Corus 05: Bruzon and Anand win

Corus Chess Tournament Wijk aan Zee 14 – 30 January 2005 Official web site – Live coverage – All ChessBase reports

Round five

Alexander Morozevich (picture by Siep Korteling) once told us, quite poignantly, that he preferred knockouts to classical tournaments. "If you are out of form in a knockout you lose and can pack your things and go home. In a classical tournament you have to stay, and keep playing, and keep suffering." And this is exactly what is happening to him in Wijk aan Zee. The world's number six player has scored a single draw in five rounds and is playing 400 points below his nominal rating of 2741. But in spite of the suffering it is not in his nature to resort to defensive, bloodless chess. Witness his fifth-round battle with the world's number two, Vishy Anand. Morozevich chose a super-aggressive Torre Attack, and played a substantial portion of the game two pieces down. At times he looked like he had Anand on the ropes. But Vishy defended well, fought back and soon was coasting to victors. Amazing how long Morozevich played on in a completely lost position.

With this fine victory Vishy Anand (left, explaining the finer points of the game in the pressroom), moved up to 50% after his very bad start in this tournament.

Peter Leko and Vladimir Kramnik took it up where they had left off in the world championship in Brissago. In a Queen's Indian Leko came up with a novelty on move 12, Kramnik spent a lot of time pondering it, and then played on for 14 more moves without letting his opponent gain any substantial advantage. The game ended in a draw.

Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Leko analyse, under the watchful eyes of Peter's father-in-law GM Arshak Petrosian

Judit Polgar vs Michael Adams the world's strongest female player was a pawn up and looking for a way to take home the full point, when at move 35 she blundered (35.Ba2) and came close to losing the game. But it all ended peacefully after 63 hard-fought moves.

Cuban GM Lazaro Bruzon (above) showed little respect for Britain's Nigel Short. In a Queen's Gambit Declined he came out of the opening with an advantage and kept increasing the pressure. Short countered by sacrificing the exchange, and slowing coming back into the game.

The position (after 32.Bg3-f2) looks okay for Black, and 32...Nxf4 33.Rf1 d3 should hold. But after 32...Bxf4 Bruzon was able to regain the advantage with 33.Rc8 [33.Rf1 b4 34.Bxd4 was a strong alternative] 33...Rxc8 34.Bxc8 and eventually win the game in 48 moves. This was his first victory in the tournament, but it catapulted him to place four on the tournament crosstable.

For a long time it looked as if Veselin Topalov would win his game against Alexander Grischuk, especially after move 28, when he was two pawns up. But the position proved to be more complicated than it seemed, and in the end Grischuk was able to set up a defensive fortress which White could not penetrate.

Ruslan Ponomariov and Peter Svidler played a short, sharp Najdorf which ended in a draw after 23 moves

Pictures by Olena Boytsun

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