Anand goes Dutch again in Corus chess

Russian duo of Braingames match winner Vladimir Kramnik and Evegeny Bareev, Spaniard Alexei Shirov and Anand remained on the heels of the leader half a point behind while as many as five players including Karpov were tied with a 50 percent score at fifth place. In the Grandmaster group B’ tournament, former world junior girls champion Koneru Humpy drew with women world championship finalist Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia to take her tally to 1.5/4.

Top seed GM Zhang Zhong of China continued with his winning run in the event and registered his third victory on the trot to maintain a slender half point lead over nearest rivals.

Humpy obviously has not had a desirable start and is on joint eighth position with nine more rounds remaining.

It turned out to be a friendly theoretical discussion between Timman and Anand. The Dutchman apparently was without any particular strategy and blitzed out established manoeuvres of queens gambit declined with white pieces. The draw was agreed to in just 23 moves.

Polgar, the lone woman in the main event, continued to hold centrestage. Clearly, breaking in to the 2700 club, a feat that Polgar recently achieved, is not the end of the road for this star performer. The victory for Polgar was sweet and well timed considering that beating Karpov is no joke. This was the first time that she scored over the legendry figure in classical chess and the fact that it came with black pieces, made the win particularly sweet.

Her game also won her the public prize for the best game of the day along with a purse of 250 Euros.

Karpov was up against a queen’s Indian Defence, an opening he has savoured with black on numerous occasions in his career. Embarking on the Petrosian system, the Russian faced a theoretical novelty by Polgar on the 12th move and got in to trouble after missing a picturesque tactical stroke on the 16th move that left his king stranded in the centre.

Polgar quickly seized the initiative from this point on and penetrated the king side with her queen. Karpov lost two pawns in a span of three moves and gave up the battle facing further material loss. It took 33 moves for Polgar to add Karpov’s scalp to her kitty. “It is interesting to play him, but I hate it when he tortures me. It feels good to be on plus two (her score of two victories without a loss) but it does not mean anything right now,” said Polgar after the game.

Having sent warning signals to his rivals in the previous round with a resounding victory over Bareev, Kramnik registered a study-like win over Polish GM Michal Krasenkow.