WIM Irina Sudakova annotates the games of the 7th round: Leko - GM Shirov 1-0 Kasparov - Vallejo 1-0 Kramnik - Topalov 1-0 Hello! Today it's me WIM Irina Sudakova is annotating the games of Linares. Today's pairs: Kasparov - Vallejo(I think Kasparov playing with White will try to do the best to beat young Spaniard), Kramnik - Topalov and leaders of the tournament Leko - Shirov. Radjabov is resting today - we hope he will be able to restore himself after yesterday's defeat and will please us by wins in the next rounds. For the first 30 minutes of the round nothing sufficient happened, in all the games the theoretical positions are played, let's look after the development of the events. Leko - Shirov After 16...Bg6. The move 13.Nc3 was played for the 1st time in the game Kasparov - Shirov in 2001, then Aleksei played 13...Nc3 and lost. However in annotations to this game the following variations were proposed 13...Bе5!? 14.de Nac5 15.Ne4 Nd3 16.Qd3 Bg6 17.Qb3 Be4 18.Qb7 Qh4 19.f3 Bd3 20.Rf2 Qd4 or 18.f3 Bg6 19.Qb7 d4 with compensation for a pawn since White has some problems with development and the black pawn "d" can become dangerous passed pawn. After 31.Лh1. Leko improved one of these variations and after Queens exchange the game passed into ending where chances of White for a win are higher than Black's chances for a draw. Leko gradually overplayed Shirov in a position which initially semmed to be close to draw. I even don't know what to say about it. :) Mastery! Kramnik - Topalov 1-0 After 19.Nс6. On my opinion it's better for Black to reply on 11.Nd5 by 11...Nd5 12.ed Bf5 - this position met in the games of Darmen Sadvakasov as far back as in the juniors tournaments. Apparently 12...g6 - is not good novelty, since 13.Qс3 put serious problems before Black. White Khight can get c6-square through a5, Black cannot play neither Nd5 nor Rc8... Topalov sacrificed an exchange and White has sufficient advantage despite of the problems with evacuation of his Queen on a8. As it turned out there was no such problem - PC offers cool 20.h4 Be3 21.g4, but the human choice is simplier - 20.Qа7 with Queens exchange. It seems to me that it was better for Black to prevent move of white Rook on a3 - 23...Кс4!?, then White would have some problems with realization. After happened in the game White got the possibilty to exchange the pieces and won easily. I think this result was predestined - due to the Vladimir's opening choice 1.e4! Kasparov - Vallejo 1-0 After 16...Rfd8. After opening Kasparov has got a position with not big, but stable advantage, where Black has to play very accurately. Natural move 12.e4 is a novelty, in the game Zvjagintsev - Kaidanov, 2001 White played Qe2 with further Ne5 and f4, and then the game was drawn. But Garry Kimovich is in more agressive mood. :) Kasparov arranged a powerful attack finished with a mate. This was as a result of an obscure maneuvers of the Black's Queen. Probably Black should answer on 24.Qc2 by Nf8 in order to avoid a threat Ne5-g4 with an exchange of a main King's defender. But how to defence after 26.Ng4 ? It's unclear but maybe some chances were after 25...Bd6. At the end of the game White had an spectacular 34. Re6 with idea 34...fe6 35. Rd7 Kg8 36. Bh7 and mate but the move in the game didn't influence on the position's estimation. Black chose a passive variant in the opening, played unconvincingly in the middlegame and even didn't live till the endgame. Kasparov's victory is a regular one. Today in Linares to spectators' pleasure all games finished with a result and in each game White wins. A tendency, perhaps. :)