Chess Classic: Anand, Svidler, Radjabov win

Same procedure as every year:
Vishy Anand and Peter Svidler win their matches!

Final report by Eric van Reem

Additional pictures and notes to follow soon!

On the last day of the Grenke Leasing match between Indian superstar Vishy Anand and his challenger Alexander Grischuk from Russia, the Indian won the seventh game after 47 moves. Although Grischuk started playing chess at 10 o´clock this morning he still wanted to show a good last game to say goodbye to the audience and won the eighth game. “That was a miracle, Grischuk laughed.

Alexander Grischuk vs Vishy Anand in their final highly charged game

Anand won the match 5-3. In the FiNet Chess960 World Championship Peter Svidler defended his title for the third time. After his fine wins over Peter Leko in 2003 and Levon Aronian in 2004, this year the Russian won his Chess960 match against Zoltan Almasi from Hungary 5-3. The last two games on Sunday ended in a draw.

Why can't I beat this man? Zoltan Almasi (right) vs Peter Svidler

Final statements from the players and the organiser

Alexander Grischuk: Grischuk played well in the Open today, lost only one game (against Dreev) and scored 9 points. “I did not regret a single bit that I played the Open”, Grischuk said on stage. Immediately after the prize-giving ceremony of the Open, he had to play the seventh game in his match against Anand. He lost that one, but Grischuk showed his strength and willpower in the last game, which he won. “My romantic side says that I have to say good luck to the winner, but my realistic side says that Anand won because of serious training and practice and therefore deserved to win the match. The last game was strange, I did not want to make a draw, but I was not really motivated anymore. And than a miracle happened: I won the last game!”

Vishy Anand: “I expected a close match and on the chessboard it was clear that it was a really close match. But the score tells a different story. After winning the fourth game, it was difficult to get a grip on the match. I wanted to reach the 4.5 points as soon as possible and that resulted in this disaster in the sixth game. You should never sit on your lead. It was an interesting match, with a lot of good games. I even enjoyed the last game that I lost, it was a beautiful game. I was completely winning, but somehow lost it.”

Peter Svidler “Zoltan should have won the match”. I compare it to a football match, the FA Cup final between Manchester United and Arsenal this year. There is a certain analogy. ManU had plenty of possibilities to score a goal, but Arsenal won the penalty shootout. In this match, Zoltan did have many possibilities to score, but in the end I won the match, because I took my chances. Zoltan outplayed me in almost every game, the match could have gone either way.”

Zoltan Almasi “I am very disappointed. I could easily have won this match, I had an advantage in almost every game but then I started thinking too long. Strange, because I had no problems with the time last year. But I will try to qualify for a match next year in the Open. I´ll be back! “

Hans-Walter Schmitt “This was a perfect tournament, with many highlights. We have seen exciting matches, with good players. I liked the Opens, with players like Bacrot, Aronian and so on, and I liked the fact that so many German players came to Mainz. It is obvious that Aronian will play against Peter Svidler next year, but it is not clear that the Ordix Open winner, Radjabov, will play a match against Vishy next year. The computer chess tourney was important as well. We will keep on organising the computer tournament and every now and then we will have man-machine exhibitions as well. We are not going to mix computers and humans in tournaments”.

The Chess Classic Mainz 2006 tournament will start on 15 August 2006! See you all next year!

• All games from the rapid chess match Anand vs Grischuk in PGN

Ordix Open: No double, no hattrick, it´s Radjabov!

Report by Eric van Reem

Teimour Radjabov from Azerbaijan is the winner of the 12th Ordix Open. The 18-year old won the tournament by scoring 9.5 points out of 11 games. Radjabov did not play the FiNet Open and in the last rounds he certainly had more energy left than his colleagues who already started playing on Thursday in the Chess960 tournament. Levon Aronian, Alexander Morozevich, Alexey Dreev, Pentala Harikrishna, Alexander Grischuk and Gabriel Sargissian shared second place with 9 points in the Ordix Open, in which the top 10 players had an average rating of 2705!

Wet Sunday in Mainz

It was raining cats and dogs today in Mainz. After a beautiful day on Saturday, it just did not stop raining on Sunday. Where does this strange expression with the cats and the dogs come from? There are several intriguing possibilities, like this one: on account of the notorious inefficiency of 17th-century sewage and drainage systems, the streets of European cities were often littered with debris and dead animals after heavy rainstorms. They had to come from somewhere, right? The chess players needed to protect themselves for the rain and were that happy that they made it to the Rheingoldhalle to play their games in the Ordix Open. And the grandmasters were happy that the players´ hotel “The Hilton Mainz” and the playing hall are under one roof.

