Chess: Anand speedily plays a blinder
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Your support makes all the difference.VISWANATHAN ANAND has won the Melody Amber speed and blindfold event in Monaco, sharing first place with Vladimir Kramnik in the ordinary speed games, and winning the blindfold tournament alone. Full scores in the combined event were: Anand 17, Kramnik 16, Ivanchuk 141 2 , Kamsky 14, J Polgar 11, Karpov 101 2 , Ljubojevic 10, Nunn and Seirawan 91 2 , Z Polgar 71 2 , Piket 61 2 , Korchnoi 6. With the five youngest players taking the top five places, perhaps they will introduce an age handicap next year.
Without the time for caution to overrule intuition, the players produced some marvellously exciting play. The following game sees Kramnik gaining revenge over Karpov for a defeat in last month's Linares event. In the same sharp line of the Slav Defence, Kramnik played a speculative sacrifice of rook for knight to seize the initiative.
With 26. Rff2 inviting 26 . . . Bg3 27. hxg3 Qxg3+, Karpov returned the material. The critical moment came with Kramnik's cool 32 . . . Bc6]? (preventing Rd7+ after 33. Bxf6 Qxf6). Karpov won a piece with 33. e5, but fell apart after 35 . . . Bxf3] After 36. Bxf3 Qxc5+ 37. Rf2 (all king moves lose the queen to a knight check) Rxh2 38. Kxh2 Qxf2+ White is struggling, but what he played was worse.
----------------------------------------------------------------- White: Karpov Black: Kramnik ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1 d4 d5 22 Be3 Ng6 2 c4 c6 23 Qe1 Rh8 3 Nf3 Nf6 24 Rd1 Bd6 4 Nc3 e6 25 Rd2 Qc7 5 e3 Nbd7 26 Rxd6 Qxd6 6 Bd3 dxc4 27 Qd2 Qe5 7 Bxc4 b5 28 Rf2 Rh3 8 Bd3 a6 29 Bd1 Nh4 9 e4 c5 30 Bd4 Qc7 10 d5 Qc7 31 Qg5 Qd8 11 0-0 Bb7 32 Rd2 Bc6 12 dxe6 fxe6 33 e5 Nf5 13 Bc2 Be7 34 Bc5 Qc7 14 Ng5 Qc6 35 exf6 Bxf3 15 Qf3 h6 36 fxg7 Qxc5+ 16 Qh3 hxg5 37 Rf2 Kg8 17 Qxh8 Kf7 38 Bc2 Rxh2 18 Qh3 g4 39 Qd8+ Kxg7 19 Qh4 Ne5 40 Qd7+ Ne7 20 f3 gxf3 White resigns 21 gxf3 c4 -----------------------------------------------------------------
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