Mexico City, Round 1: Four Quick Draws
Bring back Fischer, Kasparov and Topalov!
Of course it's early and that's an overstatement, but draws in 22, 23, 25 and 28 moves makes for a less than inspiring first round. Despite that, the games did have their interesting moments, as we will see.
Anand-Gelfand ended very strangely, as both players blundered on their final move! Anand's 22.Re1? simply hung a pawn to 22...Rxf4 (23.Qxf4? Bg5 is a queenectomy), but Gelfand missed it, played 22...Rxe1+ and offered a draw, which was accepted.
Kramnik's advantage against Svidler was less tangible than Gelfand's should have been, but with 22.Bd3 or especially 21.Bd3 he'd place the burden of proof on Black to prove real compensation for the sacrificed pawn. Either Kramnik disagreed with this assessment, or maybe he initially thought his approach gave him even more. If so, he was mistaken, and after 22.Nh2 Rxd4 Black had regained the pawn (at no other cost), so Kramnik played 23.Rxd4 and offered a draw, which was accepted.
Draw #3 was Grischuk-Leko. This game was always about even, with Leko never enjoying more than a micro-edge. His active possibilities were always constrained by Grischuk's mild kingside initiative, so Leko bailed out with a nice exchanging idea to force the draw.
Finally, Morozevich and Aronian turned into a big swap meet: another draw. Wheeee.
The games, with my comments, are here.
Of course it's early and that's an overstatement, but draws in 22, 23, 25 and 28 moves makes for a less than inspiring first round. Despite that, the games did have their interesting moments, as we will see.
Anand-Gelfand ended very strangely, as both players blundered on their final move! Anand's 22.Re1? simply hung a pawn to 22...Rxf4 (23.Qxf4? Bg5 is a queenectomy), but Gelfand missed it, played 22...Rxe1+ and offered a draw, which was accepted.
Kramnik's advantage against Svidler was less tangible than Gelfand's should have been, but with 22.Bd3 or especially 21.Bd3 he'd place the burden of proof on Black to prove real compensation for the sacrificed pawn. Either Kramnik disagreed with this assessment, or maybe he initially thought his approach gave him even more. If so, he was mistaken, and after 22.Nh2 Rxd4 Black had regained the pawn (at no other cost), so Kramnik played 23.Rxd4 and offered a draw, which was accepted.
Draw #3 was Grischuk-Leko. This game was always about even, with Leko never enjoying more than a micro-edge. His active possibilities were always constrained by Grischuk's mild kingside initiative, so Leko bailed out with a nice exchanging idea to force the draw.
Finally, Morozevich and Aronian turned into a big swap meet: another draw. Wheeee.
The games, with my comments, are here.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Mexico City, Round 2: The favorites win
- Mexico City, Round 1: Four Quick Draws
Posted by Dennis Monokroussos on
Thursday September 13, 2007 at 7:45pm
thx for your quick comments.
Was it really easy draw for Moro? Both Shipov (on crestbook.com in russian) and Deviatkin (on chesspro.ru) didn't like the move 23...Rd8 and prever 23...Ne6 instead. Chesspro.ru names this line 23... Ne6 24.d5 Rxa4 25.dxe6 Rxa3 26.exf7 Kxf7 27.Ng5 and White can establish the knight on e6, but Black should have played this line anyway to keep an advantage.
Reyk
Nice analysis of Anand-Gelfand game. I am wondering how 25.Re7 Re4-/+ follows in your analysis below?
Thanks.
20...Qd8 21.Rxe4 Rxe4=/+ 22.Re1? Rxe1+? [22...Rxf4-/+ 23.Nxf6+ Qxf6 24.Bd4 Qf5 25.Re7 Re4-/+ White is simply a pawn down, and though there are opposite colored bishops White's kingside weaknesses leave Black with excellent winning chances.] 1/2-1/2
It doesn't seem that White has much, if anything, to fear after the more patient 24.Bb2 in response to 23...Ne6.
nanagaa100,
I don't understand your question.
You mentioned this as a possible move as a follow up on if Black were to take the pawn.
I was wondering what White will achieve by moving the rook to e7?
This may be obvious to others but isn't to me.
Thanks
Nangaa
After move 24 in my variation, Black is a pawn up, with possible targets on h5 and g2, and that means that unless White has some sort of compensation or counterplay, he's likely to be lost or nearly so. Thus 25.Re7 is a normal move, activating the rook and trying to gobble up some queenside pawns.
Attacking the opponent's pawns and putting a rook on the 7th is pretty "natural" to most players, though, so I'm a little surprised by the question and wondering if that's what you're really asking. Black's response (25...Re4) is much more mysterious-looking at first glance (for starters, one might wonder why White can't play 26.Rxc7 and say thank you), so I find it confusing that you're not asking about that move but are perplexed by 25.Re7.
You confirmed Re7 move as "natural". That's what I thought. Its just I am not at a level to realize that such moves are done often. As you pointed out, the black response is more mysterious specially with Rxc7 as a possible response. Ok., i'll bite why the ...Re4 - if you want to indulge an amateur like me.
The whole thing started off as why White would go to the other end with Re7 when it is under a blistering attack
You probably are used to more sophisticated queries/discussion than this one.
So I wouldn't at all agree that White is under a "blistering attack", but if he continues his pawn-grabbing operation after 25...Re4(!) he will be: 26.Rxc7 (26.Rxe4 is safe but leaves him with the same fundamental problem: out a pawn with further kingside weaknesses to attend to) 26...Re2 27.Qd1 Rxg2 and now on the consistent 28.Rxb7 Black wins with 28...Be2 29.Qd2 Bf3 30.Rb8+ Kh7 31.Qd3 Be4 and now White will get blistered.