Claus Jensen Chess Blog

All of the sudden Anand “wakes up” and beats co-leader Kramnik!

Standings:

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Current results:

Now we can say for (almost) sure that Anand has outplayed his role.
A 15 move draw against the lowest placed player was not what was required to stay in the tournamnet.

Standings with only 2 rounds left:

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Yesterdays results were

Standings after 10 of 13 rounds

Kramnik has a very tough programme for the last 3 rounds: Shirov (b), Anand (b) and Karjakin (w).
So my pre-tournamnet prediction that Krammy is to win the tournament is far from coming true yet.

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Some very interesting results in this round. Unfortunately I haven’t had the time to look over any of the games yet, but especially Carlsen-Kramnik 0-1 is a game I will definitely have to study closer.

Standings after roiund 9:

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I was following Shirov-Carlsen which was quite interesting until they agreed on a draw in a very unclear position.

In a vote on chess.com before the tournament started I predicted Kramnik would win the event and it seems that “Krammy” is finding his form at the right time

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The leader Shirov lost to Nakamura and world no. 1 Magnus Carlsen won against Chucky.
So now Shirov is only ½ point clear of today’s two winners.

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Round 6 was the round were Shirov’s winning streak ended. He got “only” a draw against Short.

Standings after 6 rounds

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Many hard fought games in this round, and Shirov won once again!!!

Standings after 5 rounds

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Round 4 saw two wins:
Shirov grabbed his 4th full point in style against Smeets and Ivanchuk beat local favourite Van Wely.

Shirov seems to be in excellent form and scored a very nice win today against Smeets who tried the Petroff Defence.  Shirov played a classical bishop sac and got decisive attack very early in the game.
Who’s going to stop Shirov, who has 4/4 now?
A more detailed analysis of the game is available in this youtube video or you can access/download the video from my video page.

[Event "Corus"]
[Site "Wijk aan Zee NED"]
[Date "2010.01.19"]
[EventDate "2010.01.16"]
[Round "4"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "A Shirov"]
[Black "J Smeets"]
[ECO "C42"]
[WhiteElo "2723"]
[BlackElo "2657"]
[PlyCount "74"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Nc6 7. O-O Be7 8. c4 Nb4 9. Be2 O-O 10. Nc3 Bf5 11. a3 Nxc3 12. bxc3 Nc6 13. Re1 Re8 14.cxd5 Qxd5 15. Bf4 Rac8 16. h3 h6 17. Nd2 Na5 18. Nf1 Qb3 19. Qd2 Nc4 20.Bxc4 Qxc4 21. Ne3 Qb5 22. c4 Qd7 23. c5 Bg6 24. Rac1 c6 25. Nc4 f6 26. Bxh6 gxh6 27. Qxh6 Bh7 28. Re3 Bf8 29. Rg3+ Kh8 30. Qxf6+ Bg7 31. Qg5 Bxd4 32.Rd1 Rf8 33. Kh2 Rcd8 34. Ne5 Qc7 35. Rxd4 Rxd4 36. Ng6+ Kg7 37. Nxf8+ 1-0

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Quite a lot of drama in this round which saw 4 wins from the black side and NO wins for white!

Shirov won his 3rd consecutive win, but this time he was definitely lucky to get away with the full point.
As you can read from the kibitzing of the game, I believe Tiviakov had a fairly easy draw after 22.Qe5.
He should not be blamed to go for the win, though. Unfortunately for him he took the poisoned pawn on h7 in an attempt to win, but after that Shirov was i the driving seat.
[pgn 600]
[Event "Corus"]
[Site "0:00:33-0:15:33"]
[Date "2010.01.18"]
[EventDate "2010.01.16"]
[Round "3"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Tiviakov"]
[Black "Shirov"]
[ECO "B23"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "2"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nd4 4.Bc4 e6 5.Nge2 Nf6 6.O-O a6 7.d3 b5 8.Bb3 Nxb3 9.axb3 Bb7 10.f4 d5 11.e5 d4 12.exf6 dxc3 13.fxg7 Bxg7 14.bxc3 Rg8 15.Rf2 Bxc3 16.Nxc3 Qd4 17.Kf1 Qxc3 18.Ra2 Qd4 19.Qh5 c4 20.bxc4 bxc4 21.Ra4 Bd5 22.f5 {playing for the win with full risk - Qe5 would have saved the draw I’m sure} e5 23.Qxh7 Kd7 24.Qh6 Bxg2+ 25.Ke1 Bd5 26.Ba3 Rg1+ 27.Ke2 Qg4+ 28.Ke3 Re1+ 29.Kd2 Qd1+ 30.Kc3 Qa1+ 31.Kb4 Rb1+ 0-1
[/pgn]

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