Morelia-Linares 2007 - Round 2

Morelia-Linares 2007 February, 17-25 [16:30 EST]   The Morelia - Linares tournament takes place 16th Feb - 11th March 2007. The Morelia half takes place 17th-25th February and Linares 2nd-10th March. The GMs participants are: Topalov, Anand, Leko, Svidler, Aronian, Ivanchuk , Morozevich and Carlsen.

Round-2 by Mig Greengard at Chessninja.com

The second round was chock-full of exciting and interesting games. The only win was scored in excellent style by Vassily Ivanchuk over Veselin Topalov, really first-class work. Everyone knows you just aren't supposed to capture on e6 in these lines. Black gets a strong central pawn mass and the open f-file. Ivanchuk, as ever, thought differently. After an amusing knight tour and leaving his beastie en prise on d5 for three moves, the Ukrainian wizard had a positionally superior position. He turned the screws effectively and Topalov never had a shred of counterplay. The game ended abruptly when Topalov blundered a piece on the final move of time control, but at least he was down a pawn at the time. Ivanchuk even tempted Topalov, dared him you might say, to play a trademark exchange sac with with 15..exd5 16.Qxa7 dxe4, but Black declined. Analysis shows that Black wouldn''t have adequate compensation. Many pointed out that White could have grabbed a second pawn with 31.Nxe5, but he was clearly fixated on a plan as well as on reaching the time control. The lack of increment in Linares has already lead to some hair-raising moments and there is no doubt Ivanchuk in particular will have many more of them.

Aronian-Carlsen turned into a barn-burner when Aronian took a solid position with an extra pawn and sacrificed a piece for a wild speculative attack. There were some lethal lines but Carlsen defended cooly (20..f5!) and looked good for his second win until choosing safety with five minutes left on his clock. 27..Rd7 allowed the shot 28.e6! and Black bailed out into a perpetual, although he could have run his king to the queenside still with better chances. 27..Bg6 was best, but Carlsen probably saw 28.Rxg6 hxg6 29.Qxg6 and Black is lost unless he finds the unrealistic 29..Qh3!

Leko-Morozevich was a very complicated fire and ice battle. Moro's position was incredibly ugly but he managed to wangle his way to what my ICC Chess.FM co-host GM Kaidanov called a slight advantage before drawing a four-rook endgame. Anand got a pawn against Svidler but Black always had good activity. Svidler even turned things around at the end with the nicely calculated shot 30..Bxe1! to go up a pawn, but the endgame never looked like anything but a draw. A day of great chess.

The youngest and oldest lead in Morelia-Linares! [photo: John B. Henderson]

We spoke on the air with two of the world's elite in a very small club, the chess journalists. My old friend Leontxo Garcia of Spain is the official commentator at Linares again and also covers the event for Spanish radio and his newspaper, the major daily El País. It's worth learning Spanish to see a real pro in action. He has been very impressed with Carlsen so far, his demeanor as much as his play. We also spoke with Aussie GM Ian Rogers in the Morelia press room. He said there were no anti-cheating measures in place at all and that it's very easy for the players to see the audience from the elevated stage. Spectators go in and out with no security at all. Ian added that he hadn't even seen Danailov at the playing hall yet.

The consensus among the kibitzing players and others on the scene was that Morozevich missed several clear draws against Carlsen in round one. The best annotation came from Peter Svidler, who told Rogers, "The most important thing in this endgame is not to resign." That's a reference to how he resigned a similar opposite-colored bishop ending against Kramnik at Corus 2004 only to find out later that it was a forced draw. After two rounds Carlsen and Ivanchuk are in the lead and Morozevich and Topalov are trailing. Not the crosstable you would have imagined a week ago. Carlsen is by far the lowest-rated player and Ivanchuk wasn't playing.

A local Morelia paper says Ivanchuk has grabbed a trainer for the tournament off the shelf, 18-year-old Mexican hope Manuel León Hoyos! They know each other from Ivanchuk's regular stops at the Torre tournament in Mérida. In the past Ivanchuk has worked with Kotronias and others, but I remember Ukrainian IM Alexander Sulypa as his friend and second for many years.

Today is Topalov-Leko, Svidler-Ivanchuk, Carlsen-Anand, Morozevich-Aronian. I'm back on ICC Chess.FM at 4:30 EST with GM Jon Speelman as co-host. Tomorrow is a free day.

The "Ninja boards" have a prediction thread and daily round coverage.

Chess.FM coverage
ICC will have daily live commentary of the second major of 2007, hosted by Mig Greengard, who will be joined by former World Chess Champion, GM Susan Polgar, with IM Jennifer Shahade, GM Jon Speelman, GM Larry Christiansen, GM Joel Benjamin, and GM Gregory Kaidanov.

R	Replay (english)	L	Live (english)	L	Live (español)	L	Live (français)

Mon, Feb 19 - R3 LISTEN HOST GUEST L 16:30 EST Mig Greengard GM Jon Speelman L 16:30 EST GM Fernando Peralta R 23:00 EST Mig Greengard GM Jon Speelman Tue, Feb 20 is FREE DAY Wed, Feb 21 - R4 LISTEN HOST GUEST L 16:30 EST Mig Greengard GM Larry Christiansen L 16:30 EST GM Miguel Illescas R 23:00 EST Mig Greengard GM Larry Christiansen On the server: Type "tell webcast english" or type "tell webcast espanol"

You have more information in the ICC LIVE COVERAGE page.
Download the PGN games from TWIC.
Consult the ICC Chess.FM lineup.
Daily updates in the ICC Morelia-Linares section.
Read the rules and prizes of the New in Chess Trivia Contest.
Also, visit the official website (Spanish).
Subscribe today to the New in Chess magazine for only $44.

The New in Chess Trivia Contest! Chess.FM [16:30 EST] ICC and New in Chess presents The New in Chess Trivia Contest! Tune-in to Mig on ICC Chess.FM for our round-by-round coverage of Morelia-Linares 2007, and each round you could win a 1-year subscription to the world's best chess magazine. For more information and rules, visit our help page.

Milo, Russianbear and then Grotesque was the winners in the round-1 for the month and the NIC subscription.
tux68, andre, and LemonExtract was the winners in the round-2 for the month and the NIC subscription.