press conference was short, and Anand confessed that he simply played badly, rather than being tired after the long trip. “Tomorrow is a new day, and a new game”, said the world champion.
The start of the match is great, and I am expecting a great battle now.

Sydney Open in Parramatta

Sydney, the Capital city of New South Wales was again hosting its 4th International Open with players from 12 Federations participating. This included players from Europe, Asia and Oceania. The event is held in the beautiful city of Parramatta, which is in fact a part from Sydney.
Sydney is the home city of the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House and is also the closest city to the Capital of Australia, Canberra. Apart from Chess, Australia also plays Rugby, Soccer, Cricket, Swimming and not to forget the Australian Football (a.k.a Footy).
The 2010 Sydney International Open coincided with the end of the 48th Doeberl Cup 2010. This back-to-back events made it like a "single strike two down" events for all the foreigners to come and participate. This year the organizers made a one-day break between the tournaments, which is still something if you consider the fact that both the events are nine rounds, played in five days. Amongst the participants were ten GM's, eight IM's, three FM's and as for the women, three WIM's and 1 WFM. The arbiters were also quite colourful mixture- from Australia, Papua New Guinea and The Fiji Islands. It is worth mentioning that one of the arbiters-Shawn Press is the leader of the Papua New Guinea team, where his captain is none the less but the chief organizer of the Sydney open- Brian Jones. Aussies were also delighted that the world Under 8 (2009) equal second, Anton Smirnov took part at the event.
After Canberra most of the outlanders came to themselves, and it seemed to me that the tournament is proceeding in a more logical way that the one in the Australian capital. There lacked any major upsets on the top boards in the first rounds, and logically the heavy-weighted battles started somewhere around round three. The top six games were transmitted live, and again there were the marvelous annotations by Ian Rogers as a bonus for the audience. At the first day he called me and asked me a couple of questions about my game and the Canberra tournament in general. I complained about the jetlag, but admitted that for this tournament I have no more excuses. So, I have burned down the “excuse bridges” and had to get seriously to busyness. I started well scoring some good wins, and sharing the point with the top-seeded Li Chao. The third day was especially lucky for me. First I had a terrible position against Indian GM Panchanathan, who could torture me as long as he liked without any risk, but we felt in time trouble just when the position got open and required precise calculations, and I managed to trick him. We played until twenty minutes before the start of the sixth round, and logically I was groggy against the Ukrainian Malaniuk, but Lady Luck did not let me down, when in very difficult position for me his flag felt. I took the sole lead. However, on the next day, I had to pay my dues back, by first not converting an extra pawn in a rook endgame against Fernandez, and later spoiling an excellent position against the top Aussie Zhao Zong Yue. Going into the final round Zhao and Gawain Jones were leading with 6.5/8, and a quick draw secured them a shared first. I should mention that they equally deserved their excellent result, since they both did not lose any games, and played quite confidently. The next three boards were fighting hard to catch up with them. On second the game Kunte-Fernandez saw advantage for white, but Black saved himself by constructing a marvelous fortress with two bishops versus a queen. This game brought a second IM norm for the Singaporean Daniel Fernandez, and he was really close to a GM one! He did lost only one game against Malaniuk, and scored 6.5 point conveniently. The young fellow’s coach at the moment is none less but Zurab Azmaiparashvili himself. Fourth table saw Li Chao’s hopes for another trophy disappear after the calm defense by V. Malanuik, who managed to convert an extra pawn. Finally, on board three I had a do or die clash against the Indian’s second ever GM D. Barua, which eventually ended in my favour, and this brought to a three-way tie for the first. Bucholz seems to be a cousin of Lady Luck, for it gave me a half point margin in front of my rivals.
On Saturday Parramatta becomes a market place and has many visitors. The chess players used that fact to organize simultaneous exhibition in front of the venue with prices for the winners, and it was quite successful for I have seen people sitting for a while, and learning the basic rules of the game.
The tournament was over, and we used the opportunity to see the Blue Mountains resort, and the Featherdale Wildlife Park.

