Showing posts with label topalov. Show all posts
Showing posts with label topalov. Show all posts

Friday, October 22, 2010

Kavalek on Anand and the Lasker's Defense

Lubomir Kavalek is my pick to win the CJA's "Best Chess Blogger" award next year for his wonderful articles at The Huffington Post (which appear with even greater speed than his Washington Post columns ever could). His most recent post is "Chess Champion's Class Act" (republished at ChessBase), where he analyzes Anand's impressive victory today in Nanjing, again using the Lasker's Defense to beat Topalov, just as he did in the last game of their World Championship match.  I have written quite a bit on the Lasker's Defense (see my recent "Lasker's Defense to the Queen's Gambit Webliography" for details), and I am especially fascinated by the line that Anand deployed: the nearly forgotten Cotlar Counter-Attack (as documented by Edward Winter in Chess Notes 3581, 3584, 3613 and 6085), about which I have long been planning to write myself.  I may update this post later with additional analysis of this fascinating game that might appear on the web.  

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Sunday, May 16, 2010

Anand - Topalov Webliography



Last week, Viswanathan Anand won the final game of the World Chess Championship against Veselin Topalov in Sofia, Romania, to retain his title.  The games in this championship were not error free, but they were always exciting and have rightly received a lot of commentary.  I have compiled links to annotations of all 12 games.  I will be adding more links in the coming days and welcome additions from readers.

Game One





Game Two
Anand - Topalov, Catalan (E04), 1-0





Game Three
Topalov - Anand, Slav (D17), 1/2-1/2





Game Four
Anand - Topalov, Catalan (E04), 1-0



Game Five
Topalov - Anand, Slav (D17), 1/2-1/2



Game Six
Anand - Topalov, Catalan (E04), 1/2-1/2



Game Seven
Anand - Topalov, Bogo-Indian (E00), 1/2-1/2



Game Eight




Game Nine
Anand - Topalov, Nimzo-Indian Defense (E53), 1/2-1/2




Game Ten




Game Eleven






Game Twelve
Topalov - Anand, Queen's Gambit Declined, Lasker Defense (D56), 0-1






The last game was most interesting to me as it may well revive interest in my favorite Lasker's Defense to the Queen's Gambit Declined.

Other commentary can be found at the official Anand - Topalov website, Convekta, as well as on ICC and ChessLectures.com (both of which require subscription). 
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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Anand - Topalov Countdown

The World Chess Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov begins in exactly a month, on April 23, in Sofia, Bulgaria.  Prematch predictions have tended to favor Topalov, if only because he is playing on his home turf -- as Vladimir Kramnik points out in a recent interview.

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Friday, February 20, 2009

Kamsky - Topalov

Paul Hoffman's "Chess It Out!" at NPR offered an interesting commentary on Gata Kamsky's "Brain Freeze" in the second game of his match with Veselin Topolov for the right to challenge Anand:
Wednesday's game was morbidly dramatic, in the way NASCAR racing is when cars collide. Kamsky got strangely caught up in the boundlessness of chess and self-destructed. He suffered brain freeze and spent much too much time thinking in simple positions. The rules required him to make his first 40 moves in two hours, but he managed to play only 32 and forfeited — a very rare result in world-class chess.
Kamsky briefly pulled even at the halfway point, but Topalov soon took a commanding lead in the match and won it all with Game 7. Analysis of the seven games can be found online from various commentators:

Game 7
Topalov - Kamsky, 1-0 (French Defense, Tarrasch Variation C07)
Game 6
Kamsky - Topalov, 1/2-1/2 (Caro-Kann, Short Variation B12)
Game 5
Topalov - Kamsky, 1-0 (French Defense, Tarrasch C07)

Game 4
Kamsky - Topalov 1-0 (Ruy Lopez, Closed - C88)
Game 3
Topalov - Kamsky 1/2-1/2 (Gruenfeld - D81)
Game 2
Kamsky - Topalov 0-1 (Ruy Lopez, Berlin Variation - C65)
Game 1
Topalov - Kamsky 1/2-1/2 (Gruenfeld - D86-88)
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