Aronian, Carlsen Share First Place; Anand Drew Kramnik
By Arvind Aaron

The highest rated players, Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik played a pulsating 61-move draw in the final round as the Corus Chess Tournament came to a close at Wijk aan Zee on January 27.

Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian tied for first place on 8/13 in a low scoring yet interesting event. The big stars Anand and Kramnik not in perfect form at the start, Carlsen stole the honours and was the impressive performer.

Anand lost to Radjabov in round one and took time to recover. However, he came back strongly with wins against Topalov, Polgar and Carlsen and miss the title by a half point.

In the final position, Anand could have played on with rook and four pawns against Kramnik's rook, bishop and one pawn. They were already in the sudden death seventh hour of play. Only four super events in the world, Corus, Linares, Sofia and Dortmund follow the seven hour control while FIDE has moved to the newer four hour control. Earlier, Anand had a promising position from the Queen's Knight Attack variation against the Petroff's defence of Kramnik. Kramnik was a bishop ahead for two pawns but his allowing queen exchanges offered Anand chances again. Nevertheless, it was an exciting draw.

Anand's record of five titles in this event is in tact and will not be challenged atleast in the next few years. Anand tied for the third-fourth places with 7.5 points finishing on plus two.

Kramnik is losing Elo points in this event and that should be good news for Anand who has done well for rating purpose here. They started the year on 2799. Ivanchuk remained the only undefeated player.

The Grand Master Group B was won by Sergey Movsesian (Cz) with 9.5/13. E.Bacrot and Nigel Short tied for the second-third place with 8.5. P.Harikrishna of Hyderabad finished fourth with 7.5 and Koneru Humpy took eleventh place with 5.5.

In the Grand Master Group C, Parimarjan Negi lost to F.Caruana and slipped from second place to tied second-third place with 8/10. Caruana won with 10/13.

Final placings: 1-2 L.Aronian, M.Carlsen 8/13 each, 3-4 V.Anand, T.Radjabov 7.5 each, 5-6 V.Ivanchuk, P.Leko 7 each, 7-8 V.Kramnik, M.Adams 6.5 each, 9-11 S.Mamedyarov, J.Polgar, V.Topalov 6 each, 12-14 P.Eljanov, B.Gelfand, L.Van Wely 5 each.

The results (round 13): B.Gelfand (Isr) bt P.Eljanov (Ukr), V.Topalov (Bul) drew M.Adams (Eng), Judit Polgar (Hun) drew L.Aronian (Arm), M.Carlsen (Nor) drew T.Radjabov (Aze), V.Anand (Ind) drew V.Kramnik (Rus). P.Leko (Hun) bt S.Mamedyarov (Aze), V.Ivanchuk (Ukr) drew Van Wely (Ned).

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Published on 28^th  Jan, 2008