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Topalov, winner in a glamourous afternoon
Chess can be a glamorous game; during the competition days, many people gathered together around the glassed case inside the Plaza Nueva to take part in the tournament. People can enjoy the good weather eating a pincho in a terrace while children join in extra-activities and quick tournaments are being played. Enjoying chess can be a real show! Even the local soccer team supporters, the Athletic fans, are interested in the competition. And what is more important, players try their best to create a good atmosphere during the championship. At the end of the match, they talk about the moves they made in the game. In fact, on the third day of the championship, the 17 years old Norwegian player Magnus Carlsen and the Bulgarian player Veselin Topalov discussed about the match they played minutes before, the only match that did not ended in a draw. The young player was defeated and, consequently, lost his leadership, but he was showing a big smile and expressed his opinion about the key moves he made. Nevertheless, the ex-world champion will fight again for the first place the next year. He looked calm, like a man toughened by a thousand battles.
Topalov lost his leadership in a polemic game with the Russian Vladimir Kramnik in 2005. However, great players are ambitious, and Topalov is not an exception. If he wants to become world champion again he has to win Gata Kamsky from USA in the final round of the Candidates Tournament that will take place in Lvov (Ukraine) in November. The best training field to do that is the Chess Master, where he will meet the best players of the International Federation (FIDE), in the unofficial World Championship. For the first time, the ambitious chess player, defeats Carlsen with black to take the lead at rapid time control, 56 moves in 45 minutes.
The triumph rests on an interesting innovation done in the fourteenth move, which made Carlsen loose a lot of time trying to figure out a new plan. The Norwegian player had no alternative but giving up a pawn; however Topalov, react quickly. The assumption of a risk made Topalov win; and with an excellent technique won the match in a bishop and knight endgame. Veselin said that: Today, unlike other games I have played against Magnus, I haven´t done any mistakes and so I won.
Viswanathan Anand, an Indian player who lives in Collado Mediano (Madrid) was close to beat his mark. When he was young they called him the fast player from Madras, because he used to make fast moves and the rest of the players of the club had to wait for a long time to play chess again. He developed a fast mental calculation technique and he admits, as Maradona when he made the Hand of God goal: I make mistakes if I think too much. During the game against the Armenian player Levon Aronian, he couldn´t use that technique; the Indian master solved the game with the black pieces and, finally, he ended the game with equal scores after 42 movements in 3 hours.
The opening choice didn´t help Anand as he did a Slavic defense in the eleventh move, leaving the knight in the middle of the chessboard. After that, he allowed Aronian to sacrifice a rook for a pawn, but he found the best way to increase his advantage after making some moves which liberate his position early. It was an exciting game which had a funny conclusion when Anand admitted: It´s the second time in my life in which I had to think so much.
Teymur Radjabov, the Azerbaijani player and the Ukrainian Vasily Ivanchuk ended the game with equal scores after 35 moves in 3 hours. The opening was crucial as Ivanchuk got into an inferior line that allow him to maintain a defensive and solid position, a type of game commonly used by Serguei Rublevsky The best way to develop this strategy is gaining space, as Radjabov did, scarifying a pawn on twenty-first movement if necessary, to open lines for his pieces. Ivanchuk didn´t accept the delivery and he got a winning advantage; finally, the game ended with a perpetual check, less than one minute before the end.
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