Alexander Morozevich vs Ivan Sokolov

Arkadij Naiditsch vs Levon Aronian

Alexander Morozevich vs Vadim Zvjaginsev

The working positions of top GMs: Alexey Dreev vs Alexander Grischuk

After seven rounds in the Ordix Open, it looked like Levon Aronian was heading for his first Ordix title. The winner of the FiNet Open won some spectacular games in the morning against Radjabov and Naiditsch. However, in the last round before the lunch break he had to play against Alexander Morozevich, and he lost. The Russian grandmaster met his master in round nine, when Teimour Radjabov from Azerbaijan won an impressive game and took the lead. After another win in the penultimate round against German hope Arkadij Naiditsch (“that was one of the easiest games in the tourney”, Radjabov later said) the 18-year old just needed a short draw in the last round against Alexei Dreev to win the Ordix Open!

A critical game between Levon Aronian and Teimour Radjabov

Last round 12-move draw between Alexey Dreev and Ordix winner Radjabov

It is always difficult for a player to decide whether to secure a considerable piece of the money cake or to risk it all, play for a win to get even more prize money and reach eternal fame. Dreev decided not to take any risks and accepted a draw after only 12 moves, which is understandable on one hand, especially if you have to play with the black pieces against a player who obviously is in great form. On the other hand, thousands of people are watching the game in the hall and on the Net and hope for a “grande finale”. Many people were disappointed to see an empty board after just 10 minutes.

Reporter motivates player!

Fortunately, the other players on the top boards decided to show more fighting spirit. And some of them were just a bit lucky. Pentala Harikrishna from India played against Leonid Kritz and came back into the press room with a big smile on his face. His German opponent blundered a rook and with this “free” point, the youth world champion scored 9 points!

Pentala Harikrishna in the press room, with Indian TV producer Vijay Kumar (right)

The 19-year old always came to the press room after his games to chat on the Net with his friends and to give flash interviews to our colleagues from India. Maybe your reporter had something to do with his good score: I told Harikrishna that he was allowed to enter the press room, but only after a win. And that “threat” seemed to work: “Yes, you motivated me”, “Hari” smiled after the tournament. Hari and I met in Wijk aan Zee a few years ago, when he scored his second GM norm ... in his game against the winner of this Ordix Open, Teimour Radjabov! Radjabov also scored his second GM norm in that particular game in Wijk aan Zee. They both played in the B-group, back in 2001.

Bulgarian women's world champion Antoaneta Stefanova

The Combination prizes show most consistency and best result overall over the two tournaments, Chess960 and Rapid. Alexandra Kosteniuk beat GM Sokolov, drew GM Zviaginsev, and played other strong GM's like Dreev and Glek.

Flash interview with Teimour Radjabov

Immediately after it became clear that Radjabov would be the winner of the Ordix Open this year, Hartmut Metz spoke to the happy youngster. Here are a few quotes from that flash interview: “My game against Alexander Morozevich was very important and proved to be decisive. If Moro would have won that game, I am convinced that he would have been the winner in the end. My game against Aronian was also very important. I was completely winning, but somehow managed to lose that game. After that game, I realised that I had to win the rest of my games in order to win the tourney, and therefore I refused draw offers from my opponents. No, in my last game against Dreev, I could not refuse his draw offer. And yes, I would love to play against Vishy Anand in a match in Mainz next year.”

Facts and figures

52 grandmasters were playing in the Ordix Open and we had 139 players with an international FIDE title, so the interested Kibitzer could watch many interesting games, not only on the top boards. The most interesting position of the day definitely could be seen on the board of Jörg Hickl and Ivan Sokolov, when no less than 5 Queens stood on the board. Hickl, a Queen down, even won the game in the end! With 546 players from more than 30 countries, the Ordix Open attracted more players than last year.

Some results of the most important special categories:

• Best female: 1. Nino Khurtsidze 8; 2. Viktorija Cmilyte 8; 3. Alexandra Kosteniuk 7.5.
• Best senior: 1. Lajos Portisch 8; 2. Dr. Helmut Reefschläger 8; 3. Sinisa Joksic 8.
• Junior U20: Teimour Radjabov 9.5: 2. Pentala Harikrishna 9; 3. Arkadij Naiditsch 8.5
• Special categories:
  • Best Mayor: Jens Beutel, Mayor of Mainz 6.5 points!
  • Best couples:
    • 1. Shirov/Cmilyte 8.5 + 8 = 16.5
    • 2. Grischuk/Zhukova 9 + 7 = 16
    • 3. Aronian/Zigangirova 9 + 7 = 16

Below are the final standings for all players with 7.5 points or more. It is remarkable that six players scored plus seven and did not win the tournament. In the full table we counted 55 GMs.

Links

• Selection of games from the different events in zipped PGN, as provided by the organisers. You will need special software to replay the Chess960 games
• All ChessBase reports on the Chess Classic 2005
• Official web site with reports and games