Draw perfection to conclude Tal Memorial

CHENNAI: Finally, the champion met the challenger to end the Tal chess tournament in Moscow on Friday. Boris Gelfand vs Vishy Anand should have been the cynosure naturally as they are scheduled to meet each other in the World championship match next year.

But it was a washout like all the Anand games in this tournament and the world champion returned a par score of 4.5 points for a joint third place. Levon Aronian of Armenia and Magnus Carlsen of Norway jointly won the tournament with 5.5 points each. Carlsen, as usual, made a last-round leap with a win over Hikaru Nakamura of US while Aronian had to be content with a draw against Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia.

Anand’s 29-move draw with Gelfand came quite quickly in the Grunfeld defence. Simplification was a matter of formality and as the players reached a rook and same-coloured bishop ending with six pawns each, there was hardly anything on the board to fight for. Maybe, Gelfand’s queenside pawns were more organised.

Anand’s contribution to the heavy dose of 36 draws (out of 45 games) in the tournament is nine but then the rest of them also generally took shelter under the draws. Carlsen played attacking chess against Nakamura using Queens Indian Defence and won two pawns. In an opposite-coloured bishop ending, the Norwegian brought his king out and finished off the game in 58 moves.

Aronian and Nepmniachtchi fought in the Queens Gambit declined for 85 moves to get into a rook and pawn ending. Nepo had two extra pawns for the exchange that Aronian won but there was always a way out for both to avoid trouble. Peter Svidler of Russia shocked compatriot Vladimir Kramnik to end the tournament with some satisfaction.

Svidler showed the power of the dangling knights while executing a mating attack with a queen sacrifice. Kramnik, who was also threatening a backrank mate, gave up after 41 moves. Sergei Karjakin and Vassily Ivanchuk played a 42-move draw in Sicilian in a rook and minor piece ending.

Standings: Levon Aronian (Armenia) and Magnus Carlsen (Norway) 5.5 each, Vassily Ivanchuk ( Ukraine), Sergey Karjakin, Ian Nepomniachtchi (both Russia) 5 each, V Anand (India), P Svidler (Russia) 4.5 each, V Kramnik (Russia) and Boris Gelfand ( Israel) 3.5 each, Hikaru Nakamura (US) 3.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar