Topalov Holds Anand To A Draw With Perpetual Checks

By Arvind Aaron

The world's top two ranked chess players, Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria fought an energy draining round one draw in the MTel Masters Chess Tournament that got underway at Grand Hotel Sofia in Bulgaria on Thursday evening.

Together with the Linares Tournament of Spain, this new tournament organised by Mobitel and Kaissa Chess Management is the strongest in player strength boasting of category 20. World champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia took the lead beating former FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine.

The Anand versus Topalov encounter saw both players prefer to play very sharp and thrive with sacrifices. Topalov played the Sicilian defence, Najdorf variation with the black pieces. Anand played the English attack with the white pieces and castled queenside. Topalov sacrificed a knight for two pawns in the centre of the board on the 14th move. Anand replied with a stunning queen sacrifice on the 17th turn.

For most of the session, material imbalance persisted making evaluation of the position an ominous task. Computers were unusually inconsistent with the assessment. The position on the board must have been a severe drain on both players energy. The players also completed the first time control early. Anand had a rook and two pieces against Topalov's queen and pawn. The much talked about imbalance existed since all three pawns for white and all four pawns for black were passed pawns.

Garry Kasparov's retirement from international chess makes Anand the top rated and Topalov the next best. Any clash between Anand and Topalov is a looked forward to event among the chess fraternity. Topalov took a draw by perpetual checks when he had a queen and three pawns against the two rooks, knight and pawn of Anand on the 60th turn.

Draw with the white may not be what the doctor ordered. But a dazzling queen sacrifice and very sharp play is what Anand, the NIIT Brand Ambassador gave for the audience who witnessed chess at very high levels. Mr Milen Velchev, Bulgarian Minister of Finance inaugurated the M-Tel Masters on Thursday by playing e2-e4 for white on the Anand versus Topalov board.

In the other two games, Kramnik accepted a pawn sacrifice to cool down his own attack. Ponomariov offered weaker resistance in the rook ending to lose in 60 moves. The longest round one game was the 74-move draw played by Adams and Judit Polgar with the former testing the skills of the latter in an opposite colour bishop ending.

The unique feature of this event is that players are not allowed to offer a draw or speak to the opponent. Players may claim draws with the chief arbiter Joaquin Espejo of Spain if there is a: 1. perpetual, 2. 3-fold repetition or 3. theoretically drawn position. This is a serious attempt to curb the menace of draws plaguing top category 20 events like this one.

The six-player tournament is a double round robin with all the players facing each other twice, once with the white pieces and once with the black pieces. Nine rounds remain to be played. There will be a play off in case there is a tie on points. There will be one single champion on May 23. Readers having access to the Internet can follow the games live at the official site: http://www.mtelmasters.com

The results (round one): Viswanathan Anand (Ind) drew Veselin Topalov (Bul), Vladimir Kramnik (Rus) bt. Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukr), Michael Adams (Eng) drew Judit Polgar (Hun).

The moves:

White: GM Viswanathan Anand-Black: Veselin Topalov, Sicilian Najdorf, B90: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.f3 b5 8.g4 h6 9.Qd2 b4 10.Na4 Nbd7 11.0-0-0 Ne5 12.b3 Bd7 13.Nb2 d5 14.Bf4 Nxf3 15.Nxf3 Nxe4 16.Qd4 f6 17.Bd3 Bc5 18.Bxe4 Bxd4 19.Bg6+ Kf8 20.Rxd4 a5 21.Re1 Be8 22.Nh4 e5 23.Rd2 a4 24.bxa4 Kg8 25.Bg3 d4 26.Rd3 h5 27.Bxe8 Qxe8 28.g5 Rc8 29.g6 Rh6 30.Rxd4 Rxg6 31.Nxg6 Qxg6 32.Rd2 Rc3 33.Red1 Kh7 34.Kb1 Qf5 35.Be1 Ra3 36.Rd6 Rh3 37.a5 Rxh2 38.Rc1 Qe4 39.a6 Qa8 40.Bxb4 h4 41.Bc5 h3 42.Nd3 Rd2 43.Rb6 h2 44.Nf2 Qd5 45.Be3 Re2 46.Rb3 f5 47.a7 Rxe3 48.Rxe3 Qb7+ 49.Rb3 Qxa7 50.Nh1 f4 51.c4 e4 52.c5 e3 53.c6 e2 54.c7 Qxc7 55.Rxc7 e1Q+ 56.Rc1 Qe4+ 57.Ka1 Qd4+ 58.Kb1 Qe4+ 59.Ka1 Qd4+ 60.Kb1 Qe4+ Game drawn by repetition.


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