by Aviv Friedman

Shirov - Ponomariov:

Shirov - Ponomariov:   Pono, without fear played a wild line of the QGA, inviting a sharp fight. That was a storm he might not have stayed dry in, had Shirov maximized the potential of his great opening position. For a while, they have followed the famous game Timman - Salov from their candidates match in 94. Here, black deviated from that game with 13…Be7 instead of 13…Qd7. Somewhat puzzling, since the line is considered very decent for black. In the mentioned stem game black went on to win a fine game, and even with best play it seemed that black is one happy camper. Naturally, we can assume Shirov had prepared something, maybe that is why Ruslan went another way. At first, I frowned at white’s plan of 19.Bxc4!, giving up such an awesome B, but there followed 19…Bxc4 20.Ne5! and where does this B go? Some GM’s in the pressroom thought it might have been worthwhile for black to first go 20…Bd5 and provoke c4 before retreating to f7. In the game white looked clearly better and had he played the move all expected (25.a4!) black’s life would have been quite miserable. After this strange omission, black got 25…c4! In and soon thereafter, a wholesale of exchanges happened. Shirov took some time to try out 35.h4, refusing to force the draw. It certainly didn’t bring much with it. The players moved until move 44 where it was time to call it a day peacefully. Less peaceful was Shirov after his game: when an unfortunate Spanish journalist from Malaga who came especially today for the round, asked him about the game, he was brushed off angrily by Alexey who left, waving his hands looking quite upset. Evidently, Shirov not liking the fact he was asked in English and not in Spanish. Of course he is quite fluent in Spanish having lived here for a while.

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