Morelia-Linares 2007 - Round 3

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.

Audio-summary of the R-3 by Mig Greengard [ WM 17:43 mins.]

Round-3 by Mig Greengard at Chessninja.com

Awright, I've gotten into the Montepulciano and my wife (!) is on a business trip to Atlanta so I'm ready to rip on round three. I was live on ICC Chess.FM for the duration with the mad professor himself, two-time world championship candidate Jon Speelman. Well, not quite the duration. We went off the air assuming that Svidler-Ivanchuk would, as per Peter Leko's prediction, be a draw. Speaking of speaking, I have a quick and sloppy podcast on the round for the ICC here. No preparation, much babbling and enough audible inhaling to be the soundtrack of a Jenna Jameson movie, but a recap it is. I'll rehearse next time.

There was a fair amount to babble about in round 3, and none of it took place in Topalov-Leko. They went through 22 moves of theory to reach the type of inferior endgame guys like Leko and Kramnik actually enjoy. "Just another day at the office," as Speelman put it. Leko duly defended well against the ominous passer on c6 and avoided the traps he envisioned in the oppo-bishop endgame. We spoke on the air with Aussie GM Ian Rogers, who had spoken to Leko after the game, and he said the Hungarian had come up with all sorts of ways White could actually win what looked like a dead draw. It took Speelman, co-author of the excellent Batsford Encyclopedia of Endgames, a few minutes to prove there was more neurosis than fact behind these worries. Dead draw, although Ian did show us a few very pretty breakthroughs if Black makes a few mistakes in passive defense. Kasparov recently made derisive comments about Black's survival chances in this endgame, but passively defending inferior endgames right out of preparation was never exactly his glass of tea.

In his game against Ivanchuk, Svidler replayed his opening against Kramnik at Corus last month. Indeed, the first three rounds of Linares have had at least a half-dozen Corus flashbacks already. This one was more interesting because during Corus I remember discussing with ICC Chess.FM co-host Benjamin what Black's compensation would be if White grabbed the exchange with 13.Qxb7, a potentially poisoned pill he had eschewed the swallowing of until yesterday when Svidler bottoms-upsed the pawn con gusto. His plan wasn't to win the exchange but to grind Black with a mild positional advantage. "Not the soft cushions! Not the comfy chair!" Svidler did a fair job of applying the squeeze treatment but the Chuckster escaped without a scratch. He might have even played for more with 34..Re7. Interesting stuff, although I'm not smart enough to say anything pithy about it right off or inclined to analyze it to death. Peter Leko, perhaps playing the provocateur or just joking, told Ian Rogers while the game was still in progress, "if Ivanchuk was playing white I'm sure he'd win; with Peter I'm not so sure." Zing!

On a less jokey note, Ian mentioned that the mobs of autograph seekers continue to assault the players before and after every round. The auditorium is nearly full to the end of each round. Having played blitz at the sparsely populated Morelia chess club I wonder how many visitors actually play chess, but hey, celebrity transcends Elo, right? The efforts of people like 2007 Mexico City world championship sponsor Jorge Saggiante might yet turn Mexico into a chess powerhouse. Stealing the laptops (and preparation) of top GMs might just be excellent long-range preparation!

Chess.FM audio+analysis board Replay on round-3 [120:00 min]

Morozevich played a typically creative game against Aronian only to miss several chances to seal the deal and mate. It's even fair to say he missed a chance at immortality on Monday. Aronian played a tricky combination to win a pawn but his open king and the mighty white knight on d4 turned out to be more important. Moro whipped up a devastating attack with 32.f4 and after that Aronian was scrambling to make his time advantage count. With two minutes on his clock Morozevich missed the chance to add a spectacular mating combination to the golden treasury of chess with 38.Qd8+ Kg7 39.f6+ Kh6 40.Kh4!! Qxd4+ 41.g4 Qb4 42.Qf8! Qxf8 43.g5#. To the Fritzniks who were criticizing Morozevich for missing a forced mate, I'll provide the acid test. When I read the position to a "blindfold" Kasparov he went for 38.Kh4 first, which wins but isn't the spectacular forced mate that comes after 38.Qd8+ Kg7 39.f6+ Kg6 40.Kh4!! Qxd4+ 41.g4 Qb4 42.Qf8+! Qxf8 43.g5#. Spectacular! The mate was still there a move later, but Moro's time trouble blocked it from view. 39.Qd8+ Kg7 40.f6+ Kh6 41.Kh4 Qe1+ 42.g3! Qe4+ 43.g4 Qe1+ 44.Rg4. (Not 42.Rg3?? Rf4#.) Sadly, Moro missed both chances and after reaching time control he decided to offer an immediate draw instead of trying to prosecute with his extra knight for two pawns.

It was left to Vishy Anand to score the only win of the day. Carlsen showed a poorly tuned sense of danger and swapped down into an inferior bishop and rook endgame. (17..Kh8! is the rare strong king move in the middlegame.) White probably thought he was getting a quick draw, but Vishy declined his offer to split the point and Carlsen soon found out why. Black had much better chances against White's awkward bishop on c2 and Anand's technique made them all count. It soon turned into a clear demonstration of what Kasparov called "class over confidence." White missed a pretty drawing shot with 27.gxf4 gxf4 28.exf4 Rd2 29.Bg6!= The loss dropped Carlsen back to an even score and lifted Anand to +1, where he joins Ivanchuk in the co-lead.

By the way, Swiss GM Vadim Milov won the Linares-Morelia International Open according to the organizers. The Topalov website was eager to celebrate the "victory" of Topalov's countryman and second, Ivan Cheparinov, who tied with Milov with 6/7. But tiebreaks gave the trophy and double the prize money to Milov, who was announced as the winner. Oy, the Bulgarian nationalists. I don't usually give a single Bulgarian leva about tiebreaks, but when they decide the prize money ($5,000 for Milov, $2,200 for Cheparinov), they matter. The group tied for 3-8 was Stellwagen, Gonzalez, Bruzon, Potkin, Akobian, and Leon Hoyos. Top seed Tiviakov finished out of the money on 4.5.

Mexican papers report that Linares mayor Juan Fernández said that it's very likely that the Morelia-Linares connection will continue in the future. The local Morelia paper has gotten into the prognostication game and says Anand will beat Moro tomorrow. I'm on ICC Chess.FM with GM Larry Christiansen at 4:30pm EST for Anand-Morozevich, Leko-Aronian, Ivanchuk-Carlsen, and Topalov-Svidler.

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"

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Round-1: Milo, Russianbear and then Grotesque was the winners for the month and the NIC subscription.
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