Zurich 2016: Déjà vu!
In 2015 Anand came to Zurich after a lacklustre performance at the Grenke Classic. He played a superb tournament but could only go back with the second place after Nakamura beat him in the armageddon game towards the end of the event. In 2016, something similar happened. Just that Grenke was replaced by Gibraltar and armageddon by Sonnerborn Berger tiebreak system. Anand missed out on the first place as Nakamura was ajduged the champion. Nevertheless it was a good event for Anand who summed it up by saying, "Nice to know I play good moves!"
The year was 2015 and Anand had come to the fourth edition of the Zurich Chess Challenge after a disastrous Grenke Classic event. He had lost 15 Elo points at Grenke and was looking to redeem himself with at fine performance at the Zurich Chess Challenge. And that's what he did. He scored 3.5/5 in the Classical time format beating his main rival Hikaru Nakamura, and Levon Aronian. However, it was not enough to lift the trophy as the winner was to decided on the basis of the combined score of classical+rapid format. As it turned out, the combined scores had been tied between Nakamura and Anand and an Armageddon game was played to decide who would be the champion. Anand lost that game and Nakamura became the 2015 Zurich Chess Challenge champion.
Come 2016, and things couldn't have been more similar. First of all just like last year Anand came to Zurich after a horrible performance. Instead of the Grenke, this year it was the Gibraltar Masters where he lost 21 Elo points. The format of the Zurich tournament in 2016 was, however, different - no classical, only rapid with 40 minutes + 10 second increment and a final blitz event. As mentioned in our previous report Anand was leading the rapid event until the final round when Vishy drew his game against Kramnik, and Nakamura was able to suqeeze out a win against Aronian.
This is how the Rapid standings looked like:
It was now time for another blitz event. We would like to remind our readers that the opening blitz which was won by Nakamura didn't make a difference for the final standings. It was just to determine who got more whites in the tournament.
The rapid event was going to count for double of what the closing blitz would. But this didn't matter much as Anand and Nakamura both had the same score of 7.0/10 in the rapid format. It all came down to the five rounds of four minutes + two seconds increment.
Anand started off with a beautiful win against Levon Aronian. Just for you to understand how good Anand is at blitz here is the position from their game:
Aronian vs Anand
How did Vishy continue?
Vishy continued his fine form and beat Alexei Shirov as well. Here is the game with analysis by GM Alejandro Ramirez:
[Site "Zurich SUI"]
[Date "2016.02.15"]
[Round "3.2"]
[White "Shirov, Alexei"]
[Black "Anand, Viswanathan"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "D45"]
[WhiteElo "2684"]
[BlackElo "2784"]
[Annotator "Ramirez Alvarez,Alejandro"]
[PlyCount "54"]
[EventDate "2016.02.15"]
[EventType "blitz"]
e5 9. h3 e4 10. Nh4 Re8 11. g4 h6 12. Rg1 Nf8 13. O-O-O a6 14. f4 exf3 15. Nxf3
Rxe3 16. Ne5 Be6 17. Qd2 Rxe5 18. dxe5 Bxe5 19. Bd3 d4 20. Ne2 c5 21. g5 hxg5
22. Qxg5 N6d7 23. Qh5 {The position has a material imbalance and it seems that
White's position on the kingside is menacing, but Anand shows it is just an
illusion and that Black is much, much faster on the queenside.} b5 $1 24. Rdf1
bxc4 25. Nf4 {Way too optimistic} (25. Bxc4 Bxc4 26. bxc4 Qe8 {will lead to
positional doom as Black threatens the simple Rb8 or Nb6.}) 25... cxd3 26. Nxe6
fxe6 27. Qf7+ Kh8 {and realizing that He has but a check, Shirov resigned.} 0-1
The key game was the blitz encounter between Anand and Nakamura. The one who would win this game would most probably assure himself of the tournament victory. Anand had a winning position but Hikaru was able to save himself. GM Alejandro Ramirez once again takes you through this game:
[Site "Zurich SUI"]
[Date "2016.02.15"]
[Round "4.3"]
[White "Anand, Viswanathan"]
[Black "Nakamura, Hikaru"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "C67"]
[WhiteElo "2784"]
[BlackElo "2787"]
[Annotator "Ramirez Alvarez,Alejandro"]
[PlyCount "72"]
[EventDate "2016.02.15"]
[EventType "blitz"]
Nf3 O-O 9. d4 d5 10. c3 Bd6 11. Bd3 Nce7 12. Nbd2 c6 13. Nf1 Ng6 14. Qc2 Nfh4
15. Nxh4 Qxh4 16. g3 Qh3 17. f4 Bg4 18. f5 Ne7 19. Ne3 {Nakamura has
overextended with his kingside attack, and now some of his pieces are in
trouble. He is king of stuck on the kingside and some of his pieces might be
in danger of being trapped.} Bf3 20. Qf2 Qh5 21. Rf1 Bg4 (21... Be4 22. Be2 Qh6
23. Nxd5 $18) 22. f6 $1 gxf6 23. Nxg4 (23. Qxf6 {was perhaps easier, as the
queen still doesn't have good squares. For example:} Be6 (23... Rad8 24. Nxg4
Qxg4 25. Bh6 $18) 24. Rf2 $1 {Threatening the simple but crushing g4.}) 23...
Qxg4 24. Qxf6 (24. Bh6 $1 Rfe8 25. Qxf6 {with impending mate}) 24... Bxg3 25.
Kh1 Bh4 26. Bxh7+ $1 Kxh7 27. Qh6+ Kg8 28. Rg1 Qxg1+ 29. Kxg1 Ng6 30. Bf4 (30.
Bg5 Bxg5 31. Qxg5 {followed by h4 seems crushing}) 30... Bf6 31. Be5 $6 Bxe5
32. dxe5 Rae8 33. Kh1 $6 Rxe5 34. Rg1 Rfe8 {Suddenly Black is actually doing
ok. Anand decides to force the draw.} 35. Rxg6+ fxg6 36. Qxg6+ Kh8 1/2-1/2
Anand was half a point ahead of Nakamura at the start of the last round. He drew his game against Kramnik while the American was able to beat Aronian with the white pieces in the Anti-Berlin. Once again Anand and Nakamura were tied with the same score of 3.5/5. This is how the blitz crosstable looked like.
| Rk | Name | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Pt | SB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hikaru Nakamura | ** | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1 | 1 | 0.5 | 3.5 | 7.75 |
| 2 | Viswanathan Anand | 0.5 | ** | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1 | 1 | 3.5 | 6.75 |
| 3 | Vladimir Kramnik | 0.5 | 0.5 | ** | 0.5 | 1 | 1 | 3.5 | 6.75 |
| 4 | Anish Giri | 0 | 0.5 | 0.5 | ** | 0.5 | 1 | 2.5 | 4.75 |
| 5 | Levon Aronian | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.5 | ** | 1 | 1.5 | 1.75 |
| 6 | Alexei Shirov | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ** | 0.5 | 1.75 |
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