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Teimour Radjabov accomplished a fine win over Vishy Anand at the recent Corus and easily held a draw with black in the first Morelia leg. The pace of today's game will mostly depend on Radjabov's strategy. He could directly attack the Anti-Moscow Semi-Slav, or even Naidorf Sicilian after 1.e4, or go for improvisation outside the mainstream theory which brought him a full point earlier against Magnus Carlsen. Enjoy the game!
1.e4!? Radjabov couldn't break Levon Aronian's defence in the Semi-Slav the other day and he switches to 1. e4.
1... c6!? Anand was very successful with Naidorf Sicilian through the event, but now he is switching to safer Caro-Kann. Nevertheless, few rounds ago Vassily Ivanchuk beat Peter Leko with black in this opening... Anand is clearly satisfied with the lead and wants to avoid risks in the remaining games.
2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.Nh3!? An old move, played by Keres, Boleslavsky and even Fischer. In the recent times, Judit Polgar (against Anand in 1998) and Azmaiparashvili tried it, while Italian GM Godena is regularly using this move order. Main lines are, of course, 6. h4 and 6. Nf3...
6... Nf6 White main idea is to put the knight down on f4, taking an eye on Bg6, before pushing h4-h5, in which case black cannot reply with h6 or his structure would be damaged. This maneuver is time consuming though, and black has number of ways to reach solid position. ( Polgar-Anand went 6... e6 7.Nf4 Bd6 8.c3 Qh4!? and finished in a draw...)
7.Nf4 e5 8.Nxg6 hxg6 9.dxe5 Qa5+ Mikhail Botvinnik in a game against Mihail Tal, and later Leko and Khalifman, played Qa5. ( Some other grandmasters preferred the exchange with 9... Qxd1+ 10.Kxd1 Ng4)
10.Bd2 Qxe5+ 11.Qe2 Radjabov is trying to make the same improvisation as he did with Magnus Carlsen. Still, pair of bishops and minor structural damage on black kingside are not promising more than a microscopic advantage in this fairly simplified position.
11... Qxe2+ 12.Bxe2 Nbd7 Anand is still following black's plan of development from the famous game Tal-Botvinnik, 1964 Spartakiad.
13.O-O O-O-O Now that queens have went off, neither of the players should be worried too much about the king safety. Anand is taking long castle only for the purpose of fast development, where rook goes straight on the open file, and to keep more options for Bf8 future placement. (13... Bc5 with idea to castle short was also played. Here white tried all kind of moves, but with positive success only against much lower rated opposition.)
14.Rad1 Nb6 15.Bc1 Bd6 Anand is still following the footsteps of Botvinnik. Tal played 16. Rd4 here... Pair of bishops is not getting any good diagonals as black light pieces are holding large number of important squares under control.
16.Rfe1 Kc7 17.h3 Rhe8 The position is plain equal but still sensible, there is some play left. For example, some Nd5 from black would allow Radjabov to expand c4 with tempo. Black knights are perfectly placed as they are. There is probably delay in live transmission from Linares, we hope the games will resume soon enough.
18.Bd3 Radjabov realised that Anand will hold the equality with ease and offered a draw. World Champion will remain in the lead with three rounds to go, as it is unlikely to expect Carlsen to win this simplified ending against Leko. Thank you everyone for following Chessdom live coverage, see you again tomorrow at 16:00 CET!
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