Corus Chess 2008 Round 1 Report, Radjabov beats Anand!

We had a couple of big upsets today. Radjabov beating Anand with the white pieces was probably the biggest one of the day. It seems to me that once Radjabov was able to build this pawn chain with d6 and e5, Anand had very little chance of saving the game.

Notice the pawn can not be taken, if Qxe5? Ba6 wins, and if Nxe5 Nc5! hits the bishop on b7. The move 14. Re1 was new according to my database. I believe that 21… Qe7 might have been the big mistake, allowing d6 and e5 to be played with tempo. It’s interesting that Anand didn’t lose a single game during the World Championship, but now loses his first game here!

The other big “upset” of the day was Aronian’s win over Topalov, but in reality it’s not all that surprising. Topalov has been relatively inactive as of late, and that combined with him being a slow starter and having the black pieces made this result predictable. The game itself was a little strange. Topalov won the exchange and seemed to have a great position, but then made a key mistake in the following position:

Here Topalov played 22… Rac8? and after 23. Rxb7 Bxa2 24. Rxb7 white had fine compensation for the exchange since all his pieces are active and he’s managed to take all of black’s queenside pawns. instead Topalov could have played 22.. Rd7! and after 23. Rxb7 Rxb7 24. Bxb7 Rb8 25. Be4 Rxb2+ 26. Kc3 Rb6! black should win this position. Sloppy play by Topalov

The only other decisive game was Carlsen’s win with the black pieces over Mamedyarov. Mamedyarov deserved to lose the game for playing such a stupid opening (a closed sicilian with the knight on f3 blocking the F pawn), and that’s exactly what happened.

The Corus C group played some fighting chess today, all 7 games were decisive! They seem to prefer black down there in the C group as black won 5/7 games! Unfortunately our fellow American Irina Krush lost her game against GM Shilong Li (2502) today, but there is still lots of time to recover!

Here are the complete results:

Group A: Round 1 - Sat. Jan. 12th

Vladimir Kramnik - Loek van Wely ½-½
Teimour Radjabov - Vishy Anand 1-0
Shak. Mamedyarov - Magnus Carlsen 0-1
Pavel Eljanov - Peter Leko ½-½
Michael Adams - Boris Gelfand ½-½
Levon Aronian - Veselin Topalov 1-0
Vassily Ivanchuk - Judit Polgar ½-½

Group B: Round 1 - Sat. Jan. 12th

P. Harikrishna - Nigel Short ½-½
Hou Yifan - Etienne Bacrot 0-1
Daniël Stellwagen - Michal Krasenkow 1-0
Wouter Spoelman - Ivan Cheparinov 0-1
Sergei Movsesian - Gabriel Sargissian ½-½
Jan Smeets - Koneru Humpy 1-0
Ian Nepomniachtchi - Erwin L’Ami ½-½

Group C: Round 1 - Sat. Jan. 12th

Li Shilong - Irina Krush 1-0
Anna Ushenina - John van der Wiel 0-1
Friso Nijboer - Arik Braun 0-1
Parimarjan Negi - Pontus Carlsson 0-1
Peng Zhaoqin - Fabiano Caruana 0-1
Mark van der Werf - Efstratios Grivas 1-0
Dennis Ruijgrok - Dimitri Reinderman 0-1