Zug Grand Prix, Round 2: Champions' Day!
Maybe their FIDE World Championship titles don't rank as high as those associated with the historical lineage through Kasparov, but Veselin Topalov, Ruslan Ponomariov and Rustam Kasimdzhanov are all great players capable of taking down any opponent on a given day. In round 2 of the Grand Prix in Zug, they and only they were successful in bringing home the full point - though not without some trouble.
Topalov in particular was at times in serious trouble against Peter Leko, but the latter's time trouble errors on moves 39 and 40 brought Topalov from much worse to much better. Leko erred a final time, in the second time control, and that left Veselin victorious.
Kasimdzhanov likewise had some anxious moments in his game before winning. Like Topalov, Kasimdzhanov had the white pieces but wound up outfoxed in the complications. I don't know if Kamsky ever had a serious advantage, but he was the one pressing through most of the middlegame. The imitation also carried over in the negative way too, though: like Leko, Kamsky went awry in time trouble, and Kasimdzhanov enjoyed a fairly easy technical task in the second time control.
The third winner was Ponomariov, who showed Fabiano Caruana and all watching the considerable technical prowess that allowed him to become the FIDE World Champion back in 2002 as a mere 18-year-old.
In other games, Hikaru Nakamura (lightly) pressed Anish Giri for a long time, but only because of the rule against draw offers. (As an editorial note: when a player as renowned for his ferocious fighting spirit as Hikaru Nakamura says that such a rule is dumb, as he did in the post-game press conference, it might at least incline one to suspect that it really is dumb, and that other critics of the rule aren't necessarily objecting because they pine for the days of the 30-move draw. In fact, in that same press conference Nakamura offered his general approval of the idea of not having draw offers before, say, move 40.)
Finally, Alexander Morozevich and Teimour Radjabov both enjoyed some advantage on the white side of the Gruenfeld against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Sergei Karjakin, respectively, but little slips let their opponents reach safety.
Morozevich, Ponomariov and Topalov are the early leaders with 1.5/2; here are the round 3 pairings:
- Mamedyarov - Kasimdzhanov
- Caruana - Morozevich
- Karjakin - Ponomariov
- Giri - Radjabov
- Leko - Nakamura
- Kamsky - Topalov