R10: interview Karpov

Just like yesterday, Anatoly Karpov, special guest here in Wijk aan Zee, has been looking for quite a while, and quite interested as well, at the TV screens here in the press room. He agreed to a short interview.

Shall we cover a normal Corus round today? Yeah, why not. Surprising openings: the Scotch in Radjabov-Topalov and a French Defence in Mamedyarov-Polgar.

Update 14:47h

Some interesting developments today. Timman-Ljubojevic, already mentioned in the comments, sees the same Nxf7 as in Topalov-Kramnik yesterday. A very cunning way of playing by Timman, who had been watching Topalov's press conference in the press room attentively yesterday, and who this morning must have thought: "wait a minute, Ljubojevic was analysing his game against Korchnoi at that moment! Ljubo apparently hasn't seen our video yet, since he's been thinking for half an hour after 13.e5. (14:54h Ljubojevic has played a novelty and it's Topalov's suggestion 17...Rhg8. Either he has seen the video, or he's just better than Kramnik. ;-) )

Anand-Leko is a quiet Ruy Lopez, Kramnik-Gelfand a quiet Queen's Indian. Polgar treats her French a bit oddly, with ...b6, ...Rb8 and ...Bb7, and Adams, also in a Ruy, chose the pawn sac line with 8.d4 against Aronian. Carlsen plays the Wolga/Benk?ɬ? Gambit against Van Wely; his early ...Qa5 is not very common. After repeating moves, Eljanov fortunately decided to continue the game against his compatriot Ivanchuk in a Closed Catalan. Against Radjabov, Topalov's 1...e5 led to a Schotch. As usual, the line with 5.Nxc6 Qf6 resulted in a queenless middlegame, and it looks approximately equal.

Update 15:34h

Two games have finished in A. The line Adams played is not very dangerous for Black, when he knows what he's doing, and so this game has already ended in 21 moves. Understandable for Aronian, who's on shared first and played Black, but Adams could have shown some more fighting spirit.

Anand-Leko was even quieter than we thought, and these gents are already back in their hotel rooms as well. And so another White game is gone for Anand, right when he started to have some chances for the tournament victory too, but perhaps he has faith in his coming Black games against Van Wely and Carlsen. In the last round he's White against Kramnik.

Timman has answered with a4 and Rfe1 to Ljubo's novelty. The Dutchman is playing the position on both wings and it looks like he really feels at home.

Update 17:10h

Kramnik seems to have a slight edge against Gelfand, because Black's bishop on a8 is a bit silly, but we're not completely sure. Polgar, with her original opening set-up, actually managed to draw comfortably against Mamedyarov. Carlsen is in big trouble against Van Wely and since he plays Anand, Kramnik and Radjabov in the last three rounds, he will have trouble reaching his desired goal of plus two. Topalov lost the exchange but has some compensation. In B, Smeets already lost to Movsesian, in only 25 moves. The Dutchman scored a half point out of his last four games and has to take drastic measures now.

Update 17:33h

INTERVIEW ANATOLY KARPOV

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Update 19:34h

A terribly tragic finish of the game, for Loek van Wely. He had reached a completely winning position but without much time on the clock (but Carlsen had probably even less), and in a ridiculous timescramble, White position went from plus 4.something to minus 4.something. A stroke of unexpected luck for Carlsen, who's now clear first again with 6.5 out of 9. And, to be honest, his defeat against Leko yesterday was highly unfortunate, so now the scales are balanced again. Some short comments by Carlsen:

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Kramnik couldn't get trough a rock-solid Gelfand today and Topalov managed to create enough counterplay to hold the draw despite being an exchange down. Ivanchuk beat Eljanov and it took longer than we'd expected. He outplayed his opponent and won a pawn, but then Eljanov started to defend quite well - but to no avail. After a new victory against Krasenkow, Short is now shared second with Bacrot, but a point below Movsesian. In C, Caruana lost, and so it's really exciting there. Poor Braun lost again.

After four draws, there were suddenly two wins by Black today in the Honorary Four. Portisch had an off-day and lost without a chance against Korchnoi, while Ljubojevic was most cold-blooded in the chaos we've already been talking about. Today he was the one who did the press conference so later tonight you'll have Part II of the big Nxf7-Anti-Moscow Story.

Grandmastergroup A L. van Wely - M. Carlsen 0-1 V. Anand - P. Leko ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? V. Kramnik - B. Gelfand ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? T. Radjabov - V. Topalov ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? S. Mamedyarov - J. Polgar ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? P. Eljanov - V. Ivanchuk 0-1 M. Adams - L. Aronian ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?

Grandmastergroup B N. Short - M. Krasenkow 1-0 E. Bacrot - I. Cheparinov ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? P. Harikrishna - G. Sargissian Y. Hou - H. Koneru ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? D. Stellwagen - E. L'Ami ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Spoelman - Nepomniachtchi 0-1 S. Movsesian - J. Smeets 1-0

Grandmastergroup C I. Krush - A. Braun 1-0 J. van der Wiel - P. Carlsson ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? S. Li - F. Caruana A. Ushenina - E. Grivas 1-0 F. Nijboer - D. Reinderman 1-0 P. Negi - D. Ruijgrok 1-0 Z. Peng - M. van der Werf ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?

Schedule/results Honorary Four:

Round 1 - Saturday the 19th L. Ljubojevic - J. Timman 0-1 V. Kortchnoi - L. Portisch 1-0	Round 2 - Sunday the 20th V. Kortchnoi - J. Timman ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? L. Portisch - L. Ljubojevic ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?	Round 3 - Tuesday the 22nd J. Timman - L. Portisch ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? L. Ljubojevic - V. Kortchnoi ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?
Round 4 - Wednesday the 23rd J. Timman - L. Ljubojevic 0-1 L. Portisch - V. Kortchnoi 0-1	Round 5 - Friday the 25th L. Portisch - J. Timman V. Kortchnoi - L. Ljubojevic	Round 6 - Saturday the 26th J. Timman - V. Kortchnoi L. Ljubojevic - L. Portisch

Complete schedule + results »


New photos by forest:




External links:

• Tournament website
• Macauley's videos
• Live web commentary (Chessdom)
• Web commentary Chesspro (Russian)
• Photos by the official tournament photographer Fred Lucas
• Photos by Frits Agterdenbos (ChessVista)
• PGN A group, B group & C group