Who Wins? Two Super-Grandmasters Clash in an Exciting Matchup!
It is January 15, 2013 in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament. This is a yearly tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands, that features some of the best chess players in the world. That particular year was highlighted by the exceptionally strong play of Magnus Carlsen, with Levon Aronian, Viswanathan Anand, and Sergey Karjakin not far behind. In an enthralling game between Aronian and Anand in the fourth round of the tournament, a high level battle occurs where Anand offers multiple spectacular piece sacrifices to surpass Aronian.
Here is the link to the game, and as always I encourage you to look into the lines I didn't get to in this blog on your own with the engine. Anand has the black pieces and Aronian has white. The game starts out with a standard Semi-Slav. On move 12, Aronian plays Ng5, to target the h7 pawn. Black responds with c5, trying to open up his rook. This does sacrifice a pawn, but black might be able to gain time.
After a few more unexciting moves, Anand plays the brilliant Bc5!!! If Aronian takes the bishop, there are ideas of smothered mate (see annotations). Aronian plays Be2, declining the sacrifice but Anand plays the amazing Ne5!! This pawn can still take the bishop, and the pawn on. f4 can also take the knight! However, both moves are losing for white, especially fxe5, since smothered mate is unstoppable with Qxd4+. After the king moves to h1, the queen will sacrifice itself on g1. After the white rook takes the queen, Nf2 delivers the typical smothered-mate. So, Aronian takes the knight on g4 with the bishop. Anand throws in an in between move by checking the king with Bxe4 followed by Nxg4. Aronian chooses to take the rook on f8 (its actually been attacking the rook for several moves now, but he hasn't had time to take it). Anand then plays the good f5! There are now some ideas of maneuvering the rook to h6. The knight now saves itself, but now Qg6 by Anand. If Ne5, then Anand will play Nxg2, and if the king takes then Qh4 is checkmate. Aronian plays h3 to try to kick the knight from g4, but Anand can ignore the threat because Qh6 would be checkmate.
On move 22, Anand plays Qh5, with the threat of Qxh3. This would be checkmate because the king is pinned by the bishop on b7. Aronian plays Qd3 to defend the pawn on h3 with the queen, but now Anand plays the outstanding Be3! This blocks the queen from defending the pawn. If the queen takes the bishop out of desperation, then Qxh3+ anyway followed by either Qxg2 checkmate or Qh2 checkmate, since both end the game immediately. If the bishop on c1 takes Anand's bishop on e3, then Qxh3+ once again and then either Qg2 or Qh2 both deliver checkmate. So here Aronian resigned, realizing that the only way to stop these threats are for Aronian to play Nd5, and after Bxd5 then the queen will sacrifice itself by taking the bishop (see annotations for more detail).
Overall, I believe this to be a very exciting game. Anand was very sharp in this game, offering a free bishop on move 15 with Bc5, and then a free knight on move 16 with Ne5, and finally a free bishop on e3 on the final move of the game. There are many games that Anand has played that are amazing, such as Anand's 2006 victory over Sergey Karjakin or his games against Ivanchuk, Bologan, and Lautier.
My annotations are below. It is highly encouraged that you look into the game with the computer by yourself at a higher depth. Learning these games can be fun, and knowing when and where to spot these tactical motifs can prove beneficial in your own games! Enjoy!
