The Chess Mind

The Svidler-Ivanchuk battle is still raging, but all the games relevant to the fight for first are finished.

The first game to finish was Bacrot-Radjabov, and that lasted all of 20 moves before the draw was agreed.

Next was Vallejo-Topalov, and while Topalov played the combative Vienna Variation (of the Queen's Gambit; don't confuse this with the Vienna Game), but the players quickly headed for a well-known variation leading to perpetual check. In many openings there's a sort of implicit contract between the players, at least when they are peers: there are drawing variations, but the player with White will steer clear of them. This contract clearly doesn't exist for Vallejo, who has in past Linares events headed straight for perpetuals against Kasparov with White in the Poisoned Pawn Variation of the Najdorf Sicilian, and in this tournament has essayed 5.Qe2 vs. the Petroff and now this. Topalov should have been prepared for this.

This cleared the way for Leko, with White, to utilize that small advantage and try to grind his way to a win. Instead, Aronian completely outplayed him with the Black pieces, winning easily. By move 24 Aronian was had an extra pawn and a dominant position, and when Leko resigned on move 40 the advantage had grown to three pawns. A catastrophic finish for Leko, but a brilliant result for Levon Aronian, who has not only proved himself a member of the world's elite, but quite possibly a major threat to win the world championship.