By Zaldy Dandan
Variety Editor

WITH four rounds left at the Corus tourament in Wijk aan Zee, former FIDE champ Veselin Topalov is in the lead, half-a-point ahead of Teimour Radjabov who dropped to second place after losing to Levon Aronian who now shares 3rd-5th places with Vladimir Kramnik, Peter Svidler and Vishy Anand.
Next week, we’ll finally know who has won this mega tournament.
Game of the week. In the meantime, let’s enjoy the following round 8 partie pitting two of world’s strongest players with each other.
For the second time in three years, says Mark Crowther who annotates our featured games, Topalov defeated Anand at Corus. “He found the opportunity to play some old analysis and obtained an extreme positional bind with Anand’s rooks having little scope. Anand hoped to free his position with a pawn break but Topalov prevented them all and in a position where Fritz has the position as almost equal Anand resigned as he didn’t want to play such a bad position any more.”
White: V. Topalov
Black: V. Anand
Queen’s Indian Defense
Wijk aan Zee 2007
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Ba6 5.b3 Bb4+ 6.Bd2 Be7 7.Bg2 c6 8.Bc3 d5 9.Ne5 Nfd7 10.Nxd7 Nxd7 11.Nd2 0-0 12.0-0 Nf6 13.e4 dxe4 14.a4 [14.Nxe4] 14...Nd5 15.cxd5 Bxf1 [Topalov felt that 15...cxd5 was more likely to provide equality but whether you’d really feel happy a piece down is another matter.] 16.d6 Bxg2 17.dxe7 Qxe7 18.Kxg2 f5 19.b4!!N The idea is that the pawn structure after ...c5 for black dxc5 bxc5 b4 for white is very favorable. Black wants to open lines. Topalov felt that black’s rooks were very bad. [19.Nc4 Rad8 20.Ra2 Rd5 21.Ne3 Rd7 22.Rd2 f4 23.gxf4 Rxf4 24.Qh5 Rd8 25.Rc2 Rdf8 26.Be1 Qf6 27.Qe5 Qf7 28.b4 Rf3 29.Re2 Rf4 30.Kf1 Qg6 31.Rc2 Qh6 32.Ke2 Qxh2 33.Kd1 Qh1 34.Qxe6+ Kh8 35.Qxc6 h6 36.d5 Rxf2 37.Rxf2 Rxf2 38.Qc8+ Kh7 39.Qg4 h5 40.Qg3 Ra2 41.d6 Ra1+ 42.Kd2 Rxe1 43.Qxe1 1/2-1/2 K. Sasikiran-A. Motylev/Moscow 2006] 19...Qd7 20.Qe2 Qd5 21.f3 exf3+ 22.Nxf3 h6 23.Re1 Rfe8 24.Qc2 Rad8 25.Bd2 Trying to set up Be5, Nf4 and pawn on h5. 25...Qd7 26.Kf2 Getting off the long diagonal before Anand tries Qb7 followed by c5. 26...Rc8 27.Bf4 Qd5 28.Re5 Qd7 29.h4 Ra8 30.Bd2 Preventing a5 which might provide counter play. 30...Rac8 31.Qc4 Kh7 32.Bc3 Qd6 33.Ne1 b5 34.Qc5! [34.Qa2 a5 would free black’s position.] 34...Qd8 35.Nd3 Topalov wouldn’t have resigned this position but said the position is pretty disgusting to defend. 1-0.
Puzzler.
White — pawns on g3, h4; Nb4, Qb8, Nf6, Kf7, Bg1
Black — pawns c3, c4, d7, e5, g6; Na5, Rc5; Bd1, Kf5; Nf8
White to play and mate in four moves.
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