Anand draws third game in a row

Defending champion Vishwanathan Anand and Vassily Ivanchuk played their third consecutive draw in the men’s semi-finals of the FIDE World chess championships at the Kremlin Hall, in Moscow, on Tuesday.

With this draw, the match now hinges on the fourth and final game, where a win for either will send them into the title match in Moscow next month.

A draw will mean tie-breaker.

A win for the NIIT brand ambassador would also mean a third entry into the title match in as many appearances at the FIDE Knockout World championship.

In 1998-99, he made the final but lost to Anatoly Karpov, who was given a bye straight into the final.

In 2000, he won the title, beating Alexey Shirov in the final.

He did not play the 1999-2000 championships in Las Vegas.

The second men’s semi-final took a decisive turn when Ruslan Ponmariov beat Peter Svidler in the third game of his match.

The 18-year-old Ukrainian, Ponmariov now leads 2-1 after drawing the first two games. He will become the youngest world champion if he goes on to win the title.

On Tuesday, he won in 44 moves and now needs only a draw in the fourth game of his semi-final to advance to the title match.

The women’s final produced a third straight result. Zhu Chen of China rebounded from a first game defeat to beat Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia for the second game in a row and take a 2-1 lead.

Kosteniuk had won the first game.

The two players will clash a fourth and final time on Thursday.

Kosteniuk needs a win to send the match into a tie-breaker and become the youngest women’s world champion. Zhu needs only a draw to become world champion.

The third game between Ivanchuk and Anand saw the Indian star repeat the Rubinstein variation for the second time in his clash with Ivanchuk. The game followed an identical pattern as the first game of this match when Anand had black.

The first seven moves were hammered were the same and played out in very quick time.

Anand was playing the Rubinstein variation for the third time in four games. He had played the similar line against Alexey Shirov when he had black in the second game and drawn and now he played it in the first and third games of this ongoing match.

Anand seemed to be working on some theoretical line, which allows black to neutralize the advantage that white is supposed to get from the opening in a Rubinstein. He indicated that he had indeed come up with an important theoretical line which allows black to equalize soon.

Ivanchuk tried to bring life into the game and tried hard with white. He went in for a long castle, too, but it produced nothing. Pieces kept getting exchanged and the queens also went off by the 17th move. In the end they agreed to draw after 27 moves with a rook and minor piece each and five pawns.

The Svidler-Ponmariov game was rather interesting. It opened in the Petroff Standard. Playing with black, Ponmariov, bidding to become the youngest World champion and break Garry Kasparov’s record, sacrificed an exchange.

Later Ponmariov gave up both his rooks for a queen. Into the interesting end game, Ponmariov had a queen and three pawns to his rival’s twin rooks and two pawns. Ponmariov’s ‘d’ and ‘e’ panws on fifth ranks spelt disaster for Svidler, who finally resigned after 44 moves. That gave Ponmariov a 2-1 lead and he now only needs a draw to advance into the final.

Svidler should have attempted a draw, but he was lured by the fact that he had twin rooks to his rival’s queen. But that in the end with two fine pawns proved to much for Svidler.

In the women’s final, Kosteniuk who won the first game and lost the second faced the Sicilian Najdorf. She was looking strong as she came out of the opening well. But Zhu played well and trapped Kosteniuk with some excellent play. Zhu played a brilliant middle game.

Zhu managed good counterplay and in due time she pushed her b-pawn well. Her queen on the second rank went about creating havoc and ultimately with that and her rook zeroing in from f8, it was curtains for Kosteniuk, who resigned on the 36th move.

Ivanchuk, V vs Anand, V
Round 6, Game 1

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. Nf3 Ngf6 6. Nxf6+ Nxf6 7. Bd3 c5 8. dxc5 Bxc5 9. Qe2 O-O 10. Bd2 e5 11. O-O-O e4 12. Bxe4 Qe7 13. Rhe1 Qe6 14. a3 Nxe4 15. Qxe4 Bxf2 16. Re2 Qxe4 17. Rxe4 Be6 18. Be3 Bf5 19. Re7 Bxe3+ 20. Rxe3 Rfe8 21. Rde1 Rxe3 22. Rxe3 Kf8 23. Nd4 Bd7 24. Kd2 f6 25. c4 Rc8 26. Kd3 Kf7 27. g3 1/2-1/2 (draw)

Earlier reports:
Anand draws game 2 of semi-final
Ivanchuk, Anand draw game 1 in semis
Ivanchuk to meet Anand in semis
Anand reaches semi-finals
Anand beats Shirov in first game
Anand beats Dreev to enter quarters
Anand faces tough road ahead
Quick draw for Anand in round 4
Anand through to last 16
Anand settles for draw, Van Wely loses
Anand enters third round
Anand scores quick win
Anand moves into second round
Anand wins second game
Anand shocked in opening round