Top-Heavy
Chess
By BORIS GULKO and GABRIEL SCHOENFELD
February 15, 2008
At the Corus super-tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Viswanathan Anand played his first competitive chess as world champion. The weight of the title is no doubt heavy and under its pressure he lost his very first game to Timur Radjabov.
As the tournament drew to an end, it became clear that this loss had a decisive effect on the outcome. Anand and Radjabov tied for third and fourth place, a half-point behind the two winners, Levon Aronian and Magnus Carlsen.
Radjabov’s victory over Anand was the best game he played in the event.
RADJABOV VS. ANAND
(WHITE) (BLACK)
SLAV DEFENSE
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 e6 5. Bg5 h6 6. Bh4 dxc4 7.e4 g5 8. Bg3 b5 9. Be2 Bb7 10.0-0 Nbd7 11. Ne5 Bg7 12. Nxd7
In one of the subsequent rounds, in this position Topalov introduced a fantastic sacrifice in this position against Kramnik:
12. Nxf7!! Kxf7 13.e5 Nd5 14. Ne4 Ke7
15. Nd6 Qb6 16. Bg4 and won brilliantly.
12… Nxd7 13. Bd6 a6 14. Re1!?
Later in the tournament Radjabov, playing with Van Wely, returned to the more common 14. Bh5 but after 14…Bf8 15. Bxf8 Rxf8 16.d5?! (also interesting here was 16.e5!? Qb6 17.b3 0-0-0 18. bxc4 Nxe5 as happened in Kramnik-Anand 2007)
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Awesome game by Radjabov. He’s the true one.
12. Nxf7 was nice, but it deserves a ?! and not a !! – we won’t see it again in the anti – moscow …