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In Corus 2008 the same opponents met in the first round. Aronian won that complicated game after mutual mistakes and subsequently finished on top of the table, while Topalov had one of his worst tournaments. This suggests that today Veselin as Whie will be looking for revenge (both in the game and the tournament). Let's hope we'll witness a great battle, as is to be expected from such top class players.
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Nf3 c5 5.g3 cxd4 6.Nxd4 Ne4 7.Qd3 Bxc3+ 8.bxc3 Nc5 9.Qf3 d6 10.Bg2 The Nimzo Indian defense is no surprise, as both opponents had a game in the 4.Nf3 + 5.g3 line a year ago, Topalov been triumphant.
10... e5 11.Qe3 Aronian invests a lot of time how to answer this novelty. (11.Nb3 Nba6 12.Ba3 Qc7) is the usual choice. The idea behind 11.Qe3 is that after 11...O-O 12.Nb3 Black cannot hold the c5 square while 11... Nba6 is met by 12.f4. (11.Qe3 O-O (11... Nba6 12.f4 O-O 13.fxe5 Re8 14.O-O f6 15.Nb5) 12.Nb3 Nba6 13.Ba3)
11... O-O 12.Nb3 Qc7 The position after (12... Nba6 13.Ba3 Qc7 14.Nxc5 Nxc5 15.Bxc5 Qxc5 (15... dxc5 16.Bd5 Bh3 17.g4 Bxg4 18.Rg1 Be6 19.Rxg7 Kxg7 20.Qg5+ Kh8 21.Qf6+ Kg8 22.O-O-O) 16.Qxc5 dxc5 17.O-O-O) favors White - Aronian himself won similar game a year ago - so other solution is looked for.
13.Nxc5 dxc5 The main defensive idea is to keep the dark-squared Bishop restricted, so Nd7 and Rb8 are to be expected. Nevertheless White has some advantage due to his bishop pair, the 'd5' square and the 'b' file which lets him keep the pressure.
14.O-O Nd7 Now 15.Rb1 Rb8 16.f4!? is a possible way to gain more space.
15.f4 Topalov goes directly for king-side expansion. He has to exploit his lead in development not to let Aronian besiege the weak white pawns.
15... exf4 (15... Re8 16.f5) seems dangerous but now the bishop pair will dominate the whole board.
16.Rxf4 a5 The Rook is to be included via the 6th rank. Though, after (16... a5 17.Ba3 Ra6 18.Bd5 Rf6 19.Re4) Black is in trouble.
17.Qe7 Qe5 18.Qxe5 Nxe5 19.Be3 Having 70 minutes advantage on the clock, Topalov is satisfied to grab a pawn and let his opponent suffer in the time trouble.
19... Nd7 Defends 'c5' but White Rooks may be dominant on the 'd' and 'e' files. (19... Nd7 20.Rd1 Ra6 21.Re4)
20.Re4 Ra6 21.Rb1 (21.Rd1) seems more to the point.
21... Rg6 22.Re7 b6 23.Bf4 h5 Aronian defends resourcefully but White's advantage is too great. Simple move as 24.h4 deprives him of any counter play.
24.Be4 Re6 25.Rxe6 fxe6 26.Bd6 Rf6 27.Rd1 Of course in such structure the Rook belongs to the 'd' file.
27... Kf7 28.Bf4 Kg8 Else an exchange would be lost.
29.Bc7 Rf7 Loses the 'h' pawn after 30.Bg6.
30.Bg6 a4 31.Bxh5 Nf6 32.Bxf7+ Kxf7 33.Bxb6 Ba6 Aronian is completely lost but is playing on.
34.Bxc5 e5 35.a3 Bxc4 In their previous encounter he won an ending being an exchange down, but this time two more pawns are missing. There is a simple plan: King goes to e1 to consolidate, then force the 'g7' pawn to move, create another passed pawn and clear the way of the 'c' pawn. It seems once again there is a transmission problem and the moves stopped coming for 15 minutes... More than 30. It seems to be an established phenomena - every big tournament suffers site crashes during the initial rounds. The result of this game is Topalov wins. Maybe some moves are missing. A well deserved victory came as a reward to the ex-world champion for his inspired play. Aronian did not find antidote against Veselin's novelty and got into time trouble having no coordination among his pieces.
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