Chess from Malcolm Pein Chess for Saturday January 21st 2006

Vishy Anand scored a big victory in the fifth round of the Corus tournament at Wijk aan Zee and regained the lead by comprehensively outplaying Peter Leko. This was sweet revenge for Anand whose defeat at the Hungarian’s hands last year at Wijk cost him dearly as Leko took top honours.

Anand achieved little from the opening after avoiding the sharpest lines but when Leko allowed his pawn structure to be weakened he was squeezed all over the board. As the black position became more and more passive Anand undermined Leko’s central pawns, won material and wrapped up the game effortlessly.

Vassily Ivanchuk made Gata Kamsky suffer again, the American has only his solitary victory over Boris Gelfand thus far and is bottom of the 14 player field. Ivanchuk is now level with Fide champion Veselin Topalov whose imaginative tactical play was matched by World Junior champion Shakriyar Mamedyarov in an entertaining draw.

England number one Michael Adams had insufficient compensation for a sacrificed pawn against World number 5 Levon Aronian but got right back in the game and nearly won. The Armenian just managed to force perpetual before Adams promoted a pawn in a queen endgame.

Round 5

Tiviakov draw I. Sokolov
Topalov draw Mamedyarov
Gelfand draw van Wely
Karjakin 1-0 Bacrot
Aronian draw Adams
Ivanchuk 1-0 Kamsky
Anand 1-0 Leko

Scores: 1 Anand (India) 4/5; 2-3 Topalov (Bulgaria), Ivanchuk (Ukraine), 3.5; 4-5 Gelfand (Israel), Karjakin (Ukraine) 3; 6-8 Adams (England), Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan), Aronian (Armenia) 2.5; 9-12 Leko (Hungary), Van Wely (Holland), Sokolov, Tiviakov (Holland) 2; 13 Bacrot (France) 1.5; 14 Kamsky (USA) 1;

The game of the round saw the Ukrainian prodigy Sergey Karjakin outplay a former prodigy and French number one Etienne Bacrot. Bacrot defended the Ruy Lopez with the Karpov-Zaitsev Variation, 9...Bb7, developed by the 12th world champion and his trainer. After scoring some successes it received a real mauling from Kasparov in the K-K title matches. At San Luis Michael Adams tried to resurrect the line against Vishy Anand and was walloped by a new idea Vishy had been saving for 13 years. Kasparov has probably got all this in his diaries, he analysed it in immense detail.

S Karjakin - E Bacrot
Corus A Wijk aan Zee (5)

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.h3 Bb7 10.d4 Re8 11.Nbd2 Bf8 12.a4 h6 13.Bc2 exd4 14.cxd4 Nb4 15.Bb1 c5 16.d5 Nd7 17.Ra3 f5 (17...c4 intending Nd7-c5-d3 is the other main move) 18.Nh2 Nf6 19.Rf3 fxe4 (19...Re5 was the usual choice but Rxf5 and b3 were good answers) 20.Nxe4 Nbxd5 21.Ng4! (White is attacking with all his pieces) 21...Kh8 (21...Nxg4 22.hxg4 c4 23.g5 with a dangerous attack) 22.Bd2 Nxe4 23.Rxe4 Rxe4 24.Bxe4 Nc3 (This lets the Bd2 join the attack but this was not an easy position to defend 24...Qd7 25.Nxh6 gxh6 26.Bxd5 Bxd5 27.Bc3+ or 24...Qe7 25.Bb1 Re8? 26.Qc2 Nf6 27.Nxf6 gxf6 28.Rxf6) 25.Bxc3 Bxe4 26.Rf4 (Gaining a tempo to take on h6) 26...Bg6 27.Nxh6 Qg5 (27...d5 28.Nf7+? Bxf7 29.Rxf7 d4 30.Bd2 Qd5 but 27...d5 28.Qg4! Kh7 29.Qe6 Threat Qg8+ and mate in 3 and if 29...Be7 30.Nf7 Qe8 31.Nd6 Bxd6 32.Rh4+ Bh5 33.Qf5+ Kg8 34.Qxd5+ Bf7 35.Qxd6 b4 36.Rh8+ Kxh8 37.Qh6+ Kg8 38.Qxg7#) 28.Qf3! Qxh6 29.Bd2!! A stunning move, defending the Rf4 and renewing the attack on a8.) 29...Qxf4 (There is no defence Now if 29...Be7 30.Qxa8+ is check) 30.Bxf4 Re8 31.axb5 axb5 32.Qc6 Kh7 33.Qxb5 d5 34.Qd7 d4 35.h4 Re4 36.Bg3 Be7 37.h5! Bxh5 38.f3 Re2 39.Kf1 Rxb2 40.Qxe7 Rb1+ 41.Kf2 1-0

Bacrot

Karjakin

Final position after 41.Kf2