The bald stats — 9 decisive games out of of 30 — suggest Linares was boring. It wasn’t. The draws were extremely hard-fought and prizes were in contention till late in the last round. Vesilin Topalov ended winner with +4,-1,=5, scoring 6.5. Alexander Grischuk came second with +3, -1,=6. Levon Aronian was third with +1, =9. Vallejo, Gelfand and Gashimov shared 4-6th with 4 each. Grischuk and Topalov traded wins head-to-head.
Topalov will be rating favourite going into the Title Match with Anand. Winning a super tournament can't do his confidence any harm. But he said he was lucky. Two wins came from dead-lost positions and one from a totally drawn position.
He successfully confused Grischuk and Vallejo when they were in time trouble. The last round win against Gelfand, which secured first place, involved reciprocal errors. Gelfand was dead-lost. Then Topalov blundered, allowing an easy draw but Gelfand blundered again . Topalov also missed a one-move crush against Aronian and was forced to split the point.
The Bulgarian GM is known for a high-risk playing style but this was sloppy. He was undoubtedly hampered by the need to conceal preparation. Anand also admitted he was “ridiculously lucky” at Corus where he placed 4-6th (+2,=11) and faced the same issues of concealing prep.
Experience suggests that it is a mug's game to extrapolate tournament results into match predictions. Corus and Linares should both have been helpful to respective contestants. Both teams will now have to play guessing games. Can the systems Anand used at Corus be excluded from study by Team Topalov and vice-versa for the systems Topalov used in Linares? The team that gets more answers right will have a serious edge.
The diagram, WHITE TO PLAY, (Topalov Vs Aronian, Linares 2010) is a key instant. Topalov had 40 minutes left, and he’d played brilliantly to establish a winning position. Vanilla is 34. Qxa7 Nxa4 35. Qxb7+ Kxg6 36. Qa6+ Kf5!? 37. Qxa4 Qxd5. Black may look for tricks with the central pawns but white has winning material advantage and an attack.
There is also 34.Bb3?? e3! Now black has genuine counter-play based on those pawns. After 35.fxe3 fxe3 36.Qb4 Rd6 37.Re2 Rxg6 38.Qc3 Qxc3 39.bxc3 Rg5 40.Rxe3 Nxd5 41.Bxd5 Rxd5 42.Re7+ Kf6 43.Rxb7 Ra5 44.Rb2 (1/2-1/2). This is trivially drawn. Black can march his king up to surround the c-pawn. White takes too long to free the king. .
Finally, there’s the fabulous 34.Rxe4! which Topalov also missed. The idea is 34...Qxe4 35.Qc3+ Kg8 ( 35. — Kxg6 36.Bc2) 36.Qc7 (threatens mate with Qh7+) 36.— Qb1+ 37. Kh2 Qxg6 38. Qxd8+ Kg7 39. Bb3. There are no tricks left and white’s d-pawn is a monster.
