Wijk aan Zee, Round 12: Anand Beats Kramnik; Carlsen Leads
While I have to congratulate Viswanathan Anand for his comprehensive victory over Vladimir Kramnik, the Kramnik fan in me is disgruntled. All those draws - sometimes very short ones - against the tailenders (generally he feasts on Dutch "food" at Wijk aan Zee), but now he decides to uncork a significant novelty and to play his best chess of the tournament? Gee, thanks. Anyway, it was a fine game by the world champion, showing that for the moment at least, he still has his great predecessor pretty well figured out. (A wonderful fringe benefit of this would be Kramnik's giving up on the Petroff, especially as he has shown himself quite able to play more lively chess this past year.)
Anand wasn't the only beneficiary of this result; Magnus Carlsen benefited too, and his short draw with Black against Peter Leko suddenly put him in clear first with a round to go. Alexei Shirov could have joined Carlsen in first, but he too drew with Black, against Sergey Karjakin, and enters the last round tied with Kramnik for second, half a point behind the leader.
All but one of the other games were drawn. The sole exception was Jan Smeets' savage beating of van Wely with White in yet another 6.Bg5 Najdorf massacre. (It reminds me of when I was a kid 25 years ago, when 6.Bg5 freely walked the Earth, terrifying hapless Najdorfers everywhere.) That result leaves the "Dutch championship" up in the air.
Standings After Round 12:
1. Carlsen 8
2-3. Kramnik, Shirov 7½
4. Anand 7
5-7. Nakamura, Karjakin, Ivanchuk 6½
8-9. Leko, Dominguez 6
10. Caruana 5
11-13. Short, Tiviakov, van Wely 4½
14. Smeets 4
And now, the all-important last round pairings:
van Wely - Anand
Short - Smeets
Nakamura - Tiviakov
Carlsen - Caruana
Ivanchuk - Leko
Shirov - Dominguez
Kramnik - Karjakin
Carlsen has the easiest last round pairing of the big three, at least based on his opponent's rating, but I wouldn't be surprised if Carlsen, Shirov and Kramnik all won their games. (It wouldn't be surprising if Anand won either, but since van Wely, unlike Kramnik this round and Shirov two rounds ago, isn't contending for first, I'm not sure he'll bother trying. I'll stop whining now.)
Moving on to the B-group, all the top guys drew, so Giri continues to lead with 8½ points, a point ahead of L'Ami, Ni Hua, and now Naiditsch (he defeated A. Muzychuk) too.
In the C-group, Li Chao drew almost as quickly as you can read this sentence. His 9-move slugfest with Kuipers benefited them both: the draw wound up clinching him clear first by the round's end, while Kuipers is turning his 9-round IM norm into a longer and longer one. (It may not matter in the long run: one needs 27 games' worth of IM norms, so unless he finds a 14-round tournament to complement this 13-rounder, he'll still probably need three events to earn the title.) As for the chase pack, their chase is over. Three players were within 1½ points at the start of the round and thus mathematically alive in the chase for first. One was Robson, but he only drew. The other two, van Kampen and Vocaturo, both lost, so that was the end of their hopes. Gupta won his game and is tied with Robson for second, but as Li Chao has 9 and they have 7½, the fight for first is finished.
More info here, the tournament site is here, and Anand-Kramnik (ouch!), with my notes, is here.
Reader Comments (9)
Are you sure it's 27 games for the norm? I'm pretty sure it's 24 games, the reason why most people do 27 is that it's difficult to find longer tournaments to make it matter, but it's worth pointing out I think. Would need to find an 11 round tournament (possibly Corus next year?) I think.
34..Qd2 also fails to 35. f4!
which is really beautiful, the pawn supports the bishop on e5, allows the Queen on g3 to connect with the rook on e1 and cuts access of the black queen to the knight on h6! incredible.
While 17.Qc1 was a novelty, I guess both players remember Anand-Kramnik from MTel2005 where 16.Qc1 was played in the same line but one move earlier. Kramnik blundered immediately and resigned after move 20:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1338709
Though the move was new, the overall idea wasn't - (not questioning or criticizing your writing but) this makes it even more surprising that Kramnik lost track rather quickly. Time to give up the Petroff, or at least this line? Recently he fared better with 6.-Bd6 rather than 6.-Nc6, and some games were actually exciting stuff.
I don’t have the statistics, but I believe Kramnik’s Petroff has been beaten a number of times in the last couple of years, and he has suffered a few very near misses, such as the game against Short earlier in this tournament. To the extent it used to be an automatic drawing weapon (thereby forcing his opponents to try other things), it had its value. It is surely overdue for a re-think, now that opponents are starting to find ways of beating it.
Dennis is correct that it is 27 games worth of norms for a title.
FIDE handbook
1.5 Requirements for award of the title, having achieved norms
1.50 Two or more norms in events covering at least 27 games.
JG: Hmm, not sure. If you're right, then it's definitely significant - it gives him a chance to achieve a final norm in next year's tournament, even if he (or Bok, for that matter) doesn't achieve the remaining norms in the meantime.
Thomas: "not questioning or criticizing your writing, but..." Phew, I was really worried there. Not that I think your comments generally criticize or question my writing or anything.
You are correct that 16.Qc1 has been played, but it's more than trivially different from 16.h3 Be4 17.Qc1. (For one thing, Kramnik's blunder couldn't easily arise in the new position.) So it seems that 17.Qc1 may indeed be a new concept, and that's certainly consistent with Kramnik's substantial time usage in the game. (Of course, I only claimed that it was a new move, not a new concept, so I should be safe in any case.)
Marc: I didn't try to tabulate the near-misses, but he doesn't have too many tournament losses with the Petroff. Since 2006, he has only lost 5 games with the Petroff: a blitz game to Ivanchuk in 2007, losses to Naiditsch and Ivanchuk in Dortmund 2008 (probably the games you were thinking of), and a loss in the blindfold round to Anand in Amber 2009 - plus today's game. He has also won four games with the Petroff over that same span (three rapid games and a slow game vs. Naiditsch in last year's Dortmund tournament), so it has been an effective 50% weapon.
As a comparison, his overall score with Black (not counting this tournament, or draws, but counting blitz events) from 2006 to the present is 31 losses and 40 wins, so maybe his odds would go up a little if he played non-draw line openings. (I should really exclude the blitz games first before drawing even tentative conclusions about this, however. Plus there's also the energy-saving aspect of the Petroff. Even if he loses a game or two with it each year, he's generally going to get comfy draws with it, and the half-days off might let him keep enough energy to push in his white games.)
Thanks Nate. It makes sense that this would be the case, given the ubiquity of 10-player, 9-round round-robins. If the requirement was 24 games, then organizers would save some money and cut out a round and a player. (Well, a player anyway. With an odd number of players it would still be nine rounds due to everyone's getting a bye at some point.)
"In the C-group, Li Chao drew almost as quickly as you can read this sentence."
Classic.
If you think thatthe Li Chao game was quick, Karjakin supposedly had more time on his clock after making 39 moves then when he started! Now that is being booked up.