Anand Beats Mamedyarov 2-0, Wins Corsica Masters

There's a reason Viswanathan Anand is the world champion! He showed off his skills today in all phases of the game. In the first game, with White, he ground Shakhriyar Mamedyarov down in an ending; in game two, it was his defensive and counter-attacking skills that were on display. Nicely done, and it's good to see that even past 40 the speedy Anand can still dominate in rapid/speed chess.

Tournament site here, games here (you'll find the Anand-Mamedyarov games at the bottom of the board's drop-down menu).

Comments

[Eyal]

In the first Anand vs Mamedyarov game it was surprising to see how quickly Mamedyarov lost a pawn with no apparent compensation, in what amounts to an opening trap in the 3.f3 Grünfeld (Mamedyarov has actually played this line quite a bit, though with White - including his notorious loss to Kurnosov, which was followed by the cheating accusations):

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.f3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nb6 6.Nc3 Bg7 7.Be3 0–0 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.0–0–0 Qd6 10.Kb1 Rd8 11.Nb5 Qd7 12.d5 Ne5(?) (earlier this year, 12…a6 13.Nc3 was played Gustafsson vs Mekhitarian - in case of 13.dxc6 Qxd2 14.Rxd2 Rxd2 15.Bxd2 axb5 16.cxb7 Bxb7 17.Bxb5 Rd8, Black seems to have adequate compensation for the pawn) 13.Qc2 c6 (or 13...a6 14.Nxc7 Nbc4 15.Bxc4 Qxc7 16.Be2/b3) 14.Nxa7! Rxa7 15.Bxb6 (now the importance of 10.Kb1 is clear - the a pawn is defended and Black can’t take it with rook) Ra8 and here, instead of Anand’s 16.Ne2, 16.f4 Ng4 17.Nf3 with the idea of 18.h3 Nf6 19.Ne5 may be even stronger, perhaps already close to winning advantage for White.

Since the whole thing seems almost like two separate events, especially as the two players who contested in the final of the rapid KO didn’t participate in the first part, I suppose that congratulations are in order for Sasikiran as well, for winning the classical open Swiss (as well as reaching 2700 in the live ratings - he’s already been in the 2700+ zone a couple of times before, though in both times not for more than the duration of a single official rating list).

[JJ]

Thanks, I'll check out the games now that you said something about it.