The First Last Stand
A running report by Jonathan Tisdall - for the
live version see our Chess Message Boards.
Round One, Day Two
The first favorite crashed out of the first round
of FIDE's KO World Championship quite early on the
second day. Joel Lautier could not avoid a repetition
of moves with Black in a Sicilian against young
Brazilian GM Leitao, and thus lost his match 1/2-1-1/2.
A great disappointment for Lautier who recently
basked in the success of being a second to Kramnik
in his match victory over Kasparov. Making the readjustment
to practical play proved to be hard.
Another man who sealed a major upset was Lautier's
compatriot Igor Nataf, who eliminated Sutovsky in
a complicated and nervous game.
Another high-rated favorite to depart the competition
at the first hurdle is Alex Fedorov who revved
up his King's Gambit in an attempt to even things
up with Alex Ivanov - but decided a draw was better
than getting shut out.
Ghaem Maghami took German GM Lutz into the playoff
tomorrow with a solid draw in their Najdorf
Sicilian duel.
Piket, Gulko and Psakhis were among other well-known
names that decided reasonably quickly that their
chances lay in the faster playoff round tomorrow
rather than in conventional warfare today.
The Heroes
The next category of news-makers has to be the heroes
- the players who managed to lose on day one yet
bounce back and save their micro-match. Sergei
Volkov surprisingly overpowered Konstantin Sakaev
to go into overtime.
Poland's Bart Macieja's game-long press speared
the ordinarily slippery Speelman after an
exciting battle. These two matches featured some
of the liveliest chess so far.
A major upset from nervy battles of the second day
was the exit of young Ruslan Ponomariov, who seemed
to be doing more of the punching in sharp
position, but the resourceful Vietnamese GM Dao
artfully turned the tables.
Cashing in Experience
Of some interest was the exit of Danish GM Sune
Berg Hansen against Andrei Kharlov. Kharlov won
with black with the now famed Berlin Defence to
the Spanish/Ruy Lopez - and why not?
You may remember his name best as one of the new
additions to Team Kasparov, which means Kharlov
spent several weeks in London recently trying to
find some way through "The Wall" for white - and
failing.
He clearly picked up the fine points and showed
that the opening's boring reputation has a lot to
do with the company it is played in. Normally sensible
Sune did not have a concrete plan, whereupon the
Berlin gradually looked like an attack rather than
a defence.
Of the 36 first round matches, 21 avoid the nervous
torment of a play-off - though it has to be mentioned
that some of these guys appear to prefer
the tension of play-offs, and rest up with peaceful
regulation games.
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