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Gelfand keeps on rockin'

PeterDoggers
| 0 | Chess Event Coverage
Gelfand is playing a great world championship tournament and many predicted that this had to end at some point. Last Tuesday one of the grandmasters present even predicted he would soon collapse. But today Boris proved them wrong by scoring the second win of the black pieces in Mexico so far, against Aronian. He thus decreased Anand's lead to a point, after the Indian expectedly had drawn his game against Svidler. Kramnik this time satisfied his fans by scoring a fine White victory over Leko and the clash between the two Alexanders ended positively for Morozevich, who beat Grischuk in a reversed Sicilian.

This time no Mexican journalists had the guts to ask about the how and why of Anand and Svidler's quick draw. A child understands what was going on in Anand's mind and Svidler, well, just might be too friendly to his competitors to win a game here.



A cunning Leko used (for the second time) one of the ideas Kramnik had tested himself earlier in the tournament. The world champion also had some ideas for the opposite colour and Leko soon got into trouble. He had "forgotten" about the move 28.Qf7 and after that he was already lost.



Soon after that (actually, during the Kramnik-Leko press conference) Aronian went down. After the game he still thought the daring g2-g4-g5 was interesting, put he'll probably won't try it again in this exact same position. Actually only after he took on e5 ("a blunder" - Levon) it was lost for White. Take note of Gelfand's touching plea for the classical time-control.



It was one of the shortest rounds so far because Morozevich grabbed his full point immediately after the first time control. It comes down to Grischuk simply playing quite badly, as he said himself, and he said he lost deservedly.



Although anything can happen, it's safe to say that Anand will draw his last two games as well and will be crowned world champion on Sunday night. And besides that, it's interesting to see how Gelfand's "game by game" tactic works out so well.



(Yesterday's video by Macauley for ICC.)



Standings (click for bigger version):



Results/schedule:

Round 1: Thursday, Sept. 13th 2007, 14:00h
Kramnik 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Svidler
Morozevich 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Aronian
Anand 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Gelfand
Grischuk 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Leko
Round 2: Friday, Sept. 14th 2007, 14:00h
Svidler 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Leko
Gelfand 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Grischuk
Aronian 
0-1 Anand
Kramnik 
1-0 Morozevich
Round 3: Saturday, Sept. 15th 2007, 14:00h
Morozevich 
1-0 Svidler
Anand 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Kramnik
Grischuk 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Aronian
Leko 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Gelfand
Round 4: Sunday, Sept 16th 2007, 14:00h
Svidler 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Gelfand
Aronian 
1-0 Leko
Kramnik 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Grischuk
Morozevich 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Anand
Free day: Monday, Sept. 11th 2007
Round 5: Tuesday, Sept. 18th 2007, 14:00h
Anand 
1-0 Svidler
Grischuk 
1-0 Morozevich
Leko 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Kramnik
Gelfand 
1-0 Aronian
Round 6: Wednesday, Sept. 19th 2007, 14:00h
Aronian 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Kramnik
Gelfand 
1-0 Morozevich
Grischuk 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Svidler
Leko 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Anand
Round 7: Thursday, Sept. 20th 2007, 14:00h
Anand 
1-0 Grischuk
Kramnik 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Gelfand
Morozevich 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Leko
Svidler 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Aronian



Second half

Round 8: Friday, Sept. 21st 2007, 14:00h
Svidler 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Kramnik
Aronian 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Morozevich
Gelfand 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Anand
Leko 
1-0 Grischuk
Free day: Saturday, Sept. 22nd 2007
Round 9: Sunday, Sept. 23th 2007, 14:00h
Anand 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Aronian
Grischuk 
1-0 Gelfand
Leko 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Svidler
Morozevich 
1-0 Kramnik
Round 10: Monay, Sept. 24th 2007, 14:00h
Aronian 
1-0 Grischuk
Gelfand 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Leko
Kramnik 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Anand
Svidler 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Morozevich
Round 11: Tuesday, Sept. 25th 2007, 14:00h
Anand 
1-0 Morozevich
Gelfand 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Svidler
Grischuk 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Kramnik
Leko 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Aronian
Free day: Wednesday, Sept. 26th 2007
Round 12: Thursday, Sept 27th 2007, 14:00h
Aronian 
0-1 Gelfand
Kramnik 
1-0 Leko
Morozevich 
1-0 Grischuk
Svidler 
?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Anand
Round 13: Friday, Sept. 28th 2007, 14:00h
Aronian 
  Svidler
Grischuk 
  Anand
Leko 
  Morozevich
Gelfand 
  Kramnik
Round 14: Saturday, Sept. 29th 2007, 14:00h
Anand 
  Leko
Kramnik 
  Aronian
Morozevich 
  Gelfand
Svidler 
  Grischuk

Sunday, Sept. 30th 2007

Possible tiebreaks, closing ceremony

PeterDoggers
Peter Doggers

Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms.

Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools.

Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013.

As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”

In October, Peter's first book The Chess Revolution will be published!


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