Indiatimes, India
Feb 23 2007
Anand concedes lead after Aronian’s shock
PTI
MORELIA (Mexico), Feb 23: Viswanathan Anand was stunned by
Grandmaster Lev Aronian of Armenia in the fifth round conceding his
sole lead position at the MoreliaLinares chess tournament underway
here.
Aronian moved into shared second spot with Anand after this
creditable victory while the Indian’s loss allowed Norwegian prodigy
Magnus Carlsen to shoot into lead after his upset win over former
World Champion Veselin Topalov.
The 16-year-old Norwegian, the youngest participant in the field,
leads the table with 3.5 points out of five games, half-a-point ahead
of Anand and Aronian.
The game began quietly with Anand adopting the Slav defence and the
players reached an endgame after the exchange of queens on the 15th
move. The position was dynamically balanced as Anand had the better
pawn structure to compensate Aronian’s bishop pair.
Anand began to manoeuver his pieces cleverly to slowly exploit the
pawn weakness in his opponent’s position. Aronian countered this
attempt and suddenly changed the pace of the game with a sharp
combination, sacrificing material to create two dangerous passed
pawns.
The resulting position was full of tactical prospects and Anand found
himself an exchange down when the dust had settled after baffling
complications. He accepted defeat on the 48th move when he was faced
with the loss of a knight.
Carlsen won his second game on the trot when he scored over Topalov.
The game had a sensational end as Topalov surprised Carlsen by
resigning in a drawn postion.
Topalov could in fact have forced Carlsen to draw the game with
perpetual check but failed to spot this resource. He resigned on the
64th move under the false impression that he was forced to lose a
piece.
Ivanchuk and Leko continued their solid play by drawing their games
against Morozevich and Svidler respectively. Both Ivanchuk and Leko
have drawn all their games in the tournament so far.
The Svidler-Leko game feartured the Marshhal Gambit in the Spanish
opening and Leko got good attacking prospects for the pawn. Svidler
defended adroitly and the players split the point after repetition of
moves.
Ivanchuk played the solid Berlin defence against Morozevich and did
not permit his Russian opponent to gain the upper hand. Morozevich
conceded the draw after 32 moves as he was unable to make any dent in
Ivanchuk’s defence.
Results round 5: Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 3.0) beat Veselin Topalov (Bul,
1.5), Levon Aronian (Arm,3) beat Vishwanathan Anand (Ind,3), Peter
Svidler (Rus, 2.5) drew with Peter Leko (Hun, 2.5), Alexnader
Morozevich (Rus, 1.5) drew with Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 2.5)
The moves – Anand Aronian 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Qc2 dxc4 5.Qxc4
Bf5 6.g3 Nbd7 7.Nc3 e6 8.Bg2 Be7 9.0-0 0-0 10.Re1 Ne4 11.Qb3 Qb6
12.Nh4 Bxh4 13.gxh4 Nef6 14.e4 Bg6 15.Qxb6 axb6 16.Bf4 Rfe8 17.Rad1
b5 18.Bd6 e5 19.d5 Nh5 20.Bf1 f6 21.b3 Nf4 22.a4 bxa4 23.bxa4 Bf7
24.Rb1 Ra7 25.Red1 Rc8 26.Ne2 Nxe2+ 27.Bxe2 cxd5 28.exd5 Nf8 29.Bb5
Raa8 30.Be7 Ng6 31.d6 Nxe7 32.Bd7 Nc6 33.Rxb7 Nd4 34.Bxc8 Rxc8
35.Rdb1 Rf8 36.Rb8 Be8 37.a5 Nf3+ 38.Kf1 Nd2+ 39.Ke1 Nxb1 40.a6 Bc6
41.a7 Kf7 42.d7 Ke7 43.Rxf8 Kxd7 44.a8Q Bxa8 45.Rxa8 h5 46.Ra7+ Ke6
47.Rxg7 Kf5 48.Rg3 1-0.