Stabroek News, Guyana
June 17 2007
Chess with Errol Tiwari
Deep Junior defeats Deep Fritz
Sunday, June 17th 2007
The official handshake before the start of Game Six. Aronian drew and
qualified for Mexico.
Levon Aronian, Peter Leko, Boris Gelfand and Alexander Grischuk
emerged winners in their second round Candidates’ Matches and will
advance to Mexico City to play in the 2007 FIDE World Championship
tournament in September.
The four grandmasters will join current world champion Vladimir
Kramnik, al`ong with Viswanathan Anand, Alexander Morozevich and
Peter Svidler for a grand round robin tournament to contend for the
maximum title in chess: World Chess Champion.
The Mexico tournament will be a rigorous one, as it boasts the
strongest line-up of active players on the international circuit. The
battles will be fierce, moreso since seventy-five per cent of the
participants are about equally matched. Although Kramnik is the
current world champion, Anand is ranked the number one player in the
world because his rating points are higher. The more successes one
has in tournaments and matches, the higher one’s rating points are.
The grandmaster to watch coming out of the Candidates is Levon
Aronian. The Armenian grandmaster has demonstrated tremendous resolve
in scaling the walls of resistance to qualify for Mexico. Peter Leko
is the other favourite from the Candidates’ finals. How the two will
fare against Kramnik and Anand especially, is left to be seen. But
certainly excitement is assured in Mexico.
The preponderance of draws in the Candidates’ is misleading. Even
when draws were inevitable, grandmasters still searched painstakingly
for the win. This attitude of the players accounted for many
interesting games in the matches.
Computer World Champion Deep Junior meanwhile, defeated Deep Fritz by
four points to two in their six-game match. Junior won Games Three
and Four and the rest were drawn.
Chess experts have concluded that Junior proved to be more
knowledgeable in opening theory. While the opening book of Fritz was
more extensive, Junior played sharp, solid moves and began playing on
its own earlier. This is how the machine was able to win game three
by producing a novelty on move 27 which grandmasters had never seen,
and at which Fritz fumbled.
Junior and Fritz were calculating 20 to 30 million positions per
second in each game during their match.
On the local scene, it is evident that the standard of play has taken
a leap forward since January. Ronuel Greenidge has captured two
tournaments since he began playing, and like Loris Nathoo, Shiv
Nandalall and Learie Webster, is a strong contender for the title of
National Champion when the Championship is played at the end of the
year. Shazeeda Rahim has also improved her game and is playing more
strongly than before. She scored four points among some seasoned male
players in the tournament last Sunday.
Gelfand v Kamsky
This game was the fifth in the six-game match between Boris Gelfand
and Gata Kamsky. The score before the game was played was 2/ ½
points to 1/ ½ in favour of Gelfand. To stay in contention, Kamsky
had to win, or at least draw, to move on to play Game Six. It was
also Kamsky’s final game with the White pieces, so he had to do
something special here.
Kamsky chose the Moscow Variation of the Sicilian Defence but
faltered in his attempt to complicate things for his opponent.
Gelfand polishes him off nicely.
Kamsky,G (2705) – Gelfand,B (2733) Candidates’ Finals, Elista, Russia
Game Five.
June 11, 2007
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+ Bd7 4.Bxd7+ Qxd7 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 g6 7.0-0 Bg7
8.d4 cxd4 9.Nxd4 0-0 10.f3 Rc8 11.b3 d5! Taking advantage of White’s
temporary weakness on the long diagonal. If Black delays, after Nde2
White has a space advantage known as the Maroczy Bind and Black
cannot break free easily 12.exd5 Nxd5 13.Nxd5 e6 14.Bh6 exd5 15.Bxg7
Kxg7 16.c5 Na6 17.Nc2 Nxc5 18.Qd4+ f6 19.Ne3 Ne6
20.Qh4 Rc5 21.Rad1 d4 Black has a clear extra pawn 22.Ng4 Rf8 23.Rfe1
Rh5 24.Qg3 Rd5 25.Rd2 Qd6 26.Qh4 h5 27.Nf2 g5! 28.Qe4 Re5 29.Qb1
Rxe1+ 30.Qxe1 Rd8 31.g3 Nc5 32.Qe2 a5 33.Qb5 b6 34.a3 Qe6! 35.Rb2 d3
36.b4 axb4 37.axb4 Nb3 38.Qa4 Nd4 39.Kg2 Nc2 40.Rxc2 dxc2 41.Qxc2 g4!
42.fxg4 hxg4 43.Kg1 Rd4 44.Qc7+ Kg6 45.Qc2+ f5 46.Qc3 Rc4 47.Qd2 Kh7
48.h3 gxh3 49.Nxh3 Qc6 50.Qe3 Rc1+ 51.Kf2 Qc2+ 52.Kf3 Rf1+ 53.Nf2+
Rxf2+ White Resigns! 0-1.
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