The super-tournament at Linares starts on Wednesday. The Kamsky-Topalov match is also due to begin on Tuesday in Sofia. Meanwhile, Peter Svidler won the tough Gibraltar Open and Alexander Onischuk won the even stronger Moscow Open. Open Swisses demand a different style of play and preparation from the “win with white, draw with black” strategy that prevails in round robins.
Swiss players punt and hope with both colours, and of course, the prep is more general since opposition/ colour is not known in advance. And the tiebreakers are often completely out of the players’ control.
Svidler and Vadim Milov cracked 8 points from 10 games in Gibraltar with Gashimov, Nakamura, Akopbian and Berg tied for 3-6 on 7.5. Svidler beat Milov 2-0 in a rapid playoff to take first and GBP 15,000. Harikrishna was 7th on 7 points while Ganguly was joint 12th with 6.5.
At Moscow, Onischuk swept to first place and €14,000 in even more impressive fashion. He scored 7.5 from 9 games outpacing five GMs who landed on 7. Sergei Tiviakov took silver and Ernesto Inarkiev bronze with Ian Nepomniachtchi fourth.
The XXVI Linares tournament features eight players with a prize fund of €315,000 including €100,000 for the winner. Anand is defending champion against a field of Vassily Ivanchuk, Magnus Carlsen, Teimour Radjabov, Levon Aronian, Wang Yue, Alexander Grischuk and Lenier Dominguez Perez. It’s a double-RR.
German industrial group UEP (that sponsored the Kramnik-Anand match) has made a bid to host the entire 2010 world title cycle with an estimated expenditure of €4 million-plus. This is a boon to the beleaguered Fide, which is in a cash-crunch. Topalov-Kamsky already has financial closure and it will be an 8-gamer between Feb 17-28 (with tiebreaks if required) for the right to play Anand in a title match in 2009 itself. That’s outside the UEP’s purview however.
The diagram, BLACK T0 PLAY, (Caruana Vs Short, Group B, Corus 2009) is from the decisive last round encounter that decided the title in this group. Short can continue with the brilliant 47-- cxd2!! 48.Rxc6 dxe1N+ 49.Kf1 Nxf3 50.Rxd6 fxe4 51.Rxa6 which should win as the e-pawn will cost the rook.
Instead the English GM continued with 47.—Nh4+? 48.gxh4 Rg6+ 49.Kh3 Qd7 50.Qh5 cxd2 51.exf5 Rh6!! 52.Qg5+ Kf7 53.Qxh6 Qxf5+ 54.Kg3 dxc1Q 55.Rxc1 Qd3+ 56.Kg4 Qe2+ 57.Kf5 Qb5+? The last chance is 57...Qd3+! 58.Kg5 Qb5+ 59.Kg4 (59.f5 Be3+) 59...Qe2+ 60.Kf5 Qd3+, forcing a perpetual. Now after 58.Ke4 Qe2+ 59.Kd5 Qxa2+ 60.Rc4 Bf6 61.Qh7+ Kf8 62.Qe4 Bxh4 63.Ke6 Kg7 64.f5 Bd8 65.f6+ Kf8 66.Qd5 Qe2+ 67.Re4 (1-0). A sad end to an outstanding struggle. The 16-year-old Italian champion will be part of the elite Group A next year.
