Anand-Shirov, Day 2: Anand Leads 3-1
As he did yesterday, the world champion won the day 1.5-.5, but there were some differences. On day 1, Viswanathan Anand succeeded the traditional way: a solid draw with Black followed by victorious aggression with White. This time it was the opposite: Alexei Shirov came out smoking with White in game 3, and got burned, badly. In the rematch, Anand played without ambition and "used" the white pieces to draw in 23 dull moves.
There's not much to say about game 4, but game 3 was eventful. As in the previous Shirov white game they contested the Advance Caro-Kann, with Shirov deviating on move 4. After 1.e4 c6.2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 Shirov played the rare 4.g4, as opposed to the currently popular Short Variation with 4.Nf3 or the favorite from the '90s: 4.Nc3 e6 5.g4. The difference between this last line and the sideline Shirov chose is that in the '90s variation the bishop must retreat to g6, when it's subject to all kinds of harassment (f4-f5, h4-h5, Ng1-e2-f4, etc.), while after 4.g4 the bishop can retreat the way it came, to c8 or d7 (Anand's choice). In this case the pawn on g4 isn't assisting in play against a bishop on g6, but looks like nothing more than a horribly weakening move.
To judge by the evidence of this game, the preceding judgment receives some confirmation. If we think of 4.g4 as a candidate to be recognized for sainthood and this game as an investigation into the claim, the verdict is that it's not only not going to be canonized, it might even be damned. Everything that could be a problem with g4, was: White had problems on the a8-h1 diagonal, had to waste tempi defending the pawn, suffered in some lines from f4 being weak, and when the bishop went to g2 fresh problems emerged on the a6-f1 diagonal. In sum, things went very poorly, and after 14 moves Anand had a winning advantage.
Amusingly, this was not evident to all the spectators. I watched the game on ICC, and here are two consecutive screen messages (with a name omitted to protect the guilty):
[1] [Random IM] kibitzes: The plan is very simple: h4-h5-h6-hxg7, Qh6,
Qxh7 mate. Can black deal with that?Game 1: Black wins
Shirov threw in the towel after 17 moves, and rightly so, despite the even material and lack of an immediate major malfunction. Quite the disaster, and that, combined with the quick draw in game 4, puts Anand on the verge of match victory. The final two games will take place tomorrow; for today's games, with my notes, have a look here.
Reader Comments (1)
Amusingly, this was not evident to all the spectators. - Thank goodness, even I was under the impression that white was doing well :)