Tal Memorial R5: Anand beats Leko, leads with Kramnik
Round 5
Yesterday was the only rest day at the Tal Memorial and in fact it was Mikhail Tal's birthday: November 9th, the same date as the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. For today's round the players changed venues from Hotel National to Main Department Store GUM on Red Square which might have been a bit tricky as far as the internet connection was concerned, but luckily it didn't have any effect on the tournament's official live broadcast.Main Department Store or GUM, a modern namer for the main department store in many cities of the Soviet Union, known as State Department Store in the Soviet times. This one is actually a shopping mall. Prior to the 1920s the place was known as the Upper Trading Rows. | Photo: Josef F. Stuefer
Today he arrived at the playing hall, and played our entire game with a mouth mask (probably to protect against me), and frankly it happened to the considerable amusement of the other players.Well, perhaps we emphasize too much on Carlsen's physical state already. Let's look at his chess - the top seed easily equalized against Ivanchuk's London System today, making clear once more that with correct play, Black doesn't have anything to fear against this at club level quite popular opening.Not long afterwards two more games ended peacefully. Ponomariov's laptop is clearly 100% up-to-date as he played the interesting 15...c4 and 17...Nc6 plan in a Berlin Wall (how appropriate) against Svidler; a slightly different version of the same theme as in the very recent game Adams-Bacrot, Novi Sad last month. Like Adams, Svidler tried it with the thematical e5-e6 push, but using the pin along the b-file Ponomariov equalized quickly.Aronian seemed to be totally outplaying Morozevich, who tried the Stonewall, but somehow White's advantage was smaller than it seemed. In the end one advantage, in this case the bishop pair, isn't enough to win a game.Anand and Leko followed the theoretical paths for no less than 21 moves. A very sharp position arose in which Rybka constantly gives 0.00, due to the many lines ending in perpetual check. This is probably how the game should have ended, after e.g. 23...Rf6. During the game it was very difficult to pinpoint where Black went wrong exactly, but around move 30 Anand suddenly had more than enough compensation for his pawn deficit, he then won back his pawn and another one, after which the queen ending was won. Powerful play by the World Champion, that's for sure.
After the game Anand said that Kasimdzhanov deserves credit for the Nxd4 move. 'It all comes down to the opening. If you know the knight idea you can hold it, but I think it's almost impossible for Black to solve it at the board.' | Quote & picture thanks to Macauley Peterson
Games round 5 [IM Merijn van Delft]
Game viewer by ChessTempoTal Memorial 2009 | Round 5 Standings
Tal Memorial 2009 | Schedule and results
Following an excellent idea of Georg in the comments, we try to write something about Mikhail Tal every day.
Exactly fifty years ago - in November 1959 - Dutch grandmaster Jan Hein Donner wrote at length about the young Mikhail Tal, who was then rising to the top like a comet and would become World Champion within less than a year. It's almost scary how accurate and nuanced Donner's observations were at the time, and how true his words still are about in chess in general."Without exaggeration one can say that Tal's appearance has shocked the chess world. In him, one clearly feels a new phenomenon. The game of chess has always been regarded as a game of logic. Chess players themselves were the first to praise it as an art and, as could be read some months ago in an article by him, someone like Botvinnik had the incination to see the competitive element as a side-effect. Whoever played chess had to first of all try and play 'correctly'. (...) It was precisely this logical, mathematically proveable aspect which was regarded as essential to chess. This gave it its standing and it distinguished itself from the so-called games of chance. (...)And then came Tal. He didn't care about correctness, complications were more important to him. To drag his opponent with him into the labyrinth, he gave everything for it. I've seen it in Zürich, the growing feeling of unease when he sacrificed a piece or more in every game, and won, but when afterwards it turned out the whole enterprise had been rather risky if only the opponent would have found the right moves behind the board. In analysing, too, it turned out that, although he had calculated much and much more than the average player, he did very much tend to calculate in his own favour. Even then it became clear that only Keres could stand up to him in such analysis sessions where hands grab and reach over the board. 'Aber mein Lieber, was machen Sie denn darauf!' [But my darling, what do you play now?] and Tal just laughed. 'Wer hat gewonnen?' [Who has won?] (...)Tal thinks differently than the way people used to think about how to be successful. He didn't enrich the game with new ideas. His game setup is old-fashioned and reminds one of Tarrasch, but what a difference otherwise! To Tarrasch, the game of chess was one of logic par excellence. His entire dogmatism was founded on that idea. However paradoxical it may seem, in reality he sought a system that always won. (...) Tal throws all this away and shows the essence of chess. There is no system, there is no correct or incorrect, there only is success. This thinking without norms of one's own infallibility has no chance in reality and will ultimately wreck itself. But in chess, it is the greatest inspiration. Therefore, it is wrong to call Tal a trickster. He only knows that, although self-critism and self-knowledge are necessary, objectivity behind the chess board is a fiction."Actually Donner was exaggerating about Tal's performance in Zürich. In his game against Donner, Tal didn't sacrifice anything but just crushed him out of the opening. You could say Donner sacrificed one truth to reach another, more important one. I think Tal would have liked that.Arne MollThe position of the game between Donner and
Tal after 28...Nd7-c5. Donner resigned.