The drama of the final match between Peter Leko and Veselin Topalov had a primordial sharp character, where run into the two bright persons, who are very different in the temperament, chess philosophy and strategical thinking. The battle between Leko who has the classicall, clear, logical method of thinking and the leader of the bulgarian chess whose fantasy is unlimited. "Ice and fire" determine the main point of this creative conflict in this very interesting duel. And already the start of the match made our dreams come true. The contenders followed their principles. In the 1st game the Leko's unstained logic won. In the 2nd Topalov tried to create his own play. The contenders played one of the fashionable in the modern theory system - Sveshnikov variant, which has a collosal research foundation. The 1st 17 moves met very often in the practice, and just from the moves 18...Rb8 (usually played 18...Ng6 or Re8) 19.g4 b4 began the unknown hand-to-hand fight. The sphere of the influence of the contenders became very determined - White is going to attack the K-side, where the cover of the black King has the weaknesses, and Black is trying to attack the Q-side. However as it is to be often the efficacy of the threats is defined here not only by their dynamics but and by the direction of the blow. Obviously, that the attack of the King is the most dangerous, and it's clear that the very accurate actions and composed defence are demanded from Leko. The counter-play should be combined with the defence. And as the confirmation - the manoeuvre Qc8-c3-f6. An agressive ardour of the Topalov is extinguished and the tempo of the game became slow. The game lost the sharpness and became rather positional. The mutual agression has finished and both contenders tried to consolidate their pieces. And here the advantage became on the Leko's side. At least to the 30th move he has a very important trump - the passed pawn "d". And this pawn has played the decisive role. It's very difficult to understand what happened with Topalov in this time - maybe confusion because of the sharp change of the course of the game or zeitnot, but his play became poor after 30th move. He lost the quick movement of the passed pawn "d", lost the tempos on the 33rd move, and after that and lost the piece. The result is clear. But after that in the game happened many mistakes from the both sides. Who could think that such player as Leko can't win with an extra piece in the rather quiet position and the simple threats of the White can scare him and to destroy the logical course of the game? It was impossible to predict such nonsense. And when I wrote about the clear result of this game after 42nd move it was not the mistake. And PC wins such position without any problems. But unbeleivable things happened in this game. At first Leko started to mistake and lost all his advantage, and after that already Topalov overestimated his chances and disagreed the clear draw and... lost this almost saved game. Nerves, nerves... The score is 2:0 in favour of Leko. |