Doeberl Cup in Canberra

At the beginning of 20-th century there was a strong debate which major city to be the capital of Australia. There were two main contenders- Sydney and Melbourne, but somehow none of them prevailed. Finally, a compromise decision was taken that there is an independent capital, somewhere between the two major cities, and this is how the town of Canberra was created. It now has approximately 300 000 inhabitants, and the Australian institutions are situated here.
This year’s Doeberl cup took place between 1-5 Aprils in Australia’s capital. The tournament is named after the architect Erich Doeberl who strongly supported the tournament for the years that he lived, supplying the bigger part of the price fund, and some times giving additional funds when he was especially satisfied with the course of the event (unfortunately that noble chess lover passed away some years ago, but the tournament is still named after him).
It was a nine-round Swiss Premier open, including additional sections-Major, Minor and U 1200. We can claim that it was quite successful, as the altogether number of participants almost caught up with the old record of most participating players (268, back in 1985 as our chief arbiter Shaun Press had explained to me).
For financial reasons there were double rounds almost every day starting from the first round. Australia is way away from Europe, and the first days it was more survival rather than chess tournament, as the jetlag was telling itself. Waking up at four a.m. is not a nice way to prepare for a morning game, and in that relation the Aussies (or Ozzies- as the locals name themselves) have definite advantage against the guest players. Going a bit in advance I would say that they managed to use that perfectly by scoring one GM and 3 IM norms in the tournament, which was huge success, and one of the main ideas of the event as the chief organizer Charles Bishop explained at the closing ceremony.
One of the most interesting features of the event was the so called fighting price fund. An extra thousand dollars were to be distributed for those who win their last efforts, but there were two additional conditions- those players should not have made any grandmaster draws (GM draw here was considered a game that ends in a draw before the thirtieth move), and the contenders for the price are only players who have equal or more points to the score of the player on board four.
Curiously, no one could win that price this year. The lowest score on board four was 5.5 points, which meant that only the top five boards are competing for the fighting fund. First board saw a quick draw between Li Chao and Malaniuk, which secured a clear first for the Chinese player, who owed the white pieces, and eventually shared third for the Ukrainian. Smooth tournament for Li Chao, since he was not ever in danger in any of his games. Board two saw an eventful game between Panchanathan and Smerdon, which eventually ended peacefully but after a long fight. It was Indians only draw in the tournament, but in an inconvenient moment. Board three saw a drama, as another Indian GM- Kunte who was dictating the game blundered a whole queen against the local George Xie. Xie though had a quick draw in the last but one round and was already out of the fighting fund fight. Nevertheless he can be completely satisfied with his tournament-clear second place, but what is more important-he scored his last and definite GM norm, that will soon bring him the title. Board four saw Roy Chowdhury winning as white against Zhao Zong Yuan, but he also had an under-thirty move draw (this was however questionable since his draw was a repetition of moves, that might have been avoided). Last, but not least we had the most eventful game of the round between Gawain Jones and Rej Tomek. White was first completely winning (extra exchange), then completely lost (clear piece down in an endgame), and finally it was a draw. Tomek’s consolation was the achieved IM norm, and two more Australians managed to do so.
One of the most remarkable points of the tournament was the live commentaries of GM Ian Rogers. Australian’s best player ever was annotating for the wide audience throughout the whole round, supporting by his wife Cathy.
There was very little time for sight-seeing after the closing ceremony, and we used it to visit the nearby Canberra nature park and make pictures of the kangaroos.
Sydney open starts tomorrow, another report to follow soon.

Blarney

Kissing the stone for luck.

