Corus 2003 at Wijk aan Zee, Round 1

by Aviv Friedman

Corus Chess Tournament Round 1: The opening ceremony yesterday was a collection of smiling, happy faces of competitors ready for battle, but with one visible exception: FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov was quite fidgety and nervous. A January 1 deadline for singing his agreement for the match with Kasparov has long past, a new one was about to expire yesterday! FIDE VP Georgian GM Azmaiparashvili was on hand to try to get him to sign. In an impromptu press conference he rebuffed Ponomariov’s claims that he is waiting for some forms and information from FIDE. The two main obstacles as of now, are Pono’s insistence on draw odds for the match, and a time control of 90 minutes plus 30 second increments -- similar to the one used in the FIDE championship he won. FIDE would hear none of that, although in the other match for the unification world championship title, Kramnik- Leko, the reigning champ does have draw odds. Today or tomorrow, another FIDE bigwig, Makropoulous, is expected to come and convince Ponomariov to sign. As of today, he has not signed. There is a standing threat by FIDE to soon strip poor Ruslan of his title, and invite GM Ivanchuk (the runner up to Ponomariov) to play. With a lot of money at stake, and being all alone here (what a time not to have a manager!) the young Ukrainian seems a bit like a lost sheep. Let’s hope these outside disturbances don’t ruin his play in this event.

When asked about his own match with Leko, Kramnik said that he is waiting for details to come from the governing body (Einstein games) Rumor has it that they are actively looking for a site and date.

Today’s round was quite peaceful, not untypical to a first round of such an event. The players feel out each other and try to avoid starting with a goose egg.

GM Sergey Karjakin 13 years old (less one day)
Plays in the Corus "B" section.

Today's games:

Polgar - Topalov: A topical Sveshnikov: long theory leading to what seemed to be a new move: 19.Qe2 where 19.Nce3 was seen before. Topalov sank into a big think and managed to equalize without problems. Later, Judit decided to sac a pawn to avoid defending a full-bodied game, and transposed into a middle game with major pieces and B of opposite color in which she claimed she had no fear of losing. Soon enough the game ended with a smile and a handshake.

GM Michal Krasenkow

Krasenkow - Karpov: Karpov, fresh from his prestigious victory over Kasparov in the new action match, signaled quickly today that he is the ‘real thing’ with a short order victory over the Polish GM. To think that the 29 move victory with black came with no effort or scares would be a mistake though: Krasenkow had a decent position out of a Queen’s Indian. Somewhere in the middle game he went on a long think and perhaps chose poorly. Instead of his 22.Bb5?! 22. d6 was worth a try. I think when one plays 21.Bc7 and anticipates an attack on the B one prepares d6, but for some reason he avoided it. Perhaps he was worried about 22.Bxd6 which seems strong, but that would have been refuted at once by 23.Bxf7+! winning! In the game he won the exchange, but had a terrible position that Karpov nursed home with his surgeon-like precision.

Grischuk - van Wely: Another not so exciting game, a Sicilian Rossolimo with a lot of Q moves in the opening, culminating with the strange but very effective maneuver found by black that involved 16…Qb7! After which Loek said he felt confident. Many pieces were traded and black even looked on top but white came up with the resourceful 34. Kg3! That saves the game in the nick of time.

GM Teimour Radjabov

Anand - Radjabov: The pairing for the youngster from Baku were quite challenging! Black against Anand for appetizer is not an easy task, but the confident GM passed his debut in a super tournament successfully. In a French MacCutcheon, Anand played 15.Rhe1 instead of the previously played 15.Nxc6 bxc6 16.Rb7 that seems much more promising for white. Today black defended strongly and white never seemed to have a significant pull, after 28 moves the game ended peacefully.

Ponomariov - Bareev: To me this was not an unexpected start for the FIDE champ. As I said earlier, he was not himself (for other than pure chess reasons…) and today’s loss with white was maybe a direct consequence of that. After some theory in the Caro Kann advanced, white went for an odd exchange sacrifice that might have given him something, but clearly not enough. After a long and endgame (last game to finish) Bareev continued his hot performance from last year with the 0-1 result.

GM Shirov and GM Timman

Shirov - Timman: An old, well analyzed line of the Winawer French, where as Timman said, black is supposed to be alright, but in practice it is not that easy! White had some advantage for most of the game, in the post-mortem he demonstrated a lot of ideas which he rejected after finding possible defenses that many doubted that Timman would have found! Eventually, Jan’s stubborn defense was rewarded with a well-earned half point.

GM Vladimir Kramnik

Kramnik - Ivanchuk: In what can soon become a prelude to a match for the semi finals for the reunified world championship (if Ponomariov ends up forfeiting!) Kramnik played 1.e4 against Chuky who replied with the Richter-Rauzer Sicilian. An unusual move order offered an interested, if typical sacrifice of his d6 pawn. In return for the pawn black got an agile pair of bishops, and if to judge by the look at Ivanchuk’s face, everything was always under control. The players looked at 21…Re2 in place of 21…h5 as a possibly even better continuation but the analyses were inconclusive. Kramnik never managed to advance his position. When the players reached the time control, it was time to call a truce.

Photos by Jan van de Mortel, courtesy Corus Tournament Organization.

ICC Coverage of Corus 2003 Copyright © Internet Chess Club 2003