Day 8: 2002 Corus at Wijk aan Zee

A few words about the little village where the event takes place, Wijk Aan Zee (pronounced something like: Wyke Ahn Zay): It is easy to fall in love with this little place with its cobblestone streets and sidewalks. Its residents have a very positive attitude about life and freedoms - a live and let live mentality that makes any visitor feel welcome and wanting to come back again. Typically to a summer resort (It is after all right at the shores of the North sea, about 30 minutes or so from Amsterdam) it has many good restaurants, many of which yours truly have visited with great delight! The winter is usually slow here, but try to get a room in the many hotels and pensions here during the Corus event and you better think of that well in advance! These 3 or so weeks liven up the village with chess players, coaches, directors, journalists, fans and the companions of all of the above joining the locals in a festival of chess and a good time all around. Shops and restaurants have chess sets, boards and other chess related items in their windows as appreciation to the annual festival. Normally the only blemish is the weather, which can be quite hostile, but this year luckily event it has been considerate!

Aviv interviewing Lautier. Seirawan and Lobron analyzing Timman-Gelfand.
Transcript of GM Lautier's post game interview on ICC.

Today the main event is crossing the half way mark with the 8th (of 13) rounds. With Bareev playing Grischuk and Morozevich against Adams, many hoped for some more heavy duty action. Alas… one of the more uneventful rounds is what we got:

Timman - Gelfand: Timman playing a wild line of the Najdorf, going for a known piece sacrifice on b5. The line followed previous games for a while, including 17.Rhe1. In the press room GM's Seirawan and Lobron analyzed and liked the line with 17.Qe4!? After 17.. f5 18.Qd4 was the true test of the position. Unfortunately for Gelfand, on move 19 he played 19...Rxd1+? in place of the correct 19…Nc4. For some reason he thought this move lost to 20.Qc6 (actually 20.Qb3!? has only been played before) but actually after 20…Nd2+ and 21…Bxf4 white has nothing special at all. So in the game, after some forced moves, Boris tried to enter a pawn ending, thinking he was just lost anyways (he could have tried to put up a stronger defense in the R and pawns vs 2 minors instead, but white is clearly better ) but resigned quickly, realizing it was futile to continue. The local crowd didn't hesitate to give their veteran hero recognition by awarding him the public's prize.

Gurevich - Khalifman

Gurevich - Khalifman: An English that looked like a reversed Taimanov Sicilian. The resemblance continued for some time, but black never tried the kingside mobility white goes for in the 'real Taimanov' but white also didn't have much himself. Maybe he had a slight pull, but his backwards d3 pawn gave him no hopes for a serious advantage. A draw was agreed on after the 25th move.

van Wely - Lautier: White understandably chose a quiet English in place of his usual main line 1.d4 openings. Perhaps his standing in the event had some influence on his choice, as was the draw offer (which was accepted) after only 11(!) moves.

Leko - Dreev: In a classicial Caro Kann, black omitted 10…Qc7 and white went for the 11.Bf4 line, only to face the aggressive sub variation of 12…Nd5!? 13.Bd2 Nb4!?. Here also, the players have repeated the threaded theory until 18.Ne5, which looks like the first new move of the game. White was slightly better and slowly increased his edge. Black's main problem in this line is to solidify his centralized Nd5. He must play moves like b5 and a5-a4, but then his king is unsafe in either wing! The fear of a pawn storm on the kingside if he castled short led to his 0-0-0, but then there was no haven there either. White broke with 24.c4 and black tried to muddy the water with the mini combo of 28…a3 and 29…Ra4. Inexplicably, Leko didn't go for the move many amateurs would have chosen: 30.fxe7! winning at once! After 30…Rxc4 31.Bxh8 Nc3+ 32.Bxc3 Rxc3 33.Rh2 black can resign in clear conscience. Instead Leko chose 30.Qb3? after which he might have been microscopically worse, but held the draw.

Piket - Kasimdzhanov

Piket - Kasimdzhanov: An old, old, QGD Tartakower where so much has been analyzed and tried before. Instead of 17…Nf6, Kasparov played the logical and quite ambitious 17…a5 (Winants - Kasparov SWIFT 1987). Kasimdzhanov solved the problem of his "hanging pawns" by playing the committal 19…c4, relinquishing control of the d4 square for the white knight. The ensuing endgame of R+N vs R+B was certainly a little better for white, but with not much to attack, Piket had to go into a R endgame with black having annoying double pawns, one of which he had to give up at the right time. With the little material, left black forced further liquidation of pawns, right into a drawn, albeit a bit scary R and one pawn vs R. Kasimdzhanov knew it was a draw and confidently steered the game that way.

Bareev - Grischuk: Black played the opening (QGD Tarrasch) quite quickly, not too surprisingly, after all there is nothing new under the sun there - at least not till move 18 or so. It seems that the maneuver of 16…Rb4! after 16.bxc4 promises black an even game regardless of how white plays. The game wasn't too exciting and both sides seemed to have maintained a tame equality until on move 28. They called it quits peacefully.

Morozevich - Adams

Morozevich - Adams: A small surprise with Moro opening with 1.d4, going into a Petrosian QID. Adams seems to like the hedgehog type of structures, playing it yesterday vs Kasimdzhanov and again today, albeit with a slightly different setup. Indeed, the maneuvering and patience it takes to handle these positions are traits Adams is famous for. His handling of the position was a textbook example of how to play it: you develop all your pieces with an eye to defending your 'd' pawn and a potential queenside mobility. Trade pieces whenever you have the chance to. Mobilize your queenside pawns when ready. Trade rooks. Arrive at time control safely with time left and voila! You have equalized and drawn! Drawn on move 41, right after the time control.