The first round in the tournament had to start at 8 p.m. on 26-th of March, so I took the advice given by the locals to go to Blarney. It is a small town, situated some ten kilometers away from Cork, where a noble old castle is the main attraction. The guys told me that there is a stone that brings luck if you kiss it, I could not miss this before the tournament for sure; it was not easy though, and there is some risk for the ordinary chess player…
The thing that they did not explain to me at the beginning is that kissing the stone also means that you get that gift of speaking too many things without saying anything, rubbish to put it mildly…there is even such a word in the English language, and it comes precisely from that place. The story tells that it was the Queen who addressed the word to a noble called Blarney, and it started its existence since then.
Anyway the place was wonderful, with some old buildings, druid and witch stones, wonderful lake, some funny animals and lots of flowers.
There were three tournaments altogether, although the participants were a bit less than expected.
The event started without big surprises, and up to the fourth round the top seeded four players in the “A” open had full amount of points. I should admit that in round three the Blarney stone did quite a good job in my game against Philip Short- a five-time Cork champion and local legend when he blundered in the time trouble in winning endgame.
Before the final round I managed somehow to get half a point advance and the white pieces against Alex Baburin in the final one. Alex is a strong Russian player who lives for seventeen years already in Ireland, and represents the country. He was not in his best form though, and could not show the best of his play. We drew our encounter, and this gave a chance for two players more to tie for the first- Alex Lopez, young Spanish player who lives in Cork, and Bogdan Lalic. The former one had the habit of coming late at least 10-15 minutes for the game, but I managed finally to take a picture of him at the closing ceremony.
There was a small surprise before the closing ceremony, since the top two players in each group had to place an “Armageddon” blitz game to define the winner. In group “C” there was a four way-tie for the top, but only the best two played a game. One important thing was that the games were “friendly”- which means that you can touch any piece that you want, and even take your move back before you press the clock. In case of a draw, a second game would have taken place. The calmer young player won the blitz game in the “C” tournament.
“B” tournament saw a clear winner, so there was no match. However, our cute organizer Michael Bradley, after a first-game bye due to the organizational stuff managed to score 4/5 in the remaining games, and to tie for the second place. “Connections, what to do”, explained he at the ceremony, presenting the price for himself. By the way, he is from Blarney himself, do not be astonished.
From our three-way tie Alex Lopez had the worst criteria, and did not play. I chose the white pieces (remember the stone?), and was lucky enough to win the game. I received the chance to make some pictures with the wonderful cup, and the promise to defend the title the next year.
However, the thing that I am most proud of are the remarks of two of the local players who took part in the Tactical Lecture on Thursday, one day before the tournament- that they managed to win one game each thanks to the knowledge they got that night.
Next stop- Australia.

Discovering Ireland

Cork (or Corcaigh in Irish) is Ireland’s second largest city. It is situated on the south of the country with a population of approximately 120 000 people. The town is known as the “Rebel County” since 1491 when the local supported the English Pretender Perkin Warbeck. These are things that I learned from Wikipedia, but when I arrived here everything appeared to be true, and confirmed by my new friends. Corkonians also refer to the city as the real capital of Ireland.
Some months ago I got an invitation to take part in the annual Cork Chess Congress that takes place 26-28 March. But before that the organizer of the event Michael Bradley invited me for a joint simultaneous exhibition (together with Bogdan Lalic) on 24 March and a lecture on the next day. I picked up the theme “Discovered Attack, methods and patterns”.
In the foyer of the Gresham Metropole hotel I meet Bogdan Lalic. The Croatian-born GM currently lives in London. He has just bought a new camera, and asks me a few things about how ho handle it. In the meanwhile Michael Bradley comes and picks us to the City Hall where the simultaneous exhibition will take place. He is in good mood, and he is anxious for he is participating, too. Some of the players did not appear on time, so we decided to give a joint simultaneous. I start the simul, and Bogdan makes the second move. This is fun as we do not always understand the ideas of the other. The City Hall is open during the whole event, and while we are playing some people come to watch. One of them tells me that he is working for the BBC, and he is here to cover some economical news. However, when he saw the door opened he decided to have a glance and see what happens. Pity he did not come earlier, he was really willing to take part.
We have some wins, and a couple of draws, and finally there are two boards left. One of it we still manage to win, but the last man standing, a young fellow plays flawlessly, and takes away two GM scalps in one go. His name is Kieran O’Riordan, nice Irish name, and he is one of the best juniours in the area. His results improved the last couple of years, and he is now rated around 1750. Do not get misled by the low ratings, people here have very few rated events and the Elo factor lacks dynamics.
We have some free time between the chess events to visit the most remarkable places in the area. The main street in Cork, St. Patrick’s is one of those. We also have a famous English Market, beautiful park, nutritious Irish breakfast (sausages, bacon, beans, eggs, some more meat and tomatoes- a great stuff to start an eventful day). Corkonians are also proud producers of Beamish and Murphy’s Irish stout. This is something that makes the whole country worth a visit, as well as the size of the pint-it is 568 ml, not the conventional half liter…
Some ten miles away from Cork is situated the harbour of Cobh (pronounced Kov), the second largest harbour in the world. It was also known as Queenstown once (after Queen Victoria). It was the last place where Titanic stopped before it went to the journey with no return, and there is still a small museum of the lost ship. Some years later the tragedy repeated with the sinking of the ship Lusitania, when more than thousand people could not be saved.
The town saw many immigrants leaving the green Ireland to find their luck in new places, such as the USA, and Australia. Although the population of Ireland is about 4.5 million, many more millions have moved to other countries and established there.
The Cork chess club is situated very near to the Gresham Metropole hotel where the tournament will take place. It was founded some twenty years ago, and has approximately eighty members from young children till eighty-year experienced players.
The tournament starts on Friday, there will be six rounds, and the top seeded player is the Irish situated GM Alex Baburin.

