Exciting chess in Elista! September 23, 2006
Posted by dorigo in chess, games, internet, news.trackback
The World Chess Championship between Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov has started today in Elista. In a first exciting game, Topalov achieved a dynamical equality with the black pieces by obtaining active play for a pawn, and proceeded to attack the white king with few pieces left on the board.
Topalov’s ability to create threats and problems for his opponent was evident in this game. He pushed too hard though, and while Kramink continued to defend well and find the best defence, Topalov started playing more carelessly, until he blundered at move 57. Here is the position:
Black has been trying to get his rook to g2 for a while now, and after some complicated manouvers white is still preventing him from doing so. Probably the position is still a draw now, and everybody chatting in the Internet Chess Club live broadcast (about 2000 people, by the way!) were considering still more of that. But Topalov dashed out 57….f5? to which followed 58.Nxe5 Rb2 and now of course Nxf3 would have lost the N, but white had the simple 59.Nd3! and evreything was under control.
Now white has a passed d pawn and the game is soon over. A pity for Topalov, who had played brilliantly for the former four hours. But a deserved success for Kramnik, who shows he is maybe the most accurate player in the world.
… And of course, the final score is 1-0, in case you had not figured it out!