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Hello dear chessfriends! The leading St.-Petersburg chessplayers decided to rest today - as I was told today is the World day of chess. So the transmission and the annotations of the possibly decisive 3rd final game Leko - Topalov will be provided by me - Ilya Manakov - webmaster of the site . The Candidate tournament is finishing, at least the course of the first two games of the final tells about the probable fast outcome. The situation before the this game is clear absolutely. Topalov needs to win, Leko - not to lose. And to tell the truth the most interesting question is what the tactics will Topalov choose today? Because to win Leko by Black and when he is in such form (I remind - in the last 7 games Leko took 6.5 points!).. Well let's watch the game. The Paulsen system was played. I think Topalov chose this system because it leads to the complicated struggle without quick exchanges. The manoeuvre 5...Bc5 and 6...Be7 looks like the losing of the tempo, but now the Knight b3 has not good position and White has to waste the time to transfer it to the better position. On the 6th move Black can play also 6...Ba7 or 6...Bb6, but then his K-side became rather weak. The move 9...Bf6 looks rather unusual for this variant (usually here Black develops his light pieces in such way: Nf6,Nb-d7,Bb7). Leko didn't want to admit the possible echange on the c3-square (after that his pawn structure of the Q-side becomes rather weak) with following e6-e5 and he played 10.Qc2. After 11.Be3 the advantage of White in the development is clear. By his 12th move (12.Rfd1) Leko shows that the pawn d6 is rather weak. And after 13th move (13.Qd2) the threats of White on the file "d" became serious. It's necessary for Topalov to invent something for the justification of the scheme chosen by him. Topalov could to parry the threats on the file "d", but how to avoid the simplification now after 15.Bd4? Yeah they exchanged the dark-squared Bishops, and after 18.Na4 turn out the problem before Black - to start the passive defence (18...Nc8) with the chances to continue the struggle or to take the e4-pawn, but here the probability to get the slightly worse position without any chances for success is very high because White plays 19.Qb6. Of course Topalov prefered to play 18...Nc8. And here Leko started the complications after 19.e5 - the purpose is clear - to get the desirable result by the active play. Deserved attention 23...Bc6 24.Rc6 ba with the unclear play. But of course Topalov is trying to avoid the simplifications. After 26.Bb5 Black has the draw in the variant 26...Kb5 27.Nc7 Kb6 28.Na8 29.Ka7 Nc7, but no more - he can't to catch the Knight. Of course Topalov avoids this variant and the struggle is tense still. After 28...Bd5 the result is unpredicted still despite of the exchanges. After 32.Bf1 - how to win such position by Black? White has no weaknesses, just look at his pawns - all on the 2nd horizontal. And White has his own play - against the weak e5-pawn (33.Nd3) and the pawn's advantage on the Q-side (34.a4). Though Black can to keep the some dynamical balance, but the simplifications, simplifications... After 40...f5 it's interesting 41.f3 and seems Black has to play 41...Nd3, because badly to play 41...e3 42.Rf4 Rd1 and White has the following reply - 43.Rc4+ and 44.Rc2. This game reminds the yesterday's battle. It's clear that both sides are mistaking who and where the further analisys will show. And of course Leko made the mistakes more. The wonderful events happen in this match. Topalov won this game! What a battle will be tomorrow! |