After the Free Day

Yesterday was a free day in Rijeka, and most of the players took their time to recover after the first seven rounds. In the evening before it the organizers gave another good sample of their hospitality with the party for the participants. It was conducted in the Hemingway bar in Opatija, and all the players were presented with a typical Croatian drink, called “stock”. It is a kind of brandy with a specific taste. The morning saw many of the participants chasing away the stress with dances, and some drinks. The rest day that followed was really needed.
Apart from the ECU general Assembly, two important from chess political view events took place. Anatoly Karpov officially announced his candidature for the FIDE president, and Silvio Danailov made a cocktail party yesterday, with which he started his campaign for becoming an ECU President. Bulgarian’s motto in his campaign is “I know”, with which he stresses on the fact that he is in chess all his life- as a player, manager, trainer and organizer of important chess tournaments. In a short speech he explained his ideas, and showed his respect to the previous ECU presidents for the work that they have done so far. Among the guests at the cocktail were his rival, Ali Nihat Yazici, Anatoly Karpov, FIDE’s vice-president Georgios Makropolous, and many other officials. Some weeks ago Danailov made a generous gesture to Rumen Nikolov, a twelve years old chess player, and participant in the M-tel Juniour Circuit. Danailov presented his own money for Rumen, who needed an emergency eye operation in Germany.
In the meanwhile the tournaments continued with exciting games. After his somewhat lucky escape in the seventh round, Baadur Jobava beat the top seeded Zoltan Almasi today with the white pieces. The Georgian is sole leader now, and is the only player who has scored “plus six” so far. However, there are 408 participants, and it is not clear that such a score will suffice for the first place. Contrary to some other years the participants are not happy with short draws when they make reasonable score but continue to search the maximum.
In the female tournament Monica Socko is already sharing the first place with Victoria Cmilyte from Lithuania who won against K. Arakhamia-Grant in extremely sharp game.
The players’ open letter with demand for thirty-minute tolerance due to the travelling time was signed by hundred and ten participants. However the arbiters decided not to change the zero-rule tolerance for the obvious unfairness to those who have lost points already.
The town of Opatija is surrounded by the Ucka (Uchka) mountains. It is a popular tourist destination, near both the Italian and Slovenian boarders. The architecture is from the times of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the resort has a typical Mediatarian look.
There is a nice park near the Milenij hotel and a boulevard of fame on the main street. Today the weather got wormer, and very nice for walking, so I am sending you some pictures from this beautiful place.

European Individual Championships

The strongest European Championships so far are taking place in Rijeka, Croatia. Statisticians calculated that twenty seven from thirty best women in Europe are taking part of the event. The only missing are the world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, as well as the young mothers Katerina Lahno and Natalia Pogonina. The male part is also seeing most of the top European players, including nine who are rated over 2700 Elo barrier. The consistency of the players is also very good, and there are almost hundred participants over 2600. There are almost 600 participants in total in the tournaments. Both the champions from the last edition- Russians Tatiana Kosintseva and Evgeny Tomashevsky are defending their titles.
Starting from the first rounds many of the top seeds already lost points, but this is hardly a surprise since they had to face strong opposition, even GMs in most of the cases.
Almost all participants live in the nearby town of Opatija, in luxury hotels, and have to travel every day some hour before the start of the round.
The “zero tolerance” rule is causing some troubles because of that. The first round saw one of the buses arriving only three minutes before the round, and many participants literally running to catch their games. However, only in the second round in the male tournament there were five games decided by default. This is too much, and most of the players strongly disagree with the rule. Indeed such measures will be very appropriate for super-tournaments, where you have six-fourteen players, and it will be shame for the audience to see empty boards at the start of the round. However in such a massive tournament, with so many players and additional transfer of almost all of them many unforeseen consequences can appear, and prevent the players from arriving in time. Probably fifteen minute tolerance is the best solution of the problem.
Except for this problem Croatians are providing excellent conditions for the championships. The hall is spacious and both women and men share the same place. There are free refreshments in the hall, as well as internet access in the venue. Food in the hotels is excellent, service is great. The weather is relatively cold, but Adriatic see is nevertheless beautiful.
The widely respected Croatian GM Miso Cebalo and world senior champion is commenting the tournament for the official site.
In brief- interesting games have started, and we expect even more fascinating chess in the coming rounds.