Team Petrosian gets a draw in round four

Chessbase News, Germany
June 14 2004

13.06.2004 In the first three rounds the Armenians were overmatched
by the World all-stars. Today was like two separate tournaments with
the heavyweights on each team battling it out in a Linares-caliber
line-up. The decisive games came from below, however, as van Wely and
Lputian crashed to their third losses. The World kept its four-point
lead.

A full point for Armenia

Round 4 (June 13, 2004)

Petrosian Team 3 – 3 World Team
Kasparov ½ – ½ Adams
Leko ½ – ½ Svidler
Gelfand ½ – ½ Anand
Akopian 1 – 0 van Wely
Vaganian ½ – ½ Vallejo
Lputian 0 – 1 Bacrot

Overall score: World Team: 14 – 10 Petrosian Team

Vladimir Akopian finally put the Armenians on the board by beating
Loek van Wely in today’s fourth of six rounds. That was van Wely’s
third loss, but he was kept out of the cellar, or at least joined
there, by his opposing board six Smbat Lputian, who lost to Etienne
Bacrot.

Both games continued the black plague theme of the tournament. So far
there have been ten decisive games and six were wins for the second
player, including the last five in a row. Akopian painted a
positional masterpiece today to bounce back from two consecutive
losses. If you go through the moves quickly it looks like van Wely’s
pieces aren’t moving while Akopian’s take over the board.

Lputian couldn’t quite dig himself out of a positional hole against
Bacrot, although he could have made much more of a fight of things in
the endgame if not for time trouble. Lputian is well known for taking
on strategically dubious positions and making them work tactically.
He is the veteran of hundreds of winner-take-all open tournaments and
this style has served him well over the years. It just isn’t very
effective against the world’s best players, who take what you give
them but don’t overpress. We won’t even get into his black repertoire
of 1..e6 2…d5 against just about everything.

Meanwhile, van Wely is the veteran of dozens of supertournaments
thanks to being born in the Netherlands instead of Armenia. He is a
permanent invitee to the spectacular Corus Wijk aan Zee events and he
doesn’t even finish in last place anymore! (He made fine scores of +1
and even in the last two events.) After hitting 2700 and coming close
to the top ten three years ago, van Wely almost dropped out of the
top 100 at the end of last year. This year he has been back on track,
at least until this week.

Vaganian just held on to draw another French Defense against Vallejo.
Anand and Gelfand dueled in an interesting Petroff, swapping pieces
creatively until agreeing to the draw with just a pair of rooks on
the board. Leko-Svidler was a short, sharp Sicilian that finished on
move 20 with still a lot of interest in the position. A pity.
Kasparov again pushed long and hard for a win, this time against
Adams, and again had to settle for a half point against dour defense
by the Englishman.

Vallejo – Vaganian after 40…Qd3

Things are looking good for White with his passed h-pawn, especially
now that they have reached the second time control. Black’s only hope
is to swindle a perpetual check draw.

The Spaniard tried to secure his king with 41.Kf2?, but the wily
veteran refuted this and forced the draw with 41…Nd4!, threatening
mate starting with ..Qe2+. White captured the knight and it was all
checks after that until the draw at move 48.

We have the luxury of using Fritzy to see every possible check and
trick, and it looks like 41.Qd2 gave White good winning chances.
41…Qe4 42.Qd6+ and only then Kf2.

van Wely – Akopian after 57.Rb6

Akopian cashed in on his positional domination with 57…f4! The
White minor pieces are dominated and overloaded.

58.Rb7+ Ke8 59.Bc1 Rc2 60.Kf3 Ng5+ 61.Kf2 Nxh3+ and the passed h-pawn
is too much to handle. Van Wely resigned on move 65.