Day 4: 2002 Corus at Wijk aan Zee

The tournament is starting to take shape. Before the round, there was a clear first place (Adams at 2.5) and a clear last place (van Wely at 0). To show how early it is, I will just make a mention of a 10 Euro bet between two press room visitors: That van Wely (currently at 0) will end up with equal or more points than Timman (currently at 2) at the end of the event! Time will tell!

The ill-timed FIDE world champs finals started today. I guess 60 plus years of tradition were not quite enough for FIDE to respect this event at Corus. Everyone is asked here who they "put their money on". I guess I'd want Chucky to win (my personal age bias perhaps?) but by now I know Pono won game 1. How will it affect Ivanchuk? Only he knows. Here it is "business as usual" with some exciting and theoretically important games:

Adams - Dreev: For anyone who has not seen this line in the Caro Kann Panov-Botvinik attack, the moves might have seen fantastic and original. But… the first 26 (!) moves of the game were played before. (Arkhipov - Filipenko, GMA qualifier 1989) In that game, white was somewhat better, but typically black managed to draw. Adams deviated with 27.Rd1!? (27.Ra6 was played in the stem game, and after 27…Re6, 28.Rxe6 fxe6 happened) Again, white was ever so slightly better, but even for the master of realizing small advantages, Adams - that was not enough. In the rook endgame, he even won a pawn, but very accurate defense from the Russian guaranteed him the split of the point.

GM Sasha Grischuk, getting ready for war

van Wely - Grischuk: Everyone expected Loek to jump on a chance to snap out of his losing streak, having white against his young opponent. But in a known position of the Tarrasch QG he played the atrocious 16.h3?? After 16…Bxh3, 17.Bxh3 Qxd5 he was just a pawn down. Ironically, in this line, black sometimes plays 15…Bh3 instead of Bg4 to do this trade. Now - imagine the same with a win of a pawn… Loek must have been quite distraught, but still put up a valiant fight, sacrificing an exchange for two pawns but to no avail. It took some effort, (especially when black took his time to consolidate) and suffering for white, but in the end white had to throw in the towel.

Gurevich - Bareev: For many years the variation of the reversed Sicilian in the English 4 knights used to be considered unpromising for white, but in the 90's it has regained popularity. It is certainly not a line for the faint at heart, since black has to make a few positionally ugly moves to remain afloat. Here too, white seemed a bit better, but black has improved a bit on theory with 16…Re7 instead of the old Red8. He further answered 18.f3 with 18…a6!? to maintain the equilibrium. A few moves later white decided to simplify by trading some pieces into an endgame that was agreed drawn.

Kasimdzhanov - Khalifman: A fine game by El-Khalif! In a Gruenfeld, white played a wild sub-line of the Russian variation. On move 20 he tried a new move (20.f3) where Qd2 happened in a Svidler - Anand game from 1999. After black's very strong reply (20…e5!) the initiative was his. I suppose the whole line is under a cloud from white's point of view. Black's dynamic position was no match to white's unsafe king. White declined a few chances to "win" an exchange - understandably so - since the compensation would have been enormous. When white further played the dubious 24.g5? (0-0 was the best, for better or worse) black completely overtook white. At the end Kasimdzhanov resigned a bit early, but not incorrectly. After 29.Rf1 Bd4, black is won. Deservedly, the game won the public prize for 250 Euros.

Morozevich - Lautier: A painfully boring and disappointing game. The first two moves hinting of an open Sicilian looked good, but white went for a c3 line, gaining nothing. First, the Queens were traded, then came off a pair of rooks (exciting eh?) then they maneuvered a bit, a double B endgame with an even number of pawns (yawn…) But then they traded one of the Bishops! (wow!) All the excitement must have been too much for Lautier who played carelessly and arrived at a seemingly innocent, closed position which turned out to be simply lost for him… A painful loss in such a lifeless game.

Piket - Gelfand: A Nimzo-Indian with 4.e3 and theory for a while, white got a slight edge against the isolated pawn but not for long. Black looked like he equalized after 14…Ne4. Black was trying to create some chances on the kingside which were neutralized while white's strange 22.a4 allowed a queen penetration to b4. When the smoke cleared, the queens were exchanged, as well as a pair of rooks. With time trouble looming, white seemed a bit in trouble in the R and B vs R and N endgame (his N was close to being trapped) especially when on move 34 he didn't choose the clever Nc6 (idea: 34…Rc8 35.Ne5!) To everyone's surprise black managed to lose on time! What a tragic end for Gelfand.

Leko - Timman: Here the veteran Dutch GM (who celebrated his 50th birthday last month) employed the ever relaxing …Nd7 Caro Kann, an old favorite of Karpov. True to his independent thinking, he went back to the old 13…e5 (Karpov likes cxd4) to face Leko's new 14.c3, which seems without much venom. Black outplayed white, gaining the pair of bishops and organizing his uncastled king situation. White defended tenaciously. While it is hard to pinpoint, one is left with the feeling that black could have done better than to trade so many pieces and go to this pawn up endgame that was very hard, not to say impossible, to win. Leko created a fortress and earned his half a point.

Niek Verweij of Lost Boys, in action It takes more than chess players to make this tournament a success. Lost Boys is a large computer services company. They manage the sensory boards that send the moves to the Internet.

Tom Bottema, press room chief