Ivanchuk falls to Vallejo in Bilbao Masters
Hari Hara Nandanan, TNN
Oct 8, 2011, 01.50AM IST
CHENNAI: Vallejo Pons may be the punching bag for everyone in the Grand Slam chess tournament but in Bilbao in the seventh round the Spaniard accounted for Vassily Ivanchuk, the top seed of the tournament on Friday.
Vallejo, who has lost most of his games, had beaten World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen in the first half in Sao Paulo and in Bilbao he played a solid game against Ivanchuk, who was moving close to his title with three rounds to spare.
Vallejo got a favourable ending from a Reti opening against the Ukrainian and moved his king in a pawn ending to inflict the second loss on Ivanchuk. After exchanging the last rook, Vallejo had easier access to the rival pawns and after 47 moves Ivanchuk had nothing left to fight for.
World champion Viswanathan Anand and Hikaru Nakamura of US drew in Ruy Lopez in 36 moves in the seventh round in a minor pieces ending while Carlsen and Aronian took a point each from their 50-move draw.
Ivanchuk led the field with 13 points, followed by Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian and Nakamura; all tied on eight points each. With his second win, Vallejo closed the gap with the four above him and reached seven points.
Earlier in the sixth round on Thursday, Ivanchuk won his fourth game in the tournament, his first at Bilbao when he tactically outplayed unbeaten Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura of USA in the first round at Bilbao. The football scoring system of three points per win, has given him a six-point lead over the rest of the field.
In Sicilian defence, Ivanchuk kept the rooks for the queen and combined them to good effect. In the end, the rooks chased the black king away and won the queen with a perfect mating attack.
In a high-profile clash, Carlsen and Anand drew their return game in 49 moves of Nimzo-Indian defence.
The queens got exchanged on move 18 and very soon only the rooks and a pair of minor pieces remained on the board. It was soon down to an ending of same-coloured bishops with equal number of pawns. It was clear that both of them were not ready to take any chances against each other, given their status on top of the rakings.
Vallejo Pons of Spain did well to draw with Levon Aronian in a Benoni-like setup. Armenian tried hard to leave the beaten path taking chances against the tailender.
However, Aronian pulled things back after being slightly worse and forced the draw when the time came.
Points position (after round 7): Vassily Ivanchuk ( Ukraine) 13, Anand, Aronian ( Armenia), Carlsen ( Norway) and Nakamura (US) 8 each, Vallejo Pons (Spain) 7.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Nice game.