Anand ends fourth, Abhijit second in Group C

WIJK AAN ZEE - India’s Viswanathan Anand ended the 72nd edition of the Corus Grandmasters tournament with yet another draw, his 11th in 13 rounds, but with two other wins, he ended with 7.5 points in shared fourth place.

Anand drew with Loek Van Wely in 39 moves from a Meraner and was the only unbeaten player in Group A.

Magnus Carlsen, the worlds highest rated player, won the 10,000 euros first prize. Coached by former world champion Gary Kasparov, the 19-year-old Norwegian played attacking chess throughout to collect 8.5 points for a tournament score of five wins, seven draws and one loss.

His aggressive style almost came to cost him dearly in his final-round game from a Ruy Lopez against Italys Fabiano Caruana but after 56 moves, he managed to salvage a draw.

In Group B, Parimarjan Negi held the winner, Anish Giri to a draw while Pentala Harikrishna drew with Toni Nyback. Both Negi and Hari ended with 6.5 points and were tied for sixth, while Giri won the title with 8.5 points.

In Group C, Abhijit Gupta rounded off the tournament with a win over Ray Robson, while D Vocaturo beat Sowmya Swaminathan. Li Chao won the title with 10 points and Abhijit was sole second with 8.5 points. Sowmya was tied 13th with three points.

In Group A, the two runners-up at the outset of Sundays thirteenth round, Spains Alexei Shirov and Russias Vladimir Kramnik, remained just that. Kramnik was satisfied with a half point after just 21 moves with white from a Queens Indian that never really got underway.

Shirovs game with white against Leinier Dominguez, however, was quite a different matter. Some twenty moves into a Najdorf, Shirov unleashed a ferocious attack, sacrificing his way through blacks kingside. Shirov, a piece down meanwhile, used up almost all of his time to find a win. He came close.

Dominguez made a fatal mistake on his 30th but followed it up with a peace proposal. With only two seconds on the clock, Shirov failed to see the rather obvious win and went for the half point.

A win for Shirov would mean Carlsen needed a win himself to stay ahead in the race for an unshared first prize.

That meant a draw was enough for Carlsen to finish an unshared first but his miscalculation had led to serious trouble, or rather, as he put it himself, “what I thought was a promising position, in fact turned out to be very bad. Fabiano and I both thought black should have excellent winning chances in the knight endgame.” He may have but neither experts nor computers were able to show how.

Surprisingly, I drew, Carlsen explained, adding: I had some good games; sometimes I played well and sometimes I played lousy. In the end, I won the tournament with a lot of luck.

The Group B champion was the Dutch champion Anish Giri, who notched up a tournament total of 9 points after a draw in final-round action. “Im happy I won, the 15-year old said. What Im most happy about, he said, is my place in the A Group next year. No, Im not afraid to face the super-Elos. Ill have a year to prepare for them.

–Indo-Asian News Service