Topalov - Bareev 1-0 The number of the candidates who pretend to play the match with Vladimir Kramnik becomes less and less with every day. At first at "Dortmund session" were 8 candidates, after the group tournaments - 4, and now after the Shirov's defeat are only 3. And everybody from this trio has his own chances: the best chances of course at Leko, who already has taken his "place under the sun" in the final. After Bareev follows, who has the 1 score of advantage in the match with Topalov, and the most difficult problem at Topalov, who has to win today. Under the motto "all or nothing" Topalov began the battle in the decisive game. In the one of the classical variant of the Caro-Cann, which is the "shield" of Bareev in this tournament, the vigorous bolgarian rushed into the battle and advanced his pawns at the center and at the K-side to the attack! The aggressive intentions were emphasized by the brave sacrifice of the pawn "f", and turned out the position, where the roles of the contenders are marked very contrastingly. Initiative is on the White's side, but the material advantage is on the Black's side. And I have to add that even in the base of the Chess Assistant is not such opening position after 10th move. The opening promises to be exciting... And our expectations came true in full volume. Now, when the rush of the opening intrigue fell down and the game passed into the sharp midgame, is possible to look at the game from the retrospective point of view. It was not the mistake when I told that the position after the 10th move is not known in the theory, but the idea connected with the pawn's sacrifice of course is not new. This idea was tested in practice but in the other edition: usually after 7...Ка6. The last sample is the game Svidler-Galkin (Tomsk, 2001), where was 8.Ng3 Nb4 9.f5 gf 10.a3 f4 11.ab fg 12.hg. In the today's game the theoretical debate is renewed with the connection of the Bareev's novelty 7...c5. It's possible to say that in the stage of the passage from the opening to the midgame both contenders played very purposefully. By the manoeuvres 11...Nес6, 15...Bd6, 18...Qс5, 19...Rе8 Bareev could to hide his King and to finish the development and mobilisation of the pieces. And Topalov could find for his pieces the very active positions (17.Bf4 18.0-0-0) and to reinforce his aggressive ambitions by the manoeuvre Rh1-h3-с3. Not taking the unspoken propose of the draw by the repetition of the moves, Topalov has started the new wave of fierceful complications after 22.Rе3! (22...Nd4). And though crafty Bareev by sharpen-minded reply 24...Kh7! made for him a lot of tricky problems (25.R:е8? R:е8 26.Q:е8 Qg1+), but it was possible for Topalov to arrange the interaction of the pieces and to repel the Black's counter-play. After that the fascinating part of the game has finished, because inspite of the approximate material balance (the Bishop and the Knight against the Rook and the pawn), the perspectives of the active white pieces are much more dynamical than the perspectives of the disconnected pieces of Black. The technical prose changed the combinational romance. Topalov played exactly - exchanged the Queens, made the dangerous passed pawn and blocked the passed pawn of the contender. The result of the game became predicted. And it means we are expected by the tie-break with the participation of these uncompromising contenders. |
