Hello dear chess friends! We continue the annotations of the Dortmund super-tournament. 4th round. Today's pairs: Topalov - Shirov 1/2 Lutz - Gelfand 1/2 Bareev - Adams 1/2 Morozevich - Leko 1/2 Thoughts before the games... Topalov - Shirov The game with paricipation of the 1st group leader. Despite of Black pieces Aleksei will try to impose the complicated struggle. It's suited for Veselin - he can to finish the struggle in the group and through to the semi-final - for this 1 victory enough only. The contenders repeated quickly 18 moves from the game Lutz - Shirov (2nd round) - Rui Lopez (С99). 19.Qe2 met recently (at 1st time!) in the game Savanovich - Sokolov, Neum 2002. Move 19...Rc7, chosen by Sokolov looks as shady enough - though Black won that game (of course not without contenders help). Knight stood on a7 very long, and the Knight, which stands on the edge of the board looks like... the some horse! Lutz moved 19.a3 and this move allowed Shirov to take the line "c" under control by the rooks and Black had no problems then. 19...Nb4 is novelty. Black trades 2 pairs of rooks and lost 2 (or maybe 3!) tempos. But problems are still at him - pawn's voltage in the centre is in favour of White, pawn's pair a4-b5 is weak, and the position of black pieces is not good. The results of the opening are clear - White has stable advantage. Presence of the Queens is in White favour. Veselin passed to the ending with the clear advantage: wins or not... Shirov almost has no moves.... Some mistakes - as result Topalov's mistake was final - Shirov has escaped miraculously. Only one consolation for the Bulgarian - the battle was only ... for rating. Lutz - Gelfand To beat or not to beat Lutz? What the question... And question was solved very quickly - well Lutz doesn't want to be beaten! Suddenly German repeated sharp variation of Sicilian defence from the game Timman - Gelfand, Wijk aan Zee 2002. Naidorf variation (В96) with 10.Bb5 - piece's sacrifice. Of course Boris is well prepared in this variation if he lost Timman then! Instead of 18...Rb5 with giving back the exchange, Gelfand played 18...Ba6. This rare continuation met in the game Kantsler-Kuporosov, Sochi 1979 only. Lutz avoided from the firstprimary game - 19.Nf5 is novelty - after 19.Qc3 Rb5 Kantsler played 20.Nb5 Bb5 21.Qb4 Rd6 22.Qb5 Bf4 and lost gradualy. The game passed to the ending Rook + 5 pawns vs. Rook+Bishop+pawn. At that during the tactical battle the contenders practically didn't think - therefore result and moves are only :). Fritz agrees with this - you can check it ... Bareev - Adams Situation is similar to 1st pair - just Michael has no such sharp opening repertoire as at Shirov. The draw is very probable... And this contenders didn't torture each other very long. Though the opening was promising - Catalan with an extra pawn c4 at Black (E04), but opposite color bishops... The contenders repeated the game Lalic - Korneev, Lorca 2001 till the 14th move. Michael took Bishop c1 by his 14th move and avoided further repetition - for removing Knight on the d6-square... and equalized chances at all. And maybe they both wanted such result... Morozevich - Leko I don't agree with colleagues from the Kasparov club - the draw is quite possible in this pair. Both play not well in this tournament - when to win?! :) Here the original play was from the first moves. Anti-Cheliabinsk variation 3.Nc3 е5 of Sicilian defence(B30). Instead of popular 7.Ng5 with the following f4 (Sadvakasov - Morozevich, Astana 2001 :) ) Morozevich uses "superrare" 7.h3 and further а3. Movsesian used this variation twice, well ... it's possible to say nobody used this variation more. But for contender it's not wellknown - 8...a6 - novelty! Bishop moves to а2-square in any case, Black still keeps the position. Met 8...Be6 and 8...h6. Further - the battle of the "outsiders", White has slightly better ending. But zeitnot comes soon... But... Morozevich blundered and lost the pawn even not coming in zeitnot. Horror! From the slightly better position - to the hopeless... Further White tried to play as "active" as possible and the position after zeitnot is close to the draw. Nevertheless it's very difficult to win - now already with piece vs. pawns Aleksander got the draw. |
