Sunday
Apr252010
Game 2: Opening Predictions?
Sunday, April 25, 2010 at 12:28AM
Anand will have White in the morning, and will surely feel some urgency to make it count. In the past, almost all of their games - as with almost all of Anand's White games in general - have started with 1.e4, when the most common openings have been Najdorf Sicilians and Ruys with 3...Nf6 (not always reaching the Berlin Wall). Anand has done very well in any case - and is 2-0 against Topalov with 1.Nf3, too, but those games were played a long time ago.
My expectation is that Topalov with play a 3...Nf6 Ruy. Your guess?
Reader Comments (6)
I would like to see an early novelty line in a Najdorf Sicilian. Do those exist anymore?
Topalov has sometimes tried the Caro-Kann against 1.e4 and I guess with a 1-0 match lead it would be a good time to revert to such a solid opening.
Engines have done their share to strip the opening theory out of wrong kind of respect for "all moves that have been found good". So there are plenty of ideas to be seen. I don't know about how early thougj. Najdorf is worked out quite extensively.
1.Nf3 sounds good after reading this post.
I THINK 1e4 c5 2 Nc3 closed sicilian.
Anand had enough d4 prep left over that he decided to trot it out again. As far as I know, Anand has never played the Closed (as opposed to the Grand Prix, which he beat Gelfand with once) so I don't know where that's coming from. He's been a dominant player in the main lines for years... which is to say ever since he stopped losing games to Kasparov.