Anand blasts Tiviakov's Dragon

In the first round, Sergei Tiviakov had faced -- and lost to -- Garry Kasparov. It was, thus, important from a tournament perspective for Anand to take full points against Tiviakov, in their second round meeting on Sunday.

Playing white, Anand faced the Sicilian Dragon. While on which, chess openings tend to mirror haute couture -- the Dragon was as archaic as the dodo till Kasparov dug it up out of the mists of memory and sprang it on Anand during their famous world championship title bout in New York in 1995. Now, it seems, the Dragon is the line of choice for pretty much everyone at the highest level.

Tiviakov is rated one of the experts in the Dragon. Anand, looking for full points, strangely chose a very placid line in the early stages, triggering a series of exchanges. Anand played for safety, first, building a little nook on a2 for his king to crawl into, then meticulously exchanging pieces to form a queen-and-rook endgame, which he then translated into a very strong attack.

Interestingly, Anand against the Dragon seems to be focussing on eliminating black's dark bishop, even at the expense of a passive position for his own bishop on b3. He, however, showed an increasingly mature understanding of the intricacies of the Dragon, playing a controlled endgame to build up a devastating attack after most of the big pieces had been swept off the board. When the game ended, Anand still had 1:49 on the clock, against 0:46 to his opponent. The win gave Anand 1.5 points after two rounds, putting him in joint second position with a host of others.

Alexei Fedorov, meanwhile, played the white side of a closed Sicilian against Garry Kasparov. A pawn sacrifice on the 13th move by white was the cue for Kasparov to go on a scalp-hunt, exchanging pieces and preparing for an unstoppable onslaught on the queenside that produced victory after 25 moves, to give Kasparov two full points and put him on top of the points table after two rounds.

Loek Van Wely, the Dutch champion, opted for the Grunfeld Indian against Vladimir Kramnik -- a rather daring choice, given that in recent months, both Garry Kasparov (in the BGN world title bout) and Peter Leko (in the blitz series earlier this month) have attempted, and failed, to use this line to contain Kramnik. Kramnik's mastery of the Grunfeld was clearly on view as he played classic positional chess in the opening, then pounced on the opportunity afforded by a dubious 19th move by Van Wely, which in a complicated position put the Dutch GM's knight into a corner and out of active action. From then on, the advantage rested with white, and Kramnik translated the positional advantage into a winning one, lauching an attack that forced capitulation on move 33. With the win, Kramnik moved alongside Anand into second position.

Also moving into second place with 1.5 points alongside Anand and Kramnik were Alexei Shirov, defending the black side of a Najdorf against Peter Leko, and Morozevich, who fought his way to a draw against Jan Timman.

World number four Michael Adams, meanwhile, fell away from the pack with a second straight draw, this time against Vassily Ivanchuk.

The stage is now set for the third round, on Tuesday, featuring the clash the chess world is waiting for -- Garry Kasparov, versus Vishwanathan Anand.

The Corus Chess tournament home page\

Anand,V - Tiviakov,S
1.e4 c5
2.Nf3 Nc6
3.d4 cxd4
4.Nxd4 g6
5.Nc3 Bg7
6.Be3 Nf6
7.Bc4 0-0
8.Bb3 d6
9.f3 Bd7
10.Qd2 Rc8
11.0-0-0 Nxd4
12.Bxd4 b5
13.Nd5 Nxd5
14.Bxg7 Kxg7
15.exd5 a5
16.a3 Qb6
17.Rhe1 Rfe8
18.g4 b4
19.a4 Qc5
20.Kb1 e5
21.dxe6 Bxe6
22.h4 Bxb3
23.cxb3 Rxe1
24.Rxe1 h5
25.Ka2 hxg4
26.fxg4 Rh8
27.Qf4 Rxh4
28.Rf1 Qe5
29.Qxf7+ Kh6
30.Rf6 Rxg4
31.Re6 Qg7
32.Qf3 Qd4
33.Qf8+ Kh5
34.Rxd6 Qe5
35.Qd8 Rg5
36.Rd7 Kg4
37.Rd1 Qe3
38.Rd4+ Qxd4
39.Qxd4+ Kh5
40.Qh8+ Kg4
41.Qg7 Kh5
42.Qh7+ Kg4
43.Kb1 Kf5
44.Qf7+ Ke4
45.Qf6 resign
      